Release CalendarDVD & Blu-ray ReleasesTop 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsIn TheatersComing SoonMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV NewsIndia TV Spotlight
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsBest Picture WinnersBest Picture WinnersEmmysLGBTQ+ Pride MonthSTARmeter AwardsSan Diego Comic-ConNew York Comic-ConSundance Film FestivalToronto Int'l Film FestivalAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • All
  • Titles
  • TV Episodes
  • Celebs
  • Companies
  • Keywords
  • Advanced Search
Watchlist
Sign In
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
IMDbPro

The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich

  • 20122012
  • 1h 50m
IMDb RATING
6.1/10
208
YOUR RATING
The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich (2012)
  • Biography
  • Drama
At the end of his life, Wilhelm Reich - psychiatrist and experimental scientist searching for the fundamentals of life - finds himself on trial, charged with deception. His dream of liberati... Read allAt the end of his life, Wilhelm Reich - psychiatrist and experimental scientist searching for the fundamentals of life - finds himself on trial, charged with deception. His dream of liberating human individuality makes him a dangerous opponent of an American system that is strivi... Read allAt the end of his life, Wilhelm Reich - psychiatrist and experimental scientist searching for the fundamentals of life - finds himself on trial, charged with deception. His dream of liberating human individuality makes him a dangerous opponent of an American system that is striving after 1945 for global hegemony, using all available means. Was it madness to believe in... Read all
IMDb RATING
6.1/10
208
YOUR RATING
  • Director
    • Antonin Svoboda
  • Writers
    • Rebecca Blasband
    • Antonin Svoboda
  • Stars
    • Klaus Maria Brandauer
    • Julia Jentsch
    • Jeanette Hain
Top credits
  • Director
    • Antonin Svoboda
  • Writers
    • Rebecca Blasband
    • Antonin Svoboda
  • Stars
    • Klaus Maria Brandauer
    • Julia Jentsch
    • Jeanette Hain
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 3User reviews
    • 13Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 5 nominations

    Photos

    Add photo

    Top cast

    Edit
    Klaus Maria Brandauer
    Klaus Maria Brandauer
    • Wilhelm Reichas Wilhelm Reich
    Julia Jentsch
    Julia Jentsch
    • Eva Reichas Eva Reich
    Jeanette Hain
    Jeanette Hain
    • Ilse Reichas Ilse Reich
    Jamie Sives
    Jamie Sives
    • Hamiltonas Hamilton
    Birgit Minichmayr
    Birgit Minichmayr
    • Auroraas Aurora
    Kenny Doughty
    Kenny Doughty
    • Paulas Paul
    Gary Lewis
    Gary Lewis
    • Dr. Cameronas Dr. Cameron
    David Rasche
    David Rasche
    • Hillsas Hills
    Shaun Aylward
    Shaun Aylward
    • Peteras Peter
    Markus Schleinzer
    Markus Schleinzer
    • Agent Kleinas Agent Klein
    Max Deacon
    Max Deacon
    • Thomasas Thomas
    Ian Towers
    • CIA Agent Aas CIA Agent A
    Michael Shannon
    Michael Shannon
    • Judge Cliffordas Judge Clifford
    Drew McVety
    Drew McVety
    • Murphyas Murphy
    Rebecca Blasband
    Rebecca Blasband
    • Sally Murphyas Sally Murphy
    Tibor Taylor
    • Prison Guardas Prison Guard
    Jim Libby
    • Taxidriveras Taxidriver
    Adrienne Ferguson
    • Nurseas Nurse
    • Director
      • Antonin Svoboda
    • Writers
      • Rebecca Blasband
      • Antonin Svoboda
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

    More like this

    Mephisto
    7.7
    Mephisto
    Wer hat Angst vor Wilhelm Reich?
    5.6
    Wer hat Angst vor Wilhelm Reich?
    Final Report
    6.3
    Final Report
    Wilhelm Reich in Hell
    6.6
    Wilhelm Reich in Hell
    Peterman
    5.7
    Peterman
    Manipulation
    6.2
    Manipulation
    Rembrandt
    6.2
    Rembrandt
    The Guilty
    6.7
    The Guilty
    Love, Lies and Records
    7.1
    Love, Lies and Records
    Ferdinand von Schirach: Feinde - Gegen die Zeit
    6.5
    Ferdinand von Schirach: Feinde - Gegen die Zeit
    The Martian Chronicles
    6.5
    The Martian Chronicles
    Black Work
    6.7
    Black Work

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Connections
      Featured in Starfilm (2017)

    User reviews3

    Review
    Top review
    6/10
    This flower needs roots
    Early this summer, at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London, I viewed, along with 40 others, the United Kingdom premier of The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich, the feature-length film by Antonin Svoboda starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Wilhelm Reich. I felt that Brandauer's portrayal of Reich was engaging, being humane and warm, showing integrity, steadfastness, courage, and intelligence. Missing was much of Reich's ferocious energy. Although many of the facts of Reich's later life and work are portrayed reasonably well, given the limitations of film medium and of our time and culture, I think that, in the future, Reich's later life and work will be portrayed with a deeper understanding of who he was and what he faced, namely, the mass social pathology that Reich termed the emotional plague.

