Five Austrians in Hollywood
Five major figures of Austrian cinema contributed to the golden age of Hollywood cinema: Josef von Sternberg, Erich von Stroheim, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder and Fritz Lang. Josef von Sternberg moved to the United States in 1911. In the 1910s, he held various positions in Hollywood, including assistant director, before making his first feature film in 1924. His debut was marked by a series of commercial failures, but on his return to Germany at the beginning of talking pictures, he met Marlene Dietrich, whom he cast in The Blue Angel (1930), his first success! He continued to work with Dietrich, who became a Hollywood star in Morocco (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934) and The Devil is a woman (1935). These were the five most successful years of his career
Erich von Stroheim arrived in the United States in 1909, and in 1916 he became Griffith's assistant on the filming ofIntolerance, before directing his first film in 1919, Mountain Law. A pessimist who despised material imperatives, Stroheim directed realistic and violent films that, under their appearance of baroque melodramas, were striking in their strength and cruelty(Folies de femmes, Les Rapaces, Symphonie nuptiale). Long misunderstood, driven out of Hollywood, he returned, after much hesitation, to shoot Sunset Boulevard, with Gloria Swanson, under the direction of Billy Wilder. He continued his acting career in France, where he played in La Grande Illusion (Renoir) and Les Disparus de Saint-Agil.
In 1935, on a proposal from Fox, Otto Preminger, then director of a Viennese theatre, decided to go into exile in the United States. Having become a master of film noir, he shot the brilliant Laura in 1944 and A Gentle Face in 1952. He directed a western with Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum, The River of No Return (1954), then explored justice(Anatomy of a Murder, 1959), American institutions(Storm in Washington, 1962) or religious institutions(The Cardinal, 1963), as well as his contemporary history(Exodus, 1960). He developed a singular directing style, sometimes described as "anatomical". The credits of his films have remained famous thanks to his long collaboration with Saul Bass, whom he was the first to work for the big screen on Carmen Jones (1954), before Hitchcock!
Billy Wilder, also fleeing Nazism, joined Hollywood in the mid-1930s as a screenwriter. He was finally allowed to direct the films he wrote, a rare occurrence in the American model, and signed some very fine films noirs, such as Assurance sur la mort (1944) or Sunset Boulevard (1950) as well as comedies, Some Like It Hot (1959) being the best known
Wounded during the First World War, Fritz Lang began writing scripts in hospital before starting to direct. Settled in Berlin, he became one of the leaders of German expressionism, and signed many masterpieces: Mr. Cursed, Metropolis, the trilogy of Doctor Mabuse, etc. He emigrated to the United States in 1933, after refusing Goebbels' offer to direct Nazi productions. In Hollywood, he participated in anti-Nazi propaganda by signing, with Brecht, the screenplay of The Executioners Also Die. Many of his films highlight the morbid nature of Germany and the manipulation of the masses. In 1959, he made two films in India: The Bengal Tiger and The Indian Tomb. Jean-Luc Godard paid tribute to him by having him play his own role in Le Mépris (1963).
Haneke or the coldness
Michael Haneke, known for bringing to the screen the novel The Pianist by his compatriot Elfriede Jelinek, and who gave Isabelle Huppert's career a new lease of life, made his debut for German and Austrian television. His first four films, The Seventh Continent, Benny's Video, 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance and Funny Games, were produced in Austria. He will shoot again in Austria for Das weisse Band(The White Ribbon) in 2009. His first three films form the trilogy of "emotional ice". They are distinguished by a radically uncluttered direction, featuring cold violence and crimes executed without affect. This approach is also found in Funny Games (1997) and its American adaptation, Funny Games US (2007). Western society is seen as dysfunctional, hopeless and a source of relentless violence
Some contemporary figures
Austrian cinema has the lowest market share in Europe today, so it is rare to find films that export, apart from Hanneke's. However, we can mention the national successes of directors such as Michael Glawogger(Slumming, 2006) and Wolfgang Murnberger(Silentium 2004; Komm, süßer Tod, 2000)
On the documentary side, Hubert Sauper directed Darwin's Nightmare, a cry of alarm about the ecological and humanitarian situation around Lake Victoria, a film infamous for the controversy it provoked. Erwin Wagenhofer's We feed the World looks at the supply of food to Vienna's largest market, the Naschmarkt
Two legendary actors
Romy Schneider is the unforgettable interpreter of Sissi (1955), a romance series in three parts, which was a huge commercial success. Eager to shed her image as the perfect young girl, Schneider agreed to star a year later in Les Jeunes filles en uniforme, a film about Sapphic friendships in a boarding school. She starred with Delon in Plein Soleil (1959), before reuniting with the actor on screen in 1968 in Jacques Deray's La Piscine. She played in Henri-Georges Clouzot's most famous unfinished film: L'Enfer (1965). In the 1970s, she met Claude Sautet, who gave her resounding success (Les Choses de la vie, Max et les Ferrailleurs
). She met a tragic fate and died at the age of 44. Oskar Werner (1922-1984) is considered one of the best German-speaking theatre actors, but it was his roles in Truffaut's films Jules and Jim (1962) and Fahrenheit 451 (1966) that made him famous in the cinema.
