Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (1982)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writers:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (writer)
Pea Fröhlich (writer)
(more)

Release Date:

18 February 1982 (West Germany)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Munich, 1955: A sports journalist meets Veronika Voss, an UFA actress who supposedly had an affair with Goebbels...

Plot Keywords:

Drugs | Tragedy | Character Name In Title

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Rosel Zech	...	Veronika Voss
Hilmar Thate	...	Robert Krohn
Cornelia Froboess	...	Henriette
Annemarie Düringer	...	Dr. Marianne Katz
Doris Schade	...	Josefa
Erik Schumann	...	Dr. Edel
Peter Berling	...	Filmproduzent / Dicker Mann
Günther Kaufmann	...	G.I. / Dealer (as Günter Kaufmann)
Sonja Neudorfer	...	Verkäuferin
Lilo Pempeit	...	Chehm
Volker Spengler	...	1. Regisseur
Herbert Steinmetz	...	Gärtner
Elisabeth Volkmann	...	Grete
Hans Wyprächtiger	...	Chefredakteur
Peter Zadek	...	2. Regisseur
Johanna Hofer	...	Alte Frau
Rudolf Platte	...	Alter Mann
Armin Mueller-Stahl	...	Max Rehbein
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Harry Baer	...	Head waiter (uncredited)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder	...	Kinobesucher (uncredited)
Tamara Kafka	...	Ärztin (uncredited)
Georg Lehn	...	Gardener (uncredited)
Juliane Lorenz	...	Secretary (uncredited)
Peter Lühr	...	Mr. Treibel (uncredited)
Dieter Schidor	...	Kripobeamter (uncredited)
Thomas Schühly	...	Propagandaminister (uncredited)
Karl-Heinz von Hassel	...	Asylum doctor (uncredited)

Directed by
Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder		writer
Pea Fröhlich		writer
Peter Märthesheimer		writer

Produced by
Thomas Schühly	....	producer

Original Music by
Peer Raben

Cinematography by
Xaver Schwarzenberger

Film Editing by
Juliane Lorenz

Production Design by
Rolf Zehetbauer

Art Direction by
Walter E. Richarz		(as Walter Richarz)

Costume Design by
Barbara Baum

Makeup Department
Gerd Nemetz	....	makeup artist
Anni Nöbauer	....	makeup artist (as Anna Nöbauer)

Production Management
Michael Bohnstengel	....	production manager
Wulf Gasthaus	....	production manager
Michael McLernon	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Harry Baer	....	assistant director
Tamara Kafka	....	assistant director
Karin Viesel	....	assistant director

Art Department
Frank D. Geuer	....	property master (as Frank Geuer)
Thomas Schappert	....	property master

Sound Department
Rupert Medele	....	sound assistant (as Ruppert Medele)
Vladimir Vizner	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Ekkehard Heinrich	....	lighting technician
Suzanne Phillip	....	second assistant camera
Michael Stöger	....	key grip
Josef Vavra	....	assistant camera (as Sepp Vavra)
Leo Weisse	....	still photographer

Casting Department
Helga Fischer	....	extras casting

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Elisabeth Blanke	....	costume assistant
Monika Jacobs	....	costume assistant

Editorial Department
Angelika Deumling	....	assistant editor

Other crew
Gisela Schneider	....	production office
Ursula Wöhrl	....	business manager

Thanks
Gerhard Zwerenz	....	dedicatee

Production Companies

• Laura Film
• Maran Film
• Rialto Film
• Tango Film
• Trio Film

Distributors

• Filmways Australasian Distributors (1982) (Australia) (theatrical)
• MGM/UA Home Video (1991) (USA) (VHS)
• Criterion Collection, The (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• Dolmen Home Video (2005) (Italy) (DVD)
• Sherlock Home Video (2005) (Spain) (DVD)
• Filmverlag der Autoren
• United Artists Classics (USA) (subtitled)

Also Known As:

Veronika Voss (Australia) (USA)

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

West Germany

Language:

German | English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Spain:13 | Italy:VM14 | Iceland:L | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Bavaria Filmstudios, Geiselgasteig, Grünwald, Bavaria, Germany

Company:

Laura Film

Trivia:

Based on the true story of German film star Sybille Schmitz.

