Princess Di, the Movie
Filed under: Drama, Foreign Language, Independent, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Politics, Cinematical Indie
Prior to writing this post, I'd never heard of German director Christoph Schlingensief. From what I can gather, however, he's incredibly political and willfully controversial in his films, statements, art and forays into theater. In terms of film, Schlingensief seems best-known for his Germany Trilogy, which consists of 100 Years of Adolf Hitler (about Hitler's last hours), The German Chainsaw Massacre (about "a few East-German people who cross the border to visit West Germany and get slaughtered by a psychopathic family with non-running chainsaws") and Terror 2000 ("about the 1970's Red Army Faction terror in Germany"). As grim as these films sound, they're apparently not to be taken seriously, whatever that means. It's also unclear if anyone saw them -- Schlingensief doesn't seem like the kind of guy who plays multiplexes.If all goes well with his new film, however, his name may become familiar to a lot more people outside of Germany: Schlingensief told a local tabloid earlier this week that he's already shot some footage for a film about the last hour of Princess Di's life. Diana will be played by Jenny Elvers-Elbertzhagen, who was cast because "she presents a projection surface for longings. She resembles Diana as both of them seem to be within reach, but never are." Which, really, is a pretty cool concept.
I would imagine that any Germans remotely interested in the arts have very strong feelings about this guy -- please feel free to share them in the comments, because the rest of us need to get a better idea of what he's all about.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-30-2006 @ 6:20PM
David Hudson said...
As for his work, he has a spotty record in my book and probably in most people's, but he's always daring and nearly always daring in the right direction, so yes, bottom line: Pro-Schlingensief. As you undoubtedly saw on that page you linked to, Martha, he's just directed Parsifal in Bayreuth, which is a sort of unofficial canonization in German culture.
i just wanted to comment that he's a great talker. An enormously entertaining talker. One of my favorite hours I've ever seen on television involves his going to a talk show - and we see clips of how he did; splendidly, as always; without getting into too much detail, imagine an anarchist provocateur debating a German William F Buckley and, as far as the audience is concerned, winning - and then we follow him and this talkshow host as they go out on the town (Cologne) and spend all night bar-hopping, touring a gallery after hours and such. They're joined by Hannelore Elsner, a well-known and respected actress, and he wins her over, too.
At any rate, I've seen this story in the papers and I have no idea whether he'll actually see this through or not. If enough people get upset about it, he probably will. If no one cares, he'll probably get distracted by a better idea.
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8-31-2006 @ 1:03PM
RC of strangeculture said...
This film seems interesting to me b/c i've been recently following the buzz associated with the film "THe Queen" about how Elizabeth II and Tony Blair deal with the death of Princess Di...
"The Queen" sounds like a more ambitious and interesting film that this German film about the last hour of her life.
--RC of strangeculture.blogspot.com
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