Austrian History in the Movies
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- DirectorMilos FormanStarsF. Murray AbrahamTom HulceElizabeth BerridgeThe life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.
- DirectorMiloslav LutherStarsArmin Mueller-StahlMax TidofWolfgang PreissIn the dead of night, a few hours after Mozart's death, the usual suspects (Konstanze, Salieri, van Swieten, etc.) are summoned to Mozart's room by Count Pergen, head of the secret police, who considered Mozart a potential revolutionary. Over the corpse, he interrogates them, trying to discover the true cause and significance of Mozart's demise.
- DirectorEric TillStarsJoseph FiennesBruno GanzPeter UstinovDuring the early sixteenth century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the Catholic Church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.
- StarsRolf BoysenRomuald PeknyWerner KreindlThe rise of Albrecht von Wallenstein from minor Moravian nobleman to imperialist generalissimo in the Thirty Years-War, and his fall once the emperor begins to doubt his loyalty.
- StarsChristian ClavierIsabella RosselliniGérard DepardieuA masterful soldier, tactician, and statesmen, Napoleon Bonaparte, with courage and love for his country, rises from an unpaid general consumed with ambition to the most powerful man in Europe. But his life ends with a fall and exile.
- DirectorWolfgang GlückStarsTobias EngelSunnyi MellesHeinz TrixnerIn 1938, Austria is about to become a part of the Third Reich. A theater actress and a Jewish journalist fall in love and spend time together, completely ignoring the political turmoil of the time despite friendly warnings.
- DirectorMenno MeyjesStarsJohn CusackNoah TaylorLeelee SobieskiA film studying the depiction of a friendship between an art dealer named Rothman and his student, Adolf Hitler.
- DirectorUrs OdermattStarsGötz GeorgeTom SchillingAnna UnterbergerThe young, despotic and untalented artist Adolf Hitler comes to Vienna to study art. He befriends the Jew Schlomo Herzl working on a novel with the title "Mein Kampf". Hitler is rejected by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Herzl's concern for the sad young man continues, and leads him to a new career with disastrous consequences for world history.
- StarsMax von SydowCharlotte RamplingClaude RichAt the battle of Solferino Joseph von Trotta, a lieutenant in the Slovenian infantry, is wounded while saving the life of the young Austrian Emperor Franz-Joseph I. The Emperor rewards him by elevating him in society to a position quite out of keeping with his social rank, and which entirely alienates him from his farming background: Joseph gets promoted to the rank of captain, and is made a member of the nobility. Years later Joseph von Trotta accidentally finds a description of the battle that changed his life in a text-book belonging to his son Franz. Enraged at the over-emotional, patriotic and sentimental way in which the Emperor's rescue at the hands of "the Hero of Solferino" is depicted, he lodges a complaint at the Imperial Court. During an audience, the Emperor, displaying a certain degree of resignation, attempts to convince him that myths are both justifiable and necessary. Joseph, however, discovers "that it was nothing else but craftiness that assured the existence of the world, the power of the law, and the majesty of monarchs. He lost all belief he had ever had in the Emperor." Embittered, Joseph leaves the army and retires to his country estate in Bohemia. Consistent with his actions, he forbids his son Franz von Trotta from taking up a military career. The latter, in his capacity as a provincial prefect, develops into a typical duty-conscious civil servant who never thinks of questioning the monarchy and its existence. Franz then brings up his own son Carl Joseph in a strict, military manner, and forces him to take up a career as an officer against his will. The weak and sensitive grandson Carl Joseph von Trotta bears no trace of the strength and wilfulness of his grandfather. Rank and position are hollow-sounding concepts to him. When his beautiful mistress, wife of sergeant Slama, dies while giving birth to a child that could have been his, and his closest friend, the regimental doctor, Dr. Demant, is killed in a senseless duel because of an alleged love-affair with his wife, Carl Joseph - in an act of self-punishment - has himself transferred to an infantry unit on the Russian border. There he falls victim to alcohol and becomes embroiled in debt trying in vain to escape his depressions and irrational feelings of guilt. His friend Count Chojnicki only manages to drag him out of his melancholy and despair on one single occasion, when he has a mistress brought to him. Carl Joseph spends several carefree weeks in Vienna with Valerie von Taussig, but once he's back in the depressing frontier town he very soon reverts to his old ways. Meanwhile, nationalist and democratic forces are bringing the old Austro-Hungarian Empire to its knees. During the armed suppression of a factory-workers' strike that takes place as the violence continues to escalate, Carl Joseph von Trotta is severely wounded. After his convalescence he is determined to resign his commission. Then during an orgiastic summer party at Schloss Chojnicki, the news arrives of the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne and his wife in Sarajevo. Soon afterwards, war breaks out, and Carl Joseph, whose resignment has not yet been granted, is sent to the front. There, heroically and without a trace of fear, he walks to his death as, without any protection or covering fire, he goes off to get water for his thirsty soldiers. With this unselfish deed for his nameless men Carl-Joseph once more remembers the roots of his humble origins.