Quotes:

Veronika Voss: You've given me a great deal of happiness.
Dr. Marianne Katz: I sold it to you.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Soundtrack:

Run, boy run

one of Fassbinder's true masterpieces - which, in his career span, says a lot

Veronika Voss is a movie in love with movies, and also a movie where its maker, RW Fassbinder, continues on his life/career-long obsession with capturing the essence of melodrama on screen. He might have come closest with this story, since it allows him to make it a "movie-movie", so to speak. I saw some echoes, mayhap, of Sunset Blvd and even Ed Wood, and that may just be attributable to it being a true story (more or less as one would gather from this cinema "tribute" to Sybille Schmitz), but maybe too in how fascinated Fassbinder is with glamor and decadence, decay and self-absorption, the mental faculties to be caring and gentle (Robert) and with a streak that suggests the very essence of everything arguably wrong in Germans (the doctors who keep Veronika quasi-captive, hooking her onto morphine). It's a glorious, multi-faceted critique of a time and place, of a 1950s Germany that had moved on from the war only relatively - the madness could, and would, continue on in ways that involve some subtext, and some things so out in the open it's hard to stand it.

It's ostensibly, in its "plot" sense, about a sports reporter for a paper, mild-mannered Robert, who on a bus one night helps shield the movie star (or once real "STAR" in quotes) Veronika Voss (very great Rosel Zech). She's interested in him, convinces him to buy her an item for $300, and he's interested too - if only for how she's not really, how to say, 'balanced', and we soon see that she is in fact under medical care of an unusual sort by Dr. Marianne Katz. That, and the involvement soon after with Robert's girlfriend in trying to figure out how to get Veronika real help, of getting the police involved as well, makes up the bulk of the rest of the story. We also get a subplot of sorts with an old couple (one look at the arm, numbers tattooed, is all that's needed to fill the pieces), but Fassbinder isn't interested in plot, per-say. He's interested in how to move it, how to transgress a simple melodrama into something more lively, profound and moving.

He's also invested in creating this look for the film that is at times expressionistic of a 1930s tone, of the dark corners and streets and moments of a film-noir, and then sudden blasts of bright light thrown in (an early scene has a bunch of lights intentionally blasting at the camera lens, a perfect homage to cinema itself), with the glamor of a expensive restaurant contrasted with the white walls of Katz's quarters. Fassbinder wants us to see this as a "movie" in the sense of the usage of crafty dissolves and fades, or those wipes that are precisely artificial, but at the same time not lose sight of the drama at hand. Part of this is the acting, which is by many of Fassbinder's regulars- not least of which Armin Mueller-Stahl in a terrific, quiet but haunted supporting role as a screenwriter and ex-husband of Veroika's who says a great deal in one look to Robert down a hallway while a scene is being shot; or Günther Kaufmann, perhaps the one loose link to the previous film in the "BDR trilogy" as a G.I. who adds a curiously affecting song he sings to himself in the middle of a dramatic scene between the doctor and Veronika.

Another part of this are just many, many great scenes and moments put together. Things like when the doctors start to laugh after one of them says around Veronika "It's not like we're trying to kill you," with it bordering on an Austin Powers level of absurdity, if it weren't for it being so cold a moment of satire. Or how we see Robert and Veronika contrasted, brilliantly by cinematographer Schwarzenberger, with Robert being relatively normally lit while Veronika's face gets slightly brighter with each cut-away as they talk at a table in the restaurant. Or how music is used throughout, the collection of tunes from the radio mixing with the actual score, creating a sense of illusion and madness that gets us close to the psyche of Veronika Voss while still maintaining the homage-quality of the picture. And, most notably for me, are the closing scenes, where, without revealing too much (though it may be hard in just revealing it's a melodrama at the core), Veronika dreams of a farewell party, that may be surreal enough to be a dream, but in that first moment of singing at the piano who is to say?

It's such a stroke of beautiful film-making all around, from the mix of sets and real locations to the sense of history captured, of the given theme of fame being so easy to disintegrate, of the melancholic sense of cinema that bears on our lives while civilization crumbles and gets back up again. Maybe this is just what I took away from it, but it's all a credit to Fassbinder's dedication to his art form - which, soon after this, took his own life from a similar excess to that of his character here. It's one of the superb films of its country: A+