|
|
|
Stroszek
(1977)
This film tells the story of Bruno Stroszek (Bruno
S.) who we first see being released from a Berlin jail for
undisclosed alcohol-related offences. Returning to his apartment,
he tries to rebuild his life with his prostitute girlfriend,
Eva (Eva Mattes) and his elderly best friend and neighbour
(Clemens Scheitz). However the bleak and violent life of their
small Berlin neighbourhood soon gets to Stroszek and his friends,
and they decide to emigrate to America where, they believe,
anyone can get rich quickly. Soon the three move into the small
town of Railroad Flats in rural Wisconsin, where the neighbour’s
cousin, who lives there, sets up Stroszek, who speaks no English,
with a job as a mechanic, while Eva goes to work as a waitress
in the local diner. They quickly learn that the American dream
is far more difficult to achieve then they thought.
Werner Herzog had originally intended his 1979 film Woyzeck,
adapted from Georg Büchner’s theatre fragment, to star Bruno
S., with whom Herzog had made The
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser in 1974. Eventually, however, Herzog decided that
the lead role in Woyzeck should go to Klaus Kinski instead. When Herzog
telephoned Bruno S. with the bad news, the actor, who had already taken a seven
week leave of absence from the factory where he worked, was so heartbroken that
Herzog decided he had to make amends and promised S. that he would write a film
specifically for him and that he would get a script within a week. Herzog was
as good as his word and Stroszek was the result.
Bruno S. was the unwanted son of a prostitute who beat him regularly, and he
spent twenty-three of his first twenty-six years in various institutions. He
worked at a variety of jobs, including street musician, factory worker and painter
before Werner Herzog cast him in The
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser after seeing a documentary about him. Many elements
of the character of Stroszek were based on Bruno S. himself. He owned all the
musical instruments that his character uses, the bar that his character goes
to in the film was the one that Bruno frequented in real-life, and the apartment
that his character lives in, in Berlin, was the one that Bruno S. lived in. He
gives a startling performance in the film as a damaged man trying to make a
place for himself in the world, quietly watching as his hopes and dreams are
torn down around him.
The film is shot with an unusual grim realism for Herzog, although his knack for poetic visuals shines through in many places, such as the famous scenes with the dancing chicken. Herzog is one of the great photographers of landscape and nature in film and here he finds the beauty in the stark and bleak Wisconsin landscape.
As with all Herzog films Stroszek deals with dreamers, consumed by their
hopes and ambitions, who become almost heroic in their personal struggles.
The film is also an enduring portrait of the plight of the immigrant.
-Robert
Foster
|
|
|
|
All contents ©
2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
|
|
 |
Director:
Werner
Herzog
Writer: Werner
Herzog
Starring: Bruno
S., Eva Mattes, Clemens Scheitz, Wilhelm von Homburg
Distributor: New
Yorker Films
Runtime: 115
min
Rating: Not
Rated
Release Date: January
12, 1977
|
|
 |
|
