And to expand on the theme of directors of the New German Cinema, today I will enlighten you all on another of its proponents in the name of Volker Schlondorff (b.1939), who much like the aforementioned Hauff was a personified craftsman, though a far cry from contemporaries Werner Herzog and Rainer Werner Fassbinder in terms of individual style and vision. Schlondorff had another remit, a true litterateur, who has made such purely commercial films as the bourgeois tale of debauchery; The Morale of Ruth Halbfass (1972), though he surely proves his gravitas time and time again, his intelligent policier, 1971's The Sudden Wealth of The Poor People of Kombach being one such example, where the director side-steps all the traps of romanticizing the parochial and poverty-stricken . His adaptation, with author and renaissance herr Gunter Grass (1927-2015) of Die Blechtrommel or The Tin Drum (1979) is one of his most thought-provoking and well-made pictures. Die Falschung (Circle of Deceit,1981) concerns a journalist in downtown Beirut. In Swann in Love (1983) Schlondorff at last brings Marcel Proust to life on the screen after more eminent directors like Joseph Losey and Luchino Visconti had failed to achieve such.
Schlondorff's former wife and former scriptwriter Margarethe von Trotta, meanwhile established herself as a director of films about political issues and women's roles in society, most notably with 1981's The German Sisters.
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| Schlondorff nails it with 1984's Swann In Love and Mr. Irons well he nails anything with a heartbeat. |
Schlondorff ,an octogenarian has certainly not let his age slow him down, his latest and greatest, 2017's Return to Montauk earned him a slot for contention at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.