#Joseph Vilsmaier

[cemyafilmarsiv]

1993 Stalingard directed by Joseph Vilsmaier

[movie-titlecards]

The Harmonists (1997)

My rating: 6/10

Ein, zwei gute Momente, aber insgesamt doch etwas seicht, und dass man für die Konzertszenen Originalaufnahmen der Comedian Harmonists verwendet zu haben scheint (die zur Zeit der Dreharbeiten schon viele Dekaden alt und dementsprechend blechern waren), hilft auch nicht wirklich.

One or two good moments, but pretty shallow overall, and the fact that they seem to have used original recordings of the Comedian Harmonists (many decades old at the time of shooting and therefore rather tinny) for the concert scenes does not really help matters.

[rwpohl]

tatort: acht jahre später, wolfgang becker 1974

[lifewithaview]

Der letzte Zug/The Last Train (2006)

Dir.Joseph Vilsmaier and Dana Vávrová

The year is 1943 and the last of the Jews are being evacuated from Berlin. They are locked in cattle cars with no food and little water. During the trip several of the characters are drawn out and vignettes of their lives are highlighted to restore some humanity to their animal existence aboard the train. The suffering and agony is palpable.

*During filming, director Joseph Vilsmaier fell out of a crane three meters up while shooting. He was hospitalized, but he recovered and resumed filming, with mild permanent injuries.

[gedeonburkhard]

Gedeon Burkhard bei der Trauerfeier für Joseph Vilsmaier in der Kirche St. Michael in München

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

The Comedian Harmonists (1997) was directed by Joseph Vilsmaier. Joe was born in Munich and has 28 director credits from 1989 to 2021. His other notable credits include Stalingrad and Marlene.

Nearly all of the Harmonists' music in the film is the original recordings, including Duke Ellington's Creole Love Call.

[1001framesofmind]

A Bald Preacher

Stalingrad (1993) depicts the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. The movie follows a group of German soldiers who are sent to Stalingrad to fight against the Soviet Union. They are led by Captain Hans von Witzland who is determined to lead his men to victory. However, as the battle rages on, the soldiers begin to question the morality of their mission and the brutality of war. And perhaps the harsh winter was God's blessing in favor of the Bolsheviks…

🎞film: Stalingrad (1993) 🎬director: Joseph Vilsmaier 🟣🟣🟣🟣⚪️

[pyreofsunflowers]

What I watched this week

Starting a new way for me to sperg about movies as your favorite 2 note filmsis. Ill try to make these as spoiler free as possible, these are just fun little thoughts I had and are not meant to be full plotline breakdowns!

(although i mean if you guys asked nicely i certainly would)

Drive (2011, dir Nicolas Refn)

Oh boy oh man do I ever love Drive. It's such a cliche thing to say, I know. But sometimes things are loved for a good reason! Aside from praising the score and cinematography like most people will (although Cliff Martinez and Newton Sigel knocked it out of the damn park in both respects!) I wanna talk about just how.... Heartwarming? This movie is? Drive to me is a comfy movie I can sit back and wrap myself in like a warm blanket. I want nothing but the best for Driver and Irene and I found myself almost crying at times. This was definitely due in part to Ryan Goslings awesome performance! I don't have too much to say about this one, it's a cozy watch and is my type of romance movie (is one with a gritty aesthetic and bloody car cashes.)

4/5.

Stalingrad (1993, dir. Joseph Vilsmaier)

I really really really wanted to like this movie. So much so in fact I stuck with it for all 134 minutes waiting for it to get good. Let's start with the plot and the characters - the characters here are. Meh. For a character driven, dramatic war story the characters fall flat, I could barely match the names to the faces. They all acted the same and there was no real way to tell them all apart. The chemistry between them was fine I suppose? I've certainly seen worse, but fine chemistry doesn't work when the characters are just so very boring.

Then you have the pacing, oh my god the pacing. For a two hour long movie, it really does a piss poor job at showing just how long, drawn out, and arduous the battle of Stalingrad was. It lingers too much on the characters, and jumps over key parts of the battle to focus on them instead. Now this wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the characters were engaging and well written. It also completely misses the tone of the battle, but this isn't a history lecture. I'm not here to tell you every single flaw this movie has in terms of it's history.

What I will talk about is how this movie handles Nazism. Because it does not do it well. I'm not trying to say you cannot make a war movie where the main characters are Nazis (Downfall by Oliver Hirschbiegel is a terrific example of this), but if you are. Do not do it like this movie does. This movie is a prime example of Clean Werchmat propaganda, where not just one but every single one of the main characters are horrified by the actions of the Nazi party. But every. Single. one. Except for of course, the officer played by Dieter Okras, but even then his cruelty is more that of a Saturday morning cartoon character than a high ranking Nazi. This film tries so very hard to make you feel like the main characters are not Nazis, and when they are forced to adknowladge that they are - it downplays it to a degree I found very hard to sit through.

2/5 (for the wonderful score, sound design and visuals.)

Scream 1 + 2 (1996, 1997, dir. Wes Craven.)

Big. Fat. Meh. I had absolutely no thoughts about either of these movies in all honesty and I really don't understand all of the praise they get. Boring kills. Boring characters. Far too long. Dated satire that doesn't hold up. Boring predictable twists. I know what I'm looking for in this movie, cool gory kills and Skeet Ulrich being a hunk. I wasn't expecting some wonderfully thoughtful satire of the horror genre, or a deeply unsettling movie that keeps me up at night. Yet still I found myself bored and disappointed.

Scream 2 did nothing to improve on the original, and if anything it was much worse. This time instead of being fine enough schlock you could show at a Halloween party which no one would pay attention to it was just kind of bland, boring and unengaging. The acting was much worse, The kills were far more boring, and the soundtrack was worse! Which was the only thing I liked about the first movie! I'm watching through all of these so I can go see scream 6 for my friend's birthday next week, and I can't wait to torture myself with even more of these boring ass movies.

Scream 1: 3/5

Scream 2: 2/5

[whosthatknocking]

Stalingrad (1993), dir. Joseph Vilsmaier

[bigspoopygurl]

Stalingrad (1993)

“It's nice to spend some time dying together.”

Director: Joseph Vilsmaier

Cinematographers: Rolf Greim, Klaus Moderegger & Peter von Haller

[cinematografieliebhaber]

Comedian Harmonists von Regisseur Joseph Vilsmaier ist eine österreichisch-deutsche Filmbiografie aus dem Jahr 1997. Das Drehbuch von Jürgen Büscher, Klaus Richter, Jürgen Egger basiert dabei auf der Geschichte des Vokalensembles Comedian Harmonists, von ihrer Gründung im Jahr 1927 bis zur erzwungenen Auflösung im Jahr 1935.

[en24news]

Mourning for a great director: Joseph Vilsmaier died at the age of 81

Mourning for a great director: Joseph Vilsmaier died at the age of 81

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© WKÖ

He became famous with films such as “Schlafes Bruder” or “Comedian Harmonists” (Perathon / DorFilm), “Herbstmilch” or “Austria: Above and Below” – films that the great director realized in co-production with Austria. Now Joseph Vilsmaier died at the age of 81.

The “Bavarian with body and soul” has been active in the film business for more than 50 years and has brought many…

[enriquemzn262]

Stalingrad 

1993, Joseph Vilsmaier.

[cinemajunkie70]

I’m the youngest and my biggest fear is getting yelled at by my older brothers! I say that because it’s true and at 51, pathetic as fuck. And also in reality, there is only person who could and should be allowed to do that, my father! And I won’t lie to you— I would do anything to have Dr. Dennis yell at me for being such a fuck up right now! I miss it! But here’s the thing, I got something the other two did not get, a special relationship with him the last 18 years of his life. I shared a lot of my love for movies with him. He shared my excessive love of violent movies and especially spaghetti westerns, but even he did not want to sit through the poorly dubbed version of Fulci’s The Four of The Apocalypse I rented from Netflix. But he loved movies about the War and this is where I fucked up! I rented Elem Klimov’s Come and See in 2001. It’s brutal. And yes more brutal than Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron and Joseph Vilsmaier’s Stalingrad. Which before Come And See would always be my favorite World War II movies and usually get blank looks from people! My father would have loved Come and See. I regret never showing it to him or never even thinking he would want to see it. I was thinking this as I was doing Andrei Tarkovsky’s birthday links. But if movies are your life, as they are with me, this saddens me in ways only other cinephiles will understand!

[gedeonburkhard]

FROM GEDEON

Award-winning actor Gedeon Burkhard stars opposite Brad Pitt in the much anticipated Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds. Burkhard plays American Jew Sgt. Wilhelm Wicki who serves as a translator for Pitt’s character. Some of his other film credits include: The Last Train (directed by Joseph Vilsmaier), Melodies of Spring (directed by Martin Walz), Golden Times (directed by Peter Thorwart) and Making Up (directed by Katja V. Garnier).

Burkhard is the recipient of the Best Actor Bavarian Award for his work in Acting It Out and also received a Romy for Best Actor for the acclaimed his television series Detective Rex, which went on to sell to over 140 foreign territories. In addition, he also helmed a successful television series Alarm for Cobra 11 that aired in 120 countries.

Burkhard’s success in film and television has catapulted him onto the main stage in one of the most highly anticipated movie releases of 2009, Inglourious Basterds. IFQ caught up with Burkhard on the eve of the film’s premiere at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

IFQ: You play opposite Brad Pitt in the much anticipated Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds. Without revealing too much about the film, can you tell me about your character Sgt. Wilhelm Wicki?

Gedeon Burkhard: He’s a Basterd! One of 8 Jewish American, Nazi killing predator’s, in a world gone awry. Especially for Jews! As far as his history goes, he was born in Austria, immigrated to America in the early 1920’s, became American and was one of the first in line to go fight when the US entered the war. Aside from killing and mutilating, he also translates for Brad Pitt’s character, Lt. Aldo Raine.

IFQ: You are an award-winning star of consecutive top-rated television dramas in Germany and over 120 territories worldwide, as well as starring in many films in German-speaking territories. How did you cross over and score a supporting role in Tarantino’s film?

GB: Ten years ago in Vienna, I come home from a night shoot and find one of the greatest Directors of our time, fast asleep, on my couch. As it turns out, my girlfriend at the time, Emma Hickox, and Q are old friends. Actually, one of the characters in Inglourious Basterds is named after her late father and director Douglas Hickox. One year later in L.A., Quentin tells me about this character he has me in mind for and then, very generously, gives me eight years to prepare for the audition.

IFQ: How did you prepare for this role? Were you previously familiar with the old school WWII epic films?

GB: When I was 11, working on a miniseries dealing with the rise and downfall of the Third Reich, I was confronted with the subject matter for the first time. Since then I have played a Jewish prisoner picked from a concentration camp to act in Jud Süss (Anti-Semitic propaganda film) and a Jewish boxer fighting for his family’s survival on the way to Auschwitz. So since a lot of research was already in place, I mainly concentrated on playing around with knives, handling guns, slitting throats, scalping and so forth. As far as WW II epics go, any existing gaps where closed by Q’s weekly screenings during preparation.

IFQ: What was your initial reaction when you first read the script? While shooting, did Tarantino make everyone stick to the script or was there any room to improvise?

GB: My initial reaction was, God I can’t wait to see this! And, who do I have to kill to be in it?! I’m not quite sure about the order. Who, in his right mind, would want to change a Quentin Tarantino script? You’re just happy to be one of the lucky f***’s chewing his dialogue. But Quentin is the easiest going Genius I ever met and he is always open for someone bringing something to the table.

IFQ: How was the experience working with Tarantino himself? What’s his working process like on set?

GB: A film set is always the realm of organized chaos and to me, Quentin is King Arthur and Merlin wrapped into one! So being one of his chosen Knights, I naturally look to him for direction and guidance, which he readily gives. But Quentin also likes to let you run free in his magic castle; his only demands are devotion to the cause, passion and concentration.

IFQ: What was it like working alongside such a diverse cast: Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Samuel Jackson, Maggie Cheung, Julie Dreyfus and Diane Kruger? What was your rapport like with them on the set?

GB: I never had the pleasure of meeting Maggie or Samuel. Quoting Quentin, Brad’s not a star; he’s a planet! And still he manages to be nothing but inspirational and a pleasure to be around. He is a wonderful colleague whose huge talent just drags you along, making you be the best you can be. Eli is a great buddy, but on set he was also our boss, Sgt. Donnie Donowitz! So if you mishandled your weapon, on or off camera, he chewed your ass out! Julie and Diane are both gorgeous, inside and out! I didn't have the honor to work with Julie but Diane, who I worked next to for weeks, was an endless fountain of entertainment and laughs.

IFQ: How do you think the German population in general will react to the film? Will they be able to separate history’s past and appreciate it as an entertaining film on its own merit?

GB: Quentin has managed to deal with this difficult subject matter in a way that gives everybody in his right mind the possibility to access and partake in the story and the ones that don’t, can as far as I’m concerned go F*** themselves!

IFQ: You have worked on both German-speaking and American films. Can you compare and contrast working on German-speaking films/TV and the USA/Germany co-production film Inglourious Basterds?

GB: Crew size and Production value. Aside from that, everybody is trying to do the same thing: make a good movie!

IFQ: Can you tell me how your educational background has allowed you to play both American and German speaking characters?

GB: Being an impossible child and always getting kicked out of schools was, not at the time but in retrospect, a good thing. It led to me being educated, first in England and then in America, giving me the gift of two languages and two cultures.

IFQ: Since Inglourious Basterds will premiere at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, will we see you there?

GB: Since I have never been to the Cannes Film Festival, you can bet your ass you’re going to see me there this year!

IFQ: Any upcoming projects?

GB: I just finished shooting a film called Mazel. It‘s a Jewish take on My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

[detournementsmineurs]

Ben Becker, Ulrich Noethen, Heino Ferch, Heinrich Schafmeister, Max Tidof et Kai Wiesinger dans "Comedian Harmonists" biopic de Joseph Vilsmaier (1997) - sur la formation et l’évolution de l’ensemble vocal "Die Comedian Harmonists" face à la montée du Nazisme en Allemagne à la fin des années 1920 - juillet 2021.