- DirectorOttokar RunzeStarsSimon WardSiegfried RauchViktor StaalThe setting is Belgrade, Oct 1918, the closing days of World War 1, and the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
- DirectorErnst MarischkaStarsRomy SchneiderMagda SchneiderGretl SchörgYoung Stanzi who is visiting Vienna helps a young corporal and musician to become famous for his marching song "Die Deutschmeister".
- DirectorFranz AntelStarsKarl MerkatzAlfred BöhmHans HoltA politically naïve Viennese butcher (Bockerer) manages to survive the unification of Germany and Austria and the Second World War.
- DirectorFranz AntelStarsKarl MerkatzCaroline VasicekAlexander WussowIn the occupied Vienna of the post-war years, it is once again Karl Bockerer who, in a charming and defiant manner, offers his naive resistance to the ruling powers. This time, his doggedness is directed against the Russian occupiers, whose inhuman severity jeopardizes the happiness of two lovers. Although Elena and Gustl are brought together by fate, it is Karl Bockerer who leads them both with skill and cunning out of the danger zone.
- DirectorFranz AntelStarsKarl MerkatzAlexander WussowCaroline VasicekVienna, 1956. Viennese butcher Karl Bockerer goes to Hungary to buy meat. Along with his foster son and grandchild, he is caught up in the turmoil of the Hungarian revolt against the Soviet occupiers.
- DirectorMichael SturmingerStarsChulpan KhamatovaPredrag 'Miki' ManojlovicStanislav LisnicOzren is a small boy of Croatian descent who lives in Vienna with his mother, Silvija in the mid-1980s. As a single parent she emigrated to Vienna from the former Yugoslavia in the hope of a better life. Like any child, he very much looks up to his mother. She is a waitress and when she goes out to work at night, his aunt, Ljiljana comes to take care of him. Then we see him back in elementary school, where he is called as whore's boy. Although he does not understand the meaning of the swear word, he is intrigued by it: his mother works as a waitress, right?
- DirectorThomas RothStarsManuel RubeyPatricia AulitzkyChristian TramitzThe life story of 1980s Austrian superstar Falco, the man behind the monster hit "Rock Me, Amadeus." The story of Johann "Falco" Hölzel from his childhood, the road from a band to his solo career, to his tragic death.
- DirectorNiki ListHans SelikovskyStarsAndreas VitásekBarbara RudnikChristian SchmidtPrivate detective Max Müller and his assistent Larry try to solve a crime but find themselves in strange bars and women.
- StarsWalter DavyCurt A. TichyBibiane Zeller"Kottan ermittelt" ("Kottan investigates") is one of the defining moments of Austrian television. Masquerading as a police/crime series, it is actually a fierce anarchic satire on the Austrian police and Austrian society in general. There are no heroes, only anti-heroes, and the police officers, all incompetent caricatures to varying degrees, often solve their cases more by chance than through actual investigation. Major Kottan (the name is a spoof of hardboiled German dime-novel hero Jerry Cotton) was played by no less than three actors over the course of the series, each giving the character a fairly distinct personality: grumpy, prejudiced misanthrope; sarcastic cynic; and anarchic nihilist--the common factor being that each is too caught up in his own preconceptions to actually solve the case. Then there's Inspector Schrammel, who is an incompetent clown; and Police Commissioner Pilch, who is obsessed with catching flies in the early episodes and getting coffee from a mischievous coffee machine in the later episodes, so it is up to one-legged invalid Inspector Schremser to solve most of the murders. The early episodes contain some of