I’m sad to hear this, he was a brilliant and courageous man, and one of those sarcastic artists the shallow German media landscape still has need for. I’ve read and seen a lot of interviews with him, and felt sorrowful when I first learned about him having cancer. I think that tonight I will watch one of his films to pay tribute.
Oh my, I had only heard of his theatrical persona as well as his participation in the 2nd Athens Bienale in the “Away and Boil your Head” exhibition along with other artists, regardless if the public wasn’t aware of him up until last year.
Out of his filmography, I’m mainly interested to watch Tunguska, Egomania, Terror 2000 and the Hitler project / almost short film looks very intriguing. A pity he died so young because I’ve been hoping for a theatrical project of his to arrive here in Athens due to the success of his fine arts work, since we don’t get so many acclaimed stage directors in our turf.
Thanks Grey for this, now that’s an artist to dedicate an obituary for him on the forum.
I had the fortune of meeting him in person on the occasion of his theatre installation AREA 7 about 5 years ago. A great man who never shied away from speaking his mind. I still remember the uproar he caused with his Ausländer Raus! action in 2000. He will be sadly missed :-( …
I find it quite shocking that Satoshi Kon’s publicity overshadowed the theatrical and cinematic work of Schlingensief with only Marc commenting on his loss, since Grey is the better expert here. However, I did find an available subtitled film of his, so I wanted to share some thoughts here.
Menu Total…or how the crisis ended and totalitarian machines established heir authority. I don’t know if his disjointed storyline is a preeminent theme in Schlingensief’s later films but I was truly fascinated by the bleak, obscure cinematography which somehow described the protagonists’ reckless footsteps. There’s a rural villa, invisible air-raids, a sewer ritual with a cajoling song, a bandaged female (or an androgynous being?) that’s been controlled by a retarded master of the house and a vomiting scientist somewhere nearby the villa experiments with transgressive, almost sick means of preserving normality to lunatics or immoral beings (at least that’s how I interpret it ). Normality is actually the opposite of incorrectness, there’s a Hitler satire, random daydreaming fantasies of a repressed homosexual man-boy and a militarist officer which resembles Bismark’s philosophy of humanity’s submission to the power of conquerors.
I know I may have lost plenty of hidden references but I’m somehow reviving this because I’d also like to hear opinions from people who have seen at least one of his films and I even welcome the naysayers whether they thought his work was too controversial or not.
Excellent, such as Fassbinder was.
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Christoph Schlingensief (50), one of Germany’s best film and theatre director and writer is no more.
R.I.P.