HANNA SCHYGULLA | Via Montenapoleone Milano

Via Monte Napoleone, Milan

film:.
25 DECEMBER.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HANNA!

by Pierre Benoit

brought to you by Harrods

credits
film: 25 DECEMBER. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HANNA!
director: Pierre Benoit
starring: Hanna Schygulla
piano: Jean-Marie Sénia
excerpt from:Protocole de Reves (Dream Protocols)
screeplay: Hanna Meyer
running time: 00:03:54

Close-Up | Hanna Schygulla. «The viewer is always aware of her physical presence: her blue eyes, unmistakable face, enigmatic smile – both inviting and forbidding, and her simple subtle gestures – a move of the wrist, a nod of the head, a crossing of legs – each of which is exclusive to the actress and yet expressive of the character.» (Laurence Kardish, MoMA Film and Video curator)

TRAUME SIND BAUME
(DREAMS ARE TREES)
Dreams are like trees
their roots come out of the dark
and stretch up to the light

“I’m four years old, I’m sitting on my mother’s knee in a post-war train packed with people which stops in the middle of the tracks, and the light goes out. And in the complete darkness, I start singing aloud a popular song of that time, emanating despair and will to live: illusions...nothing but illusions, we mustn’t think, we have to act.”
For Hanna Schygulla everything began there, in the trains which crossed the ruins of Germany, when she fled from her native city in Silesia. The song has always made her dream, and “if we take our dreams seriously, if we water them well, without tormenting ourselves, they become reality.”

Artaud said that theatre must be a true precipice of dreams, and Schygulla enters a process of unconscious languages, of irrational materials which have been a ferment of her culture. Now it is her very dreams which have materialised in the form of seven short films, which the German artist has set in «Protocoles de rêves», allowing us to share the most real thing she possesses: intimacy. «There was a time when I would write down my dreams as soon as I awoke. But it took me nearly 25 years to reconstruct these mirages experienced under the influence of Fassbinder, to understand that these fragments of nocturnal ideas have influenced my whole life». And the opportunity for Hanna Schygulla to give a theatrical form to this disquieting and poetic material came in 2004, when the Moma in New York organised a retrospective of her and Rainer Werner Fassbinder to celebrate the 60th birthday of the German actress of Polish descent. And so «Protocoles de rêves» was born in the double sense of «ritual and register of notes, a work created - continues Schygulla - using several videos shot by me in 1979 – based on texts by R. W. Fassbinder, Jorge Luis Borges, Calderon de la Barca, Arthur Rimbaud, Heiner Müller, Bertolt Brecht and Jean-Claude Carriè - , inspired by seven of my dreams, today assembled to form a theatrical creation which I enter and exit as if I were an extension of the themes of each dream». The videos, found in a trunk in her father’s house, were a kind of therapy following a professional disappointment due to a cancelled film with Fassbinder, for whom she was his muse and favourite actress for more than a decade. «We were supposed to make a film – she remembers – about the schizophrenic German artist Unica Zurn and her surreal visions. Fassbinder had asked me to contribute to the film, not only as an actress, but also as co-author and co-screenwriter. But then his partner committed suicide and he abandoned the project to shoot "A Year With Thirteen Moons"».

Life and career
Schygulla was born in Königshütte, Upper Silesia, to German parents Antonie (née Mzyk) and Joseph Schygulla. Her father, a timber merchant by profession, was then drafted as an infantryman in the German Army and was captured by American forces in Italy, subsequently being held as a prisoner of war until 1948. In 1945, Hanna and her mother came as refugees to Munich, after the German majority population of Königshütte was expelled by Communist Poland. In the 1960s, Schygulla studied Romance languages and German studies, while taking acting lessons in Munich during her spare time.
Acting eventually became her focus, and she became particularly known for her film work with Rainer Werner Fassbinder. During the making of Effi Briest (1974), an adaptation of a classic German novel, Fassbinder and Schygulla fell out over divergent interpretations of the character. Also a problem for Schygulla was low pay, and she led a revolt against Fassbinder on this issue during the making of Effi Briest. Fassbinder's response was typically blunt: "I can't stand the sight of your face any more. You bust my balls". After this, they did not work together for several years until The Marriage of Maria Braun in 1978. The film was entered into the 29th Berlin International Film Festival, where Schygulla won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for her performance.
Schygulla has acted in French, Italian, and American films. In the 1990s she also became known and well regarded as a chanson singer. In Juliane Lorenz's documentary film Life, Love and Celluloid (1998), on Fassbinder and related topics, Schygulla performs several songs.
In 2002, she appeared in VB51, a performance by the artist Vanessa Beecroft. In 2007, she appeared in the film The Edge of Heaven, directed by Fatih Akın, to wide acclaim. In 2007 she received the Honorary Award from the Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival and in 2010 she received the Honorary Golden Bear from the Berlin Film Festival.
Hanna Schygulla has lived in Paris since 1981.

Filmography:

With Rainer Werner Fassbinder:
1969 - Love is Colder than Death 1969 - Katzelmacher 1969 - Gods of the Plague 1970 - The Coffehouse 1970 - Why did Herr R. Run Amok? 1970 - The Niklashauser Journey 1970 - Recruits in Ingolstadt 1970 - Whity 1970 - Beware the Holy Whore 1971 - The Merchant of Four Seasons 1972 - The Bitter Tears of Petra van Kant (*) 1972 - Eight Hours don’t Make a Day 1972 - Bremen Freedom 1972 - Jail Bait 1974 - Effi Briest (*) 1978 - The Marriage of Maria Braun (*) 1979 - The Third Generation 1980 - Berlin Alexanderplatz 1981 - Lili Marleen (*)

Complete Filmography
Love is Colder than Death (1969)
Katzelmacher (1969)
Gods of the Plague (1970)
Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1970)
The Niklahusen Journey (1971)
Rio das Mortes (1971)
Pioneers in Ingolstadt (1971)
Whity (1971)
Beware of a Holy Whore (1971)
The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972)
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)
Effi Briest (1974)
The Wrong Move (1975)
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)
Lili Marleen (1981)
That Night in Varennes (1982)
Passion (1982)
Sheer Madness (1983)
The Story of Piera (1983)
A Love in Germany (1983)
The Future is Woman (1984)
The Delta Force (1986)
Miss Arizona (1987)
Forever, Lulu - ( Elaine Hines / 1987 / Released / Cori Films International)
Abraham's Gold (1990)
Dead Again (1991)
Warsaw Year 5073 (1992)
A Hundred and One Nights (1995)
Metamorphosis of a Melody (1996)
Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)
Winterreise (2006)
The Edge of Heaven (2007)
Faust (2011)

credits: Wikipedia, MoMa,Teatro Arcimboldi