Rosa von Praunheim: Germany’s controversial ‘gay film’ director
When Rosa von Praunheim recently received the Saarbrücken Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis for Lifetime Achievement, he mockingly described it as a kind of “death Oscar.”
Having been recognized at Germany’s preeminent festival for young filmmakers, the 77-year-old director showed off the self-deprecating wit that has marked his 50-year career of one of Germany’s gay cinema pioneers.
150 films and counting
Widely recognized as Germany’s best-known “gay film director,” von Praunheim sees the moniker as a badge of honor: “I think that worldwide I am the one who has made the most films on gay subjects,” he said, adding that his work has covered the gamut of gay, lesbian and trans subjects. He’s proud of the roughly 150 films he’s made, he says.
Von Praumheim was born Holger Radtke in 1942 in a prison in Riga in Latvia. His mother died shortly after the end of the war in a Berlin sanatorium. He was adopted, which he only discovered in 2000, and he only learned of the fate of his biological mother at age 64. She has been a subject in his films, along with many other aspects of his personal life.
He took on the name “Rosa” (pink in German) as a reminder of the pink triangle that the Nazis forced homosexuals to wear in the concentration camps. “Praunheim” refers to a district in Frankfurt where the director once lived.
Filmmaking was not von Praunheim’s first passion, he told DW: “I studied painting, and I still paint, I still do exhibitions, that’s a mainstay. I wrote, and I’m still writing. I like writing poems. I’m working on a novel, I write plays. Film joined the picture at some point.”
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100 years of homosexuality in film
Different from the Others (1919)
Considered the very first film on homosexuality, “Different from the Others” was directed by Richard Oswald, who urged dropping Germany’s Article 175, which made homosexuality a criminal offense. Pandemonium broke out at the film’s premiere in a Berlin movie theater in 1919, but it wasn’t prohibited because film censorship didn’t yet exist. Article 175 was repealed decades later — in 1994.
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100 years of homosexuality in film
The Children’s Hour (1961)
Shirley MacLaine plays Martha, a gay grade school teacher who is in love with her colleague, portrayed by Audrey Hepburn. “The Children’s Hour” is director William Wyler’s second take on the play of the same name by Lilian Hellmann. The first time he filmed the story (“These Three”), he was forced to give it a happy end. In his remake decades later, Martha ends up committing suicide.
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100 years of homosexuality in film
Death in Venice (1971)
Luchino Visconti filmed the novel of that name by Thomas Mann. The protagonist Gustav von Aschenbach, a 50-year-old writer — in the movie, he’s a conductor however — pines for a young man he sees on the beach and who lives in the same hotel. The film is about the suppression of forbidden passions and about a man’s love for a young boy — a taboo subject then and now.
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100 years of homosexuality in film
It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives (1971)
Director Rosa von Praunheim knew first-hand what it’s like be a homosexual man battling self-hatred and guilt. The film takes a frank look at gay lifestyles, including common-law marriage, leather-clad men in the park and life in a gay commune.
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100 years of homosexuality in film
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
A street punk named Danny in Stephen Frears’ comedy drama film was the first major role for actor Daniel Day-Lewis. His character and Omar, a Pakistani friend, take over the management of a launderette in mid-1980s London and start a romantic relationship.
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100 years of homosexuality in film
Maurice (1987)
James Ivory filmed the story of an unhappy love affair in Britain in the 1910s. College students Maurice (James Wilby) and Clive (Hugh Grant) fall in love. Confessing to being gay would mean exclusion from society, however, so Clive marries a woman, while Maurice falls in love with another man – Clive’s servant.
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100 years of homosexuality in film
My own private Idaho (1991)
Mike (River Phoenix), a young gay street hustler, is on the road, searching for his mother. Scott (Keanu Reeves) joins him; both prostitute themselves during the road trip. Mike is in love with Scott, who is heterosexual and turns him away. The film rang in the era of New Queer Cinema of the early 1990s — the golden era of gay and lesbian cinema.
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100 years of homosexuality in film
The Most Desired Man (1994)
Macho meets drag queens: in this highly successful 1994 German comedy, actor Til Schweiger plays a womanizer who moves in with a gay man after his girlfriend dumps him, leading to all kinds of awkward situations. Sönke Wortmann’s adaptation of a Ralf König comic has even been turned into a musical.
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100 years of homosexuality in film
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
In “Brokeback Mountain,” the two cowboys Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal, l.) and Ennis (Heath Ledger) poach, drink and sleep together, but their mutual attraction is a taboo among cowboys, so both marry women. For this neo-Western, Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee won three Oscars and created an unforgettable melodrama.
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100 years of homosexuality in film
Carol (2015)
In “Carol”, Kate Blanchett (right) and Rooney Mara play two women who fall in love in New York in the early ’50s but have to keep their relationship secret: The sexual revolution, women’s liberation and the gay rights movement are not yet on the horizon. Todd Haynes filmed the novel by Patricia Highsmith, who published her work under a pseudonym in 1952 due to the sensitive subject.
Breaking taboos
He first became known as an emerging director in the early 1970s, and he soon became the most important gay filmmaker in Germany next to Rainer Werner Fassbinder. From early on, the subject of homosexuality featured prominently in his artistic work, even more so than in Fassbinder’s.
The film Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt (“It Is Not the Homosexual Who is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives”) from 1971, about a gay man from the provinces who struggles to find sexual liberation in Berlin, marked a new beginning not only for German cinema, but for the gay rights movement in the country. The New York Times called the film “a militantly Marxist call for a end to homosexual oppression.”
‘It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives’: the title says it all
In the period after the social upheavals of 1968, von Praunheim brought the subject of homosexuality into the mainstream in an unvonventional way that upended taboos. He called on gay men to “get out of the restrooms and onto the streets!” and to publicly reveal their sexuality. While a large section of conservative society expressed reservations, Praunheim became a emblem for the scores of gay rights groups that were subsequently formed in West Germany.
Advice for young filmmakers
At the Max Ophüls Preis film festival, von Praunheim not only received the lifetime achievement award but also gave a master class for a rising generation of young filmmakers. He is actively engaged in teaching activities both abroad and at home, where he is a professor in directing at the Film University Babelsberg.
Read more: Pride, film history — What 2019 means for the LGBT community
What does he believe is essential to succeed as a director today? “Discipline is part of it, of course, and that you passionately back what you do,” von Praunheim said. “It doesn’t happen by itself. You can’t just sit there and then become famous. You have to be constantly engaged with the medium, have fun shooting and let your imagination run free.”
But he also cautions young filmmakers that things have changed since he came of age as a filmmaker in the 1970s and 80s, saying that everything today had to be “much more audience-friendly.” For filmmakers, that’s “a big hurdle, because you can’t experiment in the same way anymore.”
Saarbrücken festival director Svenja Böttger, Rosa von Praunheim and his husband Oliver Sechting (L to R)
From strong women to gay serial killers
Alongside the exploration of homosexuality, von Praunheim’s films often portray strong women.
“For a gay man, working with strong women is a strong identification. It’s easy to put yourself in their shoes,” he explains. He adds that these women have greater freedom through clothing and make-up and more ability to express their feelings than men are typically permitted by society. “With men, I was always a bit scared, boozing, football and war games and stuff,” he said. But he believes that this has changed, “because the image of men itself has also changed,” he explains.
‘Bad gay guy’: A scene from ‘Darkroom,’ von Praunheim’s latest film
The director’s latest film, Darkroom: Drops of Death, is a dark drama in which a gay serial killer targets gay men with his deadly poison. Once again, von Praunheim is breaking taboos: “After 50 years of emancipation you can afford to show a so-called bad gay guy.”
Even at 77, retirement hasn’t crossed the mind of von Praunheim. Filmmaking, writing, painting — all are included in a full list of plans and projects. He sees the lifetime achievement award only as a stopover.
Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/rosa-von-praunheim-germany-s-controversial-gay-film-director/a-52187133?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf