Drawing as a mania: The Paintings of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Credits
Length: 86 min
Format: DigiBeta, 35 mm
Language: German, English (subtitles)
Directed by: Michael Trabitzsch
TV co-producer: ARTE/WDR, SFB, ORB, SF
Year: 2001
Film subsidy: Filmboard Berlin Brandenburg, Filmförderung Hamburg, Kulturelle Filmförderung Schleswig-Holstein, MEDIA, Bundesamt für Kultur des Eidgenössischen Departments des Innern, Schweiz
Distributors: MFA Filmdistribution (Germany), Columbus Film (Switzerland)
Worldsales: Telepool
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) is one of the most significant artists of Expressionism; he stands shoulder to shoulder with Klee, Kandinsky, Ernst und Picasso. Co-founder of the “Brücke” artists’ group, his street scenes and depictions of city dwellers constitute the zenith of modern painting in the twentieth century. Furthermore his biography reveals him to be an archtetype of the century: like James Dean, he is the solitary stray dog in the city canyons of the metropolis,
he is the Baal of the asphalt jungle, he is the human in revolt as in Camus.
This portrait traces the life of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner by means of reconstruction of events from his life and through his art. As a consequence, it has become a very visual, excitingly narrated, film portrait of an artistic personality of extraordinary existential presence.
