Five Austrians in Hollywood
Five major figures in 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 shooting his first feature film in 1924. His debut was marked by a series of commercial failures, but on his return to Germany at the start of talking pictures, he met Marlène Dietrich, whom he cast in L'Ange bleu (1930), his first success! He continued to work with Dietrich, making her 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 by 1916 was working as Griffith's assistant onIntolerance, before directing his first film, Mountain Law, in 1919. Pessimistic and scornful of material imperatives, Stroheim directed realistic and violent films that, beneath their baroque melodramatic appearance, are striking in their strength and cruelty(Folies de femmes, Les Rapaces, Symphonie nuptiale). Long misunderstood and driven out of Hollywood, he returned, after much hesitation, to film Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, starring Gloria Swanson. He continued his acting career in France, where he appeared in Renoir's La Grande Illusion and Les Disparus de Saint-Agil.
In 1935, at the suggestion of Fox, Otto Preminger, then director of a Viennese theater, decided to go into exile in the United States. He became a master of film noir, shooting the brilliant Laura in 1944 and Un si doux visage in 1952. He directed a western with Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum, La Rivière sans retour (1954), then explored justice(Anatomy of a Murder, 1959), American institutions(Tempête à Washington, 1962) and religion(Le Cardinal, 1963), as well as contemporary history(Exodus, 1960). He developed a singular directing style, sometimes described as "anatomist". The credits of his films remain famous thanks to his long collaboration with Saul Bass, whom he was the first to have 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 such fine films noirs as Assurance sur la mort (1944) and Sunset Boulevard (1950), as well as comedies, Certains l'aiment chaud (1959) being the best known.
Wounded in the First World War, Fritz Lang began writing screenplays in hospital, before turning to directing. Settling in Berlin, he became one of the leaders of German Expressionism, penning numerous masterpieces: M le maudit, Metropolis, the Doctor Mabuse trilogy and more. He emigrated to the United States in 1933, after refusing Goebbels' offer to direct Nazi production. In Hollywood, he took part in anti-Nazi propaganda, co-writing with Brecht the screenplay for Les Bourreaux meurent aussi. Many of his films highlight the morbid nature of Germany and the manipulation of the masses. In 1959, he made two films in India: Le Tigre du Bengale and The Indian Tomb. Jean-Luc Godard paid tribute to him by having him play himself in Le Mépris (1963).
Haneke or the coldness
Michael Haneke, best known for bringing to the screen the novel La Pianiste by his compatriot Elfriede Jelinek, and who gave Isabelle Huppert's career a new lease of life, cut his teeth on German and Austrian television. His first four films, Le Septième Continent, Benny's video, 71 fragments d'une chronologie du hasard 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 "Emotional Glaciation" trilogy. They are characterized by radically uncluttered filmmaking, featuring cold violence and unaffected crimes. This approach can also be found in Funny Games (1997) and its American adaptation, Funny Games US (2007). Western society is portrayed as dysfunctional, hopeless and a source of relentless violence.
Some contemporary figures
Austrian cinema today has the lowest market share in Europe, so it's rare to find films that export, apart from those by Hanneke. The domestic successes of directors such as Michael Glawogger(Slumming, 2006) and Wolfgang Murnberger(Silentium 2004; Komm, süßer Tod, 2000) are worth mentioning.
On the documentary front, 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 focuses on the supply of food to Vienna's biggest market, the Naschmarkt.
Two legendary actors
Romy Schneider was the unforgettable star of Sissi (1955), a three-part romance series that proved a huge commercial success. Eager to shed her image as the perfect young girl, Romy Schneider agreed to star a year later in Les Jeunes filles en uniforme, a film about Sapphic friendships at 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 brought her resounding success(Les Choses de la vie, Max et les Ferrailleurs). She suffered a tragic fate, dying at the age of 44.
Oskar Werner (1922-1984) is considered one of the finest German-language stage actors, but it was his roles in Truffaut's films Jules et Jim (1962) and Fahrenheit 451 (1966) that made him a household name on the silver screen.
