Bruno Ganz Movies

Julien (Jacques Dutronc) is a pianist who is determined to regain everything he lost when his wife Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert) divorced him, as much for revenge as for any other reason. He calmly stages a murder on the grounds of his ex-wife's home, carefully using her new husband Kern's (Bruno Ganz) pistol so as to frame him for the deed. Then he awaits developments. Jeanne calls to ask him to come and be with her and the children, to bolster their spirits while her husband is being investigated. One-pointedly, he arranges to seduce her, but she resists until just before the police come searching for the real murderer. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Originally made for German television, this film chronicles obsessions of a man who will do almost anything to avoid losing a chess game. Thomas Rosenmund (Bruno Ganz) learns how to play chess by watching his father in a friendly game with a neighbor. His competitiveness is keyed to such a high pitch that a series of close calls in matches precipitates a nervous breakdown and he swears off the game. Instead, he turns his skills to computers. When his company calls on him to be part of a team which is pitting a computer's chess skills against the world champion of chess, he takes it personally when the computer loses. Fired by "his" humiliation, he vows to earn the right to take on the champion himself -- and does. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This film of Ira Levin's novel The Boys from Brazil wastes no time in establishing the fact that several seemingly unrelated men have been mysteriously murdered. Elderly Jewish Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Laurence Olivier), brought into the case when the clues seem to point to a neo-fascist plot, traces the trail of evidence to Paraguay. Here he finds an unregenerate Auschwitz doctor, patterned on Joseph Mengele and played by -- of all people -- Gregory Peck. Lieberman discovers that the murdered men had all fathered sons who were identical -- the results of a cloning experiment, designed to create a race of incipient Hitlers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wim Wenders' mines Dennis Hopper's real-life experience as a painter and collector in this existential take on the American gangster film based on a Patricia Highsmith novel featuring the notoriously sociopathic Tom Ripley. Hopper stars as the eponymous American, currently a middleman selling the work of American painter Derwatt (Nicholas Ray), who has feigned his own death to increase the value of his paintings. While auctioning this work in Berlin, he meets art restorer Jonathan Zimmerman (Bruno Ganz), who he learns is suffering from an incurable blood disease. When a shady friend (Gerard Blain) requires Ripley to find a "clean" non-professional to do a contract hit in order to pay off a debt, even he is reluctant. But he quickly realizes that the physically vulnerable Jonathan would be perfect for the job, and tries to get him to accept by employing various subterfuges to persuade him that his condition is even worse than it is. For his part, Blain guarantees the restorer that his family will be financially secure for life, and a deal is struck. As usual, nothing works out quite as expected. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

The costume drama Die Marquise von O is French director Eric Rohmer's first feature-length theatrical release after a four-year break from filmmaking. Based on a short story by Henrich von Kleist, the dialogue is spoken in the original German language and the story is set in Italy during the Franco-Prussian War. Edith Clever plays the widowed Marquise, who is sexually assaulted by Russian soldiers and rescued by a Count (Bruno Ganz). Some time later, she has to explain to her parents (Peter Lühr and Edda Seippel) and brother (Otto Sander) why she's pregnant. Die Marquise von O won the Grand Jury Prize in the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski directed Hands Up in 1967; he also wrote it, handled the art direction, and played a leading role. Skolimowski portrays Andrzej Leszcyzc, one of several doctors attending a medical school reunion in a sealed-up railway carriage. Between drinks, the disenchanted medicos ruminate over the effect that communism (particularly the Stalinist brand) has had on their profession. Never mind that Russia had just gone through an extensive de-Stalinization program; the Polish authorities found Skolimowski's message offensive, and banned Hands Up outright, compelling the director to seek out creative freedom in other countries. The film was not released until 1981-just in time for martial law to once more rear its ugly head in Poland. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is not the only European drama to handle the universal topic of how to find affordable housing when you are dirt poor with several mouths to feed, but it is one of the more engaging of its type. Laced throughout with comic nuances, the story starts out with an impoverished couple and their brood of half a dozen children barely managing to survive in a small shanty. One day the wealthy owner of an apartment complex makes the family an offer they would never turn down -- a modern, capacious apartment at a fraction of its real value. The family jumps at the chance and they move in, not knowing that the landlord only plans to take advantage of their raucous children to drive out some unwanted tenants. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide