Marlene (1984 film)

Marlene Dietrich - Portrait of a myth is a documentary from 1984, the film director Maximilian Schell has rotated about the legendary film star Marlene Dietrich. He was from the Bayerischer Rundfunk ( BR) and OKO - film enables and published by Futura film, Munich, and Alive Films ( USA).

Background

Marlene Dietrich and Maximilian Schell had learned played together in the film Judgment at Nuremberg in 1961 and to appreciate each other. Schell tried to convince in her apartment in the Avenue Montaigne in Paris resident Dietrich for many years a documentary about her life. This has repeatedly rejected. In 1982, she agreed on the condition itself does not appear in the image. Therefore, the whole documentary is made up of Marlene Dietrich even spoken comments on the questions raised by Maximilian Schell, to her silent films shown and their sound films. Likewise newsreel reports are shown on her and her singing performances in the film. Marlene Dietrich had a contractual commitment to 40 hours of interview, which took place about half in German and in English. She tells about her childhood in Berlin, the filming of The Blue Angel, her husband Rudolf Sieber, working with directors such as Josef von Sternberg, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock. At one point, Dietrich and Schell quote the poem together: The love life of Ferdinand Freiligrath; at the end of Marlene Dietrich is touched by the pathetic words to tears.

Often Marlene Dietrich ignored the questions of Schell, made ​​hearty comments about other things, about former co-star and published biographies. Throughout the interview, she talks about life and death, reality and illusion, and the nature of stardom. Thanks to the extremely insightful conversation it Schell manages to convey to the audience a deep insight of Dietrich's character, who wanted as little to reveal about themselves originally.

Film clips

The documentary shows clips from the following movies:

• Tragedy of Love ( 1923)
• I Kiss Your Hand, Madame (1929 )
• The Blue Angel (1930 )
• Morocco ( 1930)
• Dishonored (1931 )
• Blonde Venus (1932 )
• The Scarlet Empress (1934 )
• The Devil Is a Woman (1935 )
• Pearl fortunately (1936 )
• Destry Rides Again (1939 )
• Citizen Kane ( 1941)
• The Fright (1950 )
• Witness for the Prosecution (1957 )
• Touch of Evil (1958 )
• Judgment at Nuremberg (1961 )
• Beautiful Gigolo, Poor Gigolo (1978 )

Awards and nominations

The film was nominated for the 1986 Academy Award for Best Documentary. He won the German Television Award.