Remembering Romy Schneider on her

80th birthday

In our Monthly Film Series, we will show a variety of GERMAN or GERMAN language films from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. On the 2nd Wednesday of each month, audiences will now have a chance to see these films on a regular basis at the CLINTON STREET THEATER. (Children movies will be playing on Sunday afternoons – please check our website.) All films are with English subtitles.

WED. September 12, 2018 – 7:00 PM

Germany/ France, 1982 – 108 min

Director: Jacques Rouffio, colour, 108 min., 1982

Cast: Romy Schneider, Michel Piccoli, Helmut Griem, Mathieu Carrière, Gérard Klein, Wendelin Werner, Maria Schell

Paris, in the early 1980s: Max Baumstein, a successful businessman and committed human rights activist, shoots the ambassador of Paraguay and immediately turns himself in to the police. When he is being tried for murder, he explains the background of his action. The story begins with the start of the Third Reich and Nazi terror, under which Max suffered as a 12-year-old. After the assassination of his father, Elsa Wiener, the wife of a publisher, flees with Max to Paris. Her husband Michel is sentenced to five years in a concentration camp. The German ambassador chases after Elsa. She sleeps with him to secure the release of her husband. But when Michel arrives in Paris to meet Elsa, von Leggaert has the couple shot. Decades later, Max recognizes the Nazi criminal – who is now the ambassador of Paraguay.

 

The Austrian-born actress Romy Schneider (1938–1982) began her career as the teen-aged star of a series of popular films about the young Austro-Hungarian Empress Elisabeth (“Sissi”). But the “German Shirley Temple” soon transformed herself into a sensual, intelligent young actress who garnered international attention when Italian director Luchino Visconti featured her in his segment of the 1962 omnibus film Boccaccio ’70. She rose to further prominence through a wide range of often challenging collaborations with some of the world’s most renowned film directors, including work with Orson Welles in The Trial, Otto Preminger in The Cardinal, Claude Sautet in Les Choses de la vie, Joseph Losey in The Assassination of Trotsky, and Bertrand Tavernier in Death Watch. The passerby (Die Spaziergängerin von Sans-Souci / La passante du Sans-Souci) was Romy Schneider’s last movie. She received the César Award as best actress posthumously for this role. 36 years years after her tragic and untimely passing, her films serve as a testament not only to her stunning screen presence but her great versatility as an actress.