    While I found The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich dramatically moving and touching in many ways and accurate in many details, there were some serious misrepresentations of fact. Some characters, for example, appeared to be entirely fictional, or, in other cases, amalgams of several people. One of the film's screenwriters admitted to me that there's no evidence that Reich was spied upon by his wife Aurora Karrer, but that Reich's story need a "Judas," and Karrer was chosen.

    Was there a Judas among Reich's colleagues and followers? And, where, behind it all, lighting emotional fires and fanning the flames, hides Iago?

    Instead, the "bad guys" in this film are flat, cardboard creations from film noir. They don't do the trick. Here, there are only shadowy American agents from the FDA, the CIA, the FBI, plus Ewen Cameron, the Canadian psychologist.

    While the emotional plague that Reich's work revealed is neither, in essence, left nor right, politically, I believe the evidence at hand supports the assertion that the particular expression of the emotional plague that drove Reich from Germany to Norway to America, and, finally, into prison, had a Stalinist Communist core. The public relations storm that arose when Stalin's agents killed Trotsky in 1940 led to a change in how the Communists isolated and removed their enemies. With Reich, the Communist emotional plague characters used the media to set a trap, to create a fictive charlatan Reich, and then they used their influences in the American government to snap that trap shut. It wasn't Reich, the scientist, who got into trouble with the American legal system; it was a pornographic/charlatan Reich conjured up by the Communists and their aides. The response of the American public was not to Reich, but to the invented Reich. This film wants to lay the blame for Reich's demise at the feet of Joseph McCarthy, the Christian moralists, and sexually uptight Americans. But their role was to get upset by the Reich that didn't exist. Parts of the American media and government were the duped "muscle" that put Reich away, but the "brains" behind the scheme was a Stalinist network, deeply hidden at that time. That truth cannot be found in this film.

    Todd Gitlin, a professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, says it is acceptable to blur the line between fact and fiction, provided audiences are aware of it.

    In an interview with Ted Morgan on Nightline, Gitlin said, referring to the film The Queen, "True-ish is defensible when it's relatively easy for the viewers to know the limits of what we actually know. … This doesn't purport to be something it isn't, and therefore I'm prepared to give it some slack, especially because we have a brilliant actress who makes plausible that this is what the Queen -- as well as we know her -- would go through under such circumstances."

    However, Gitlin didn't believe the same is true for all historical films. Referring to Oliver Stone's controversial film JFK, which holds that President Kennedy was killed by a CIA plot, he said, "It flunks awfully and irredeemably. The devil is in the big falsification. … You're not permitted to chuck volumes of counter evidence for the sake of this piece of fairy-tale making."

    Svoboda shows a willingness to make Aurora Karrer a "Judas" on no evidence, but NOT to portray the underlying Stalinist conspiracy that persecuted Reich --despite much interesting evidence.

    There have been 12 films made of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, a novel written circa 1850 based on real events that happened in the 1640s. Each film says a lot about the filmmaker who made it. In the future, there will be a lot of films made about Reich and his work. Svododa's film, which I feel is a reasonably good one for these times, and certainly worth seeing, may eventually say more to future societies about these times and these filmmakers than what it reveals about Reich and his work.
    helpful•13
    4
    • jwildresearch
    • Aug 30, 2013

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 5, 2013 (Germany)
    • Country of origin
      • Austria
    • Languages
      • German
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Wilhelm Reich különös esete
    • Filming locations
      • Tabernas, Almería, Andalucía, Spain
    • Production companies
      • Novotny & Novotny Filmproduktion GmbH
      • Coop99 Filmproduktion
      • Lotus Film
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross worldwide
      • $388,475
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 50 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.35 : 1

    Related news

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich (2012)
    Top Gap
    What is the English language plot outline for The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich (2012)?
    Answer
    • See more gaps
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    View list
    List
    The Best Movies and Shows to Watch in July
    See the full list
    View list
    List
    The Best Movies Coming This Summer
    See the full list

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    • Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • IMDb Developer
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Interest-Based Ads
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2022 by IMDb.com, Inc.