Werner Schroeter

Werner SchroeterAlong with Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schloendorff, Schroeter is considered one of the leading lights of the New German Cinema of the 1970s. Born in 1945, in Georgenthal, Germany, Werner Schroeter studied psychology at the University of Mannheim. In 1972, he began his career as a theater and opera director, staging Oscar Wilde's "Salomé" (1973), Victor Hugo's "Lucrecia Borgia" (1974), August Strindberg's "Mademoiselle Julie" (1977) and Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin" (1979).

Schroeter's fascination with music, and in particular opera, is an integral part of his films. Beginning with his first feature, Eika Katappa, (1969) Schroeter "established a reputation for artistic originality and intellectual arrogance through visually striking, highly stylized, emotionally charged films that appealed to a select circle of the educated elite but outraged and alienated general audiences," writes Ephraim Katz. Eika Katappa drove a group of irate young filmgoers at the Cinémathèque Française to want to do bodily harm to Mr. Schroeter only to be told by Henri Langlois that Schroeter couldn't make it to the screening that night. As it happens, Schroeter was sitting right next to Langlois at the time.

"Salvation through passionate love and artistic expression is a recurrent theme in Schroeter's films, adds Katz. "Schroeter's protagonists are usually outsiders, often homosexuals, eccentrics, and foreigners."

Schroeter's Palermo or Wolfsburg won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1980.

Filmography

Die KoniginDie Königin (2000)
Love's Debris (1996)
Malina (1991)
The Rose King (1985)
The Smiling Star (1983)
Day of the Idiots (1982)
Palermo or Wolfsberg (1980)
Reign of Naples (1978)
Johanes Traum (1975)
The Black Angel (1974)
Willow Springs (1973)
The Death of Maria Malibrun (1972)
Salome, MacBeth (1971)
Der Bomberpilot (1970)
Nicaraqua (1969)
Eika Katappa (1969)

Glenn Myrent