Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
ROMY SCHNEIDER. Wien – Berlin - Paris Special exhibition of the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010, extended to August 29
Photo: Georges Pierre, 1972
The exhibition is under the patronage of Klaus Wowereit, Governing Mayor of Berlin.
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
FACTS | General Information
Exhibition “Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin – Paris”
Duration December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010
Exhibits 275 Including original photographs, original costumes and documents, in part from private collections; see lenders
Exhibition space 450 sq. m.
Exhibition location Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen Filmhaus am Potsdamer Platz 1st upper floor | Special exhibitions Potsdamer Straße 2, 10785 Berlin-Tiergarten, Germany
Information Tel. +49(0)30/300 903-0, Fax +49(0)30/300 903-13 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
Opening hours Tuesday – Sunday, 10 – 6, Thursday, 10 – 8 Open on holidays, except Dec. 24th
Tickets Special exhibition: 4 € adults | 3 € reduced rates 2 € school children Special exhibitions and the permanent collection: 6 € adults | 4.50 € reduced rates 4.50 € groups of 10 of more 2 € school children 12 € Family ticket (2 adults + children) 6 € Small family ticket (1 adult + children)
Public transportation S-/U-Bahn Potsdamer Platz, Bus M41, M38, M85, 200, 347
Tours Reservations with »FührungsNetz«: Tel. +49(0)30/24749-888
Publication “Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin – Paris” Edited by Daniela Sannwald and Peter Mänz Published by Henschel Verlag Museum edition: 14.90 € | Bookstores: 19.90 €
Film series Scheduled for the spring of 2010 at the Kino Arsenal
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
TEAM
Curator: Dr. Daniela Sannwald Project management: Peter Mänz Curatorial team: Kristina Jaspers, Peter Mänz, Vera Thomas, Nils Warnecke Audiovisual media program: Nils Warnecke Exhibition coordination: Vera Thomas Interns: Johanna Dietrich, Annika Milz, Marie-France Rafael English translations: Wendy Wallis, transART, Berlin Design of the advertising graphics: Pentagram Design, Berlin Design of the exhibition graphics: Jan Drehmel, befreite module, Berlin Production of the exhibition graphics: PPS, Berlin Exhibition design: D4 Projekt, Berlin Conservational supervision paper: Sabina Fernández, Berlin Conservational supervision textile: Barbara Schröter Editing of audiovisual media: Annette Flemming, Stanislaw Milkowski, Berlin Scans: Peter Latta, Wolfgang Theis Technical services: Frank Köppke, Roberti Siefert, Stephan Werner Press and public relations: Sandra Hollmann, Katrin Kahlefeld, Heidi Berit Zapke Museum education: Jurek Sehrt
LENDERS
Archiv der Akademie der Künste, Berlin Hans-Werner Asmus, Hamburg Sarah Biasini, Paris Bundesmobilienverwaltung - Hofmobiliendepot Möbel Museum Wien Prof. Jochen Blume, Hamburg Dr. Wolf Calebow, Baden-Baden Cinémathèque française, Paris Deutsches Filminstitut - DIF e.V. / Deutsches Filmmuseum, Frankfurt am Main Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna Roger Fritz, Munich Sigrid Herbst, Berlin Hotel Savoy, Berlin Rudolf John, Vienna Evelyne Kalla, Berlin Lambert Hofer Kostüme, Vienna Robert Lebeck, Berlin Franz Xaver Lederle, Mindelheim Monika Levay, Volkenschwand Lobster Films, Paris Inge Martens, Hamburg Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg Multiple Box, Hamburg
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
Stiftung F.C. Gundlach, Hamburg Sunset Austria GmbH, Vienna SWR, Baden-Baden Theaterkunst GmbH Kostümausstattung, Berlin Katharina and Markus Trebitsch, Hamburg ullstein bild, Berlin Unternehmensarchiv der Audi AG, Ingolstadt Willy-Brandt-Archiv in the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V., Bonn Yves Sautet, Paris
MEDIA LENDERS
BR Bayerischer Rundfunk, München Caroland GmbH, Glinde CCC Filmkunst GmbH, Berlin INA, Institut national de l’audiovisuel, Paris Kirch Media GmbH & Co. KGaA, Unterföhring NDR, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Hamburg RBB, Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin WDR, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne ZDF, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, Mainz
