 |
| |
 |
04/20/10
Werner Schroeter: Friend and Soul Mate.
An Obituary by Juliane Lorenz
At dusk on April 12, 2010, Werner died in an Ayurveda clinic in Kassel. He has left us. Peacefully and reconciled: With the pain of severe illness, the loss of many friends and companions, and suffering that must have been caused if one’s work, one’s films in particular, could not be seen for years. He left us with knowledge about life’s limitations, the impossibility of eternal love and youth and the awareness of his own weaknesses. This will henceforth keep him alive for us: The memories and the encounters of his friendship, to work with and for him. He left behind 45 films and uncounted opera and stage productions realized between 1966 and 2010.
For the wandering poet and the European who was at home in many languages and places, German media recognition materialized only after a price for his life’s work was bestowed upon him in 2008 at Venice’s 61st International Film Festival. Trophies are not everything, Werner had received a number of them, but this one enabled him to live on artistically. Although martyred by sickness, his body – at the end weighing barely 100 pounds – was not broken, despite everything. Werner faced the approaching end with clarity and openness. He remained the same person he had always been: Someone who transcended his wounds instead of licking them. Work was his vital force and its expression as beauty and truthfulness the only measure. He was never the accuser, never fainthearted, and never unforgiving. Werner gave a lot and he took much. But he never took away the others’ dignity.
I wish that his work never vanishes. And that a new time will begin in Germany when "les artistes maudits" must no longer be dead before the public marvels over their corpses. But that their works will be seen at the height of their lives. Even if the encounter is one of incomprehension, I hope that respect will prevail for the message possibly contained in the oeuvre. The works ought to be met without value judgment and contempt, they should be maintained early on and viewed again. Not kept in boxes, confined to storage, and ultimately lost. Until they reemerge from a supposed compatibility and that what remained is deemed a discovery. He himself never put it this way. But no artist wants to be forgotten. Not even if he contributed a lot to it.
New York, April 13, 2010
About Werner Schroeter:
Homepage Werner Schroeter
Schwules Museum Berlin
Filmportal
Filmgalerie 451
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Der Meister des Liebesschmerzes
Mit Werner Schroeter tritt der letzte große Unangepasste von der Bühne des deutschen Films ab, ein Kunstgläubiger und ästhetischer Extremist, wie ihn die heutigen Regiehochschulen gar nicht mehr hervorbringen könnten.
Photo on left: Werner Schroeter in WORLD ON A WIRE, 1973 © RWFF
Photo on right: Werner Schroeter during the making of MALINA, 1990 © Lore Bermbach
|
|
|
 |
|