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Das erste Jahrhundert des Walter Arlen

Walter Arlen's First Century
Stephanus Domanig
AUT, USA 2018
91 min
V'18

Als Komponist kam der 1920 in Wien geborene Walter Arlen erst spät zu Ehren. Denn den größten Teil seines beruflichen Lebens arbeitete der 1939 von den Nazis aus seiner Heimatstadt in die USA vertriebene Jude als Musikkritiker der „L.A. Times“. Erst seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre bringt er seine eigenen Kompositionen, in denen er oftmals die Schrecken der Nazizeit verarbeitet, der Öffentlichkeit zu Gehör. Domanig porträtiert den mittlerweile 98-jährigen Künstler mit dem sehr guten Gedächtnis unter anderem bei einem Besuch in der alten Heimat Wien: ein emotional anrührender und intellektuell ansprechender Beitrag zum Thema Emigration. (Lars Penning)

In Anwesenheit von Stephanus Domanig und Mitgliedern des Teams.

 

Is it a form of revenge, if a composer, forced into exile by the Nazis, writes a psalm titled “Arbeit macht frei” many years later? In any way, not even longevity may be a sufficient remedy against the forces of evil, hatred and death in the life of Walter Arlen. At one point in Stephanus Domanig’s portrait film there is a brief discussion at a dinner table about the possibilities of ever being happy again after what Arlen had experienced in 1938/39 in Austria: the mental collapse and eventual suicide of his mother, the imprisonment of his father, and his own narrow escape to Chicago. He ended up in Los Angeles, where THE FIRST CENTURY OF WALTER ARLEN sets out. It is quite astonishing to see how fit and well in shape Walter Arlen still is at almost hundred years of age. Domanig follows him on a crucial journey back to his hometown Vienna, where his aunt Gretl had to clean the sidewalk with a toothbrush, and where now, decades later, he gets a warm welcome. THE FIRST CENTURY OF WALTER ARLEN is almost simultaneously the first century of Austria, which will forever have the Nazi years at its core. This documentary, equally intimate and republican, does justice to all those aspects. (Bert Rebhandl)

In the presence of Stephanus Domanig and members of the crew.

Credits
  • Walter Arlen
  • Howard Myers
  • Stephanus Domanig
  • Bigit Gudjonsdottir
  • Astrid Heubrandtner
  • Martin Putz
  • Franz Moritz
  • Lisa Zoe Geretschläger
  • Walter Arlen
Plaesion Film, Vision e.U.

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