MEDIA PARTNERS
The Deutsche Kinemathek is sponsored by
in accordance with a decision of the German Bundestag
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
BIOGRAPHY Romy Schneider
1938 Birth of Rosemarie Magdalena Albach, the daughter of the married actors Magda Schneider and Wolf Albach-Retty, on September 23rd in Vienna 1945 Divorce of Magda Schneider and Wolf Albach-Retty 1949-53 Attends the Goldenstein boarding school near Salzburg 1953 First film role in WENN DER WEISSE FLIEDER WIEDER BLÜHT/WHEN THE WHITE LILACS BLOOM AGAIN, directed by Hans Deppe Magda Schneider marries Hans Herbert Blatzheim 1955-57 Title roles as the Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the SISSI trilogy, directed by Ernst Marischka 1958 Moves in with Alain Delon in Paris 1963 Awarded the “Étoile de Cristal” (prize of the French Académie du Cinéma, a precursor to the César, 1955-1975) as best foreign actress for LE PROCÈS / THE TRIAL, directed by Orson Welles 1964 Break-up with Alain Delon 1965 Engagement to Harry Meyen (aka: Haubenstock) 1966 Marries Harry Meyen on July 15th Birth of their son David Christopher Haubenstock on December 3rd in Berlin 1968 Leading role in LA PISCINE / THE SWIMMING POOL with Alain Delon, directed by Jacques Deray Beginning of her French career 1969 First collaboration with Claude Sautet on LES CHOSES DE LA VIE / THE THINGS OF LIFE 1970 Moves back to Paris 1973 Separation from Harry Meyen; her son David Christopher moves to Paris 1975 Divorce from Harry Meyen Marries Daniel Biasini 1976 During the first César awards presentation, awarded best actress for L’IMPORTANT C’EST D’AIMER/THAT MOST IMPORTANT THING: LOVE, by Andrzej Zulawski 1977 Birth of her daughter Sarah Biasini 1978 Fifth and last collaboration with Claude Sautet on UNE HISTOIRE SIMPLE / A SIMPLE STORY 1979 Receives the best actress award for UNE HISTOIRE SIMPLE / A SIMPLE STORY Harry Meyen commits suicide in Hamburg 1981 Kidney operation Accidental death of her son David Christopher Haubenstock Divorce from Daniel Biasini Filming of LA PASSANTE DU SANS-SOUCI / THE PASSERBY, directed by Jaques Rouffio 1982 Romy Schneider dies of heart failure in Paris on May 29th
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
DAUGHTER Romy Schneider, who was born on September 23, 1938 as the daughter of Magda Schneider and Wolf Albach-Retty, actors who were popular in the 1930s and 1940s, seemed predestined to her own acting career.
Before turning 15, in 1953, she played the daughter of a dressmaker who was a single parent (performed by her mother), in her first film WENN DER WEISSE FLIEDER WIEDER BLÜHT/WHEN THE WHITE LILACS BLOOM AGAIN, directed by Hans Deppe. She was so fresh and authentic in this small role that she immediately received further offers. Magda Schneider and her second husband Hans Herbert Blatzheim, a restaurateur from Cologne, controlled the professional development of the young Romy Schneider, because many producers wanted to sign a contract with the unselfconscious, spirited actress. Romy Schneider became a cult figure in the Federal Republic of Germany and in large segments of Europe as the Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the SISSI trilogy (1955, 1956 and 1957) by the Viennese director Ernst Marischka. Nevertheless, Romy Schneider soon attempted to free herself from this stereotypic definition of her in the role of a monarch.
She finally succeeded in the summer of 1958 after she became acquainted with Alain Delon while filming CHRISTINE. Soon afterward she turned her back on the German film industry and moved to Paris.
NEW BEGINNINGS In Paris, Alain Delon was well on his way to stardom, while Romy Schneider had to start over from the beginning. Acting together with her lover at the Théâtre de Paris in 1961, Luchino Visconti gave her the female lead in the stage play Dommage qu’elle soit une putain (’Tis Pity She’s a Whore). Shortly thereafter, Romy Schneider began to appear in French, British and American films.
The films of the early 1960s that she made with directors like Luchino Visconti, Orson Welles and Otto Preminger confirm that this period was a very fertile phase for the young actress. She was equally convincing as a dramatic actress and as a comedienne in two American productions, GOOD NEIGHBOR SAM (1964) and WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT? (1965). Romy Schneider was portrayed at this time by several well-known photographers – F. C. Gundlach, Franz Xaver Lederle and Roger Fritz – who managed to detect in her face and capture in their photographs both her sense of excitement about the future and the uncertainty of what it meant for her to leave Germany.
When Romy Schneider met Harry Meyen in 1965, she moved to Berlin again, where she pursued joint theater plans with him, before a call from Alain Delon (from whom she had parted in 1964) could lure her back to film work in France.
Photos: Heinz Köster
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
INTERNATIONAL STAR LA PISCINE / THE SWIMMING POOL, a drama about jealousy directed by Jacques Deray that premiered in 1969, occurred at the beginning of Romy Schneider’s French career. In the same year the actress filmed LES CHOSES DE LA VIE / THE THINGS OF LIFE with Claude Sautet, who would become her most important director alongside Luchino Visconti.
Romy Schneider moved back to Paris in 1970, where she worked with directors such as Claude Chabrol, Andrzej Zulawski, Robert Enrico and Pierre Granier-Deferre, becoming a paragon of a desirable, grown-up and seductive woman. She separated from her husband Harry Meyen and brought their son David to Paris. By the middle of the 1970s, Romy Schneider was regarded as a French star. During the very first César awards presentation in 1976, she received the best actress award for her role in L’IMPORTANT C’EST D’AIMER/THAT MOST IMPORTANT THING: LOVE. In 1979, she received this coveted film prize a second time for her role in UNE HISTOIRE SIMPLE / A SIMPLE STORY.
In addition to contemporary seductresses, Romy Schneider also played victims of the National Socialist regime in historical films of the 1970s. She repeatedly pointed out that this was meant to be her coming to terms with the German past. She married Daniel Biasini in 1975 and gave birth to their daughter Sarah in 1977.
DEVASTATION During the second half of 1970s, Romy Schneider played diverse exploited, abused and humiliated women, who were confronted with death either directly or indirectly.
In 1975, she was both perpetrator and victim of a murder conspiracy in Claude Chabrol’s psychological thriller LES INNOCENTS AUX MAINS SALES / DIRTY HANDS. In her fourth collaboration with Claude Sautet, MADO in 1976, she embodied a figure that was disillusioned with life and addicted to pills and alcohol, while experiencing similar problems in real life. In 1979, Romy Schneider appeared in Costa-Gavras’ film CLAIR DE FEMME / WOMANLIGHT – as the mourning mother of a daughter who had died in an accident. The role seemed to anticipate the death of her son David in 1980. She also filmed Bertrand Tavernier’s critically received DEATH WATCH in 1979, in which she, terminally ill, became the victim of a sensation-seeking TV station. In real life, Romy Schneider was constantly pursued by paparazzi.
All of her biographers have succumbed to the temptation to draw parallels between reality and fiction in Romy Schneider’s life; in part they forgot the high degree of artistic engagement with which she interpreted her roles, because as her directors have attested, Romy Schneider was first and foremost a professional actress.
Photo: Robert Lebeck
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
LEGEND
The biography of the Bavarian princess, born in 1837, who later became empress of Austria-Hungary, shows astonishing parallels to that of Romy Schneider. Neither woman could accept the roles that they had to play in public during their lifetimes. Both lives were marked by strokes of fate: Elisabeth’s son, Crown Prince Rudolf, committed suicide in 1889 at the age of 30. Elisabeth, who had always suffered quite severely from the representational constraints connected to her position, hardly appeared at public occasions afterward, but instead retired to remote palaces and traveled throughout Europe.
