Josef Fritzl

Who do you think would be the most competent director to make a film about Josef Fritzl?

I’ve no idea, but preferably someone with the attitude “there but for the grace of God- or Fate- go i”

Not Ulli Lommel, that’s for sure. And fuck that guy Fritzl.

Well, no doubt Hollywood will be relishing the prospect, and with its usual black and white crowd-pleasing sense of monsters and evil.

Hopefully nobody.

In a case as horrible as this, where the main victims are still very much alive and suffering, nobody should be making a profit or garnering critical praise off of it’s exploitation.

It needs to given time, and Fritzl himself needs to die in jail before he knows some movie star is going to be playing him. Also, this story is so brutal, that nobody in Hollywood will ever be willing to produce a film that actually shows the horror that went on in this man’s basement, so it’ll be immensely watered down, which is an insult to the human beings who endured the actual event.

But, since you asked… Michael Haneke, being from Austria himself, and other obvious reasons.

What Brandon said. Except that I would rather ‘prefer’ Ulrich Seidl (Dog Days, Import/Export) instead of Haneke.

Matthais Glasner wouldn’t be a bad choice either. With Free Will he’s shown that he has no problem dealing with the absolute brutality man can be capable of, and he isn’t afraid to keep the camera steady, when others would turn it away.

Uwe Boll? The last thing I would like to see is an oscar nomination for it. Can’t we just dig a big hole and not make a movie about it?

Kenji-Why would you think Hollywood would be interested in this? I don’t see it as a Hollywood sort of pic.Maybe somw sleazy low budget indie thing. Apparently there will be a German film made of this tho.
Kevlin-Are you inferring that it would get an Oscar nom if directed by Uwe Boll? That makes no sense.

I think Kenji is referring to Hollywood’s “If it bleeds, it leads” attitude, Steve – and Kevlin is saying that Uwe Boll should direct it precisely because his films are just plain terrible, hence no oscar for Fritzl.

This thread makes me think about Kevin Smith’s “Red State” project, which is a horror movie with an evil Fred Phelps-ish monster, who’s also pretty damn detestable.

Oh perhaps Hollywood wouldn’t want to touch it, maybe i’m being too cynical, but the public is fascinated by the events. It sells papers anyway, and there may be money to be made in cinemas too….

What the Hell! I don’t know him so I would!

(3 min. later) Never mind.
(6 min. later) In fact, I hope HE gets brutally abused in prison.

Don’t worry, eggman. If he’s left alone with other inmates for ten minutes or less, he’ll be raped and/or dead.

Imagine that. A 73-year-old surrounded by love starved thugs.

Also, if the prison gang rape-murder does happen, which is very likely, it’ll give the eventual film the most cathartic ending possible.

Really though, no movie should ever be made about what this man did.

I agree. It would be pointlessly exploitative. Do not like.

Also, my wife and I would then accidentally watch it, thinking it was about something else. This happens regularly. On the first day we were married, we rented History Boys, thinking it was like Dead Poets Society or something. It wasn’t. Happened again with Mysterious Skin. I thought it was a comedy about a gay hustler and a crazy kid and UFOs. She thought it was a love story, like Brokeback but happier. We were both wrong. Though it was an excellent movie and I don’t regret watching it at all. I think there have been a couple others, but they aren’t coming to my mind.

If there shouldn’t be a film about Fritzl, should there be ones about respectable leaders who might be fairly judged war criminals and mass murderers? I think the whole issue of Evil needs to be questioned. Events so hideous as with the Fritzls are astonishing and repellent but do we accept other monstrosities too easily through conditioning? And- this has nothing to do with level of compassion for the inconceivably terrible suffering of Fritzl’s daughter, the hardest heart would go out to her- but even with such a selfish and sadistic creature (off sunning himself in Thailand, while the children suffered in that hell!), i think i’m fortunate i wasn’t born Josef Fritzl.

I read yesterday that Elisabeth is writing a book about her experiences, and that was a major motivation for her visit to the coutroom during the trial. I think when that level of detail is in the public domain, a film is only an inevitability.

author elfriede jelinek (who’s been adapted by haneke) is the most apt person to write anything about this matter, in my opinion. and i agree, there’s no need to make this into a film. it’s bad enough to be exposed to another atrocity that no one could imagine possible until it appeared in the news. it would be tasteless to make a film about it. but jelinek should be the starting point to any artistic engagement with this issue.

John Waters