Bernd Eichinger, the writer-producer whose
masterful Downfall
broke the long-held German taboo against the portrayal of Adolf Hitler on the big screen, will be undertaking another
source of national shame for his next project. According to Variety, Eichinger is currently working with
writer Stefan
Aust on an adaptation of the latter's Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, an examination of the 1970s terrorist group (also known as the Red Army Faction, or
RAF) that has been described as "the most important standard work for the history of the left-revolutionary
terrorism in Germany."Though Eichinger spent nearly two decades in total on Downfall, he says the Baader Meinhof project is coming along with surprising speed, and feels the film will be made "in the foreseeable future." The producer suggests that the immediacy of this new film's subject matter may make it ultimately even more controversial than his Hitler work, if only because "This is a chapter in German history that's not really been dealt with and a lot of historical facts are only being discovered or disclosed now."
Eichinger has a LOT on his plate right now and is notorious for his slow script-development, so it's anyone's guess when Baader Meinhof will start shooting. That said, however, given the depth and seriousness of Downfall, he seems to be the prefect man to undertake this issue, and his effort will probably be well worth the wait.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-12-2006 @ 9:47PM
Sean McCarthy said...
Very interesting...
The Red Army Fraction, like a child who has recently caught his parents doing something very bad, shamelessly used the Holocaust as a blank moral check against all criticism from the West German establishment. Nothing they did, as the claim went, could possibly compare with the genocidal crimes of Mom and Dad.
And yet at her trial, Meinhoff out of nowhere broke a silence of 30 years in the history of German anti-semitism. Of all the options available to her, in what was quite obviously to be her final public appearence, she chose to say this:
"Auschwitz meant that six million Jews were killed, and thrown on the waste-heap of Europe, for what they were: money-Jews. Finance capital and the banks, the hard core of the system of imperialism and capitalism, had turned the hatred of men against money and exploitation, and against the Jews. Antisemitism is really a hatred of capitalism."
Now, casting the part of Hitler was probably not difficult. But I'm very curious to see if Eichinger can find an actress willing to inhabit a character as repulsive and ultimately petty as Ulrike Meinhof.
Unfortunately, I think, Judy Davis is a bit too old.
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