Contemporaries rhapsodized about Elisabeth’s beauty, but were equally attracted to her grace, charisma and the mysterious aura that surrounded the empress. Elisabeth was regarded as one of the most beautiful women of her time and as a fashionable role model. The empress had already become a mythical figure during her lifetime; all the more so after an assassination attempt led to her death in Geneva in 1898.
When the SISSI films came to the screen in 1955, 1956 and 1957, the kitschy, sweet film figure merged with the real empress and both in turn with Romy Schneider. The overlapping of the legends surrounding the two women and their common destinies of adoring trivialization and appropriation by fans seeking solace is reflected in the media’s marketing of them to this day.
Photos: Max Scheler, F.C. Gundlach
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
MEDIA
»Nordschau,« February 1, 1958 Romy and Magda Schneider in New York
»Tagesschau,« February 6, 1958 (the original sound is lost) Return to Munich from New York
»Hier und Heute,« August 29, 1958 Romy Schneider on a PR tour in the Ruhr area for MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM/GIRLS IN UNIFORM
»Prisma des Westens,« November 26, 1962 Romy Schneider synchronizes LE COMBAT DANS L’ILE/FIRE AND ICE
ROMY. ANATOMIE EINES GESICHTS (FR Germany, 1967) Directed by: Hans-Jürgen Syberberg
French television, August 12, 1968 Alain Delon picks up Romy Schneider at the airport in Nice before the start of filming for LA PISCINE/ THE SWIMMING POOL
»Der Stargast: Romy Schneider,« June 5, 1971 Hanno Lohmeyer in conversation with Romy Schneider and Harry Meyen
»Der Stargast: Romy Schneider,« June 5, 1971 Georg Stefan Troller in conversation with Romy Schneider
»Je später der Abend,« October 30, 1974 Dietmar Schönherr in conversation with Romy Schneider and Bubi Scholz
»La nuit des Césars,« April 3, 1976 Romy Schneider is awarded the César as best actress for L’IMPORTANT C’EST D’AIMER/THAT MOST IMPORTANT THING: LOVE
»La nuit des Césars,« February 3, 1979 Romy Schneider is awarded the César as best actress for UNE HISTOIRE SIMPLE / A SIMPLE STORY
»Champs Elysees,« April 10, 1982 Michel Drucker in conversation with Romy Schneider
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
Media installations
WENN DER WEISSE FLIEDER WIEDER BLÜHT/WHEN THE WHITE LILACS BLOOM AGAIN (FR Germany, 1953) Directed by: Hans Deppe
BOCCACCIO ΄70 / Episode IL LAVORO/THE JOB (Italy, 1962) Directed by: Luchino Visconti
LA PISCINE/THE SWIMMING POOL (France, 1969) Directed by: Jacques Deray
LA PASSANTE DU SANS-SOUCI/THE PASSERBY (France/FR Germany, 1982) Directed by: Jacques Rouffio
LUDWIG/LUDWIG: THE MAD KING OF BAVARIA (Italy/France/FR Germany, 1972) Directed by: Luchino Visconti
Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin - Paris December 5, 2009 – May 30, 2010 www.deutsche-kinemathek.de
PUBLICATION
112 pages 90 color and b&w illustrations 21 x 27 cm Softcover with flaps EUR [ D ] 19.90 EUR (A) 20.50 / CHF 33.90 Museum edition EUR [ D ] 14.90 Daniela Sannwald (editor) Peter Mänz (editor)
Romy Schneider
ROMY SCHNEIDER Wien - Berlin - Paris (in German only)
Romy Schneider has made her mark in the history of film as an international star. She stood before the camera for the first time in 1953, at age 15, and appeared in more than 50 films before her early death in 1982. With dramatic bravura, Romy Schneider carried out the transformation from a naive teenager, whom she embodied in her first films, through an experienced woman marked by life in her late work. Her subtle emotionality and vulnerability have enchanted millions of viewers to this day.
An accompanying catalogue under the same title as the exhibition has been published by Henschel Verlag; edited by Daniela Sannwald and Peter Mänz. Focusing on select exhibits, it traces the various stages of the actress’ career – as a daughter, rebel, international star and a devastated woman – while also examining the media’s marketing and legendization of Romy Schneider.
Henschel ISBN 978-3-89487-652-4
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