Film Screenings / Programs / Retrospectives
VOLKER SPENGLER / HIGHFALUTIN
March 1 – March 9
German actor Volker Spengler (1939-2020) is known to film audiences in North America primarily as part of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s extraordinary stock company of actors, with whom he worked repeatedly. Spengler turned in numerous memorable performances for Fassbinder, but none more legendary than his heartbreaking turn as Elvira, the transgender protagonist of IN A YEAR OF 13 MOONS (1978), which is both Spengler’s most prominent starring role and one of the greatest performances by any actor in Fassbinder’s body of work.
Spengler’s career, however, extended far beyond his collaborations with Fassbinder. He was one of the giants of German cinema and theater, thanks in part to his roles in films by Christoph Schlingensief (a filmmaker, playwright, and author who was in many ways Fassbinder’s successor, and with whom Spengler worked every bit as closely), Volker Schlöndorff, Hans-Christof Stenzel, and others, but perhaps above all for his work on the stage. He appeared in countless productions at the country’s most important theaters – the Volksbühne and the Berliner Ensemble, as well as Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater – and worked with a who’s who of German theatrical luminaries including Schlingensief, Heiner Müller, René Pollesch, Frank Castorf, and others.
Just months before Spengler died in 2020, filmmaker Hans Broich (the producer of Martha Mechow’s LOSING FAITH, which Anthology showcased last summer) convened a gathering of some of Spengler’s friends and colleagues, at one of his regular haunts, the Berlin bar Diener Tattersall. The result, HIGHFALUTIN (2021), is a highly unusual filmic portrait that eschews the conventional technique of narrating an artist’s life via isolated talking heads, film clips, and other archival material. Instead, Broich conducts something like a cinematic equivalent of sitting shiva (albeit prior to Spengler’s death), in which a vibrant, organic portrait of the artist is formed through the anecdotes, memories, and insights of those who knew him best.
This March, Anthology is thrilled to host Broich, as well as his collaborator and editor Felix Leitner, for several screenings of HIGHFALUTIN, alongside a selection of some of Spengler’s most important films.
The series is co-presented with the German Film Office, an initiative of the Goethe-Institut and German Films.
Special thanks to Hans Broich; Brian Belovarac, Emily Woodburne & Sam Dinerstein (Janus Films); Claude-Oliver Rudolph; Frieder Schlaich (Filmgalerie 451); Dietmar Schwärzler & Gerald Weber (sixpackfilm); and Sara Stevenson (German Film Office).
Upcoming Screenings
-
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
SATAN'S BREW
March 1 at 3:45 PM
March 6 at 8:45 PM
March 9 at 5:45 PM
-
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
IN A YEAR OF 13 MOONS
March 1 at 6:30 PM
March 3 at 9:00 PM
March 8 at 5:30 PM
-
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
THE THIRD GENERATION
March 1 at 9:15 PM
March 7 at 6:30 PM
March 8 at 8:30 PM
-
Christoph Schlingensief
SHEEP IN WALES
March 2 at 4:30 PM
March 5 at 9:00 PM
March 6 at 6:45 PM
-
Hans Broich
HIGHFALUTIN
March 2 at 6:30 PM
March 3 at 6:30 PM
March 5 at 6:30 PM
-
Christoph Schlingensief
THE 120 DAYS OF BOTTROP
March 2 at 9:00 PM
March 7 at 9:15 PM
March 9 at 8:30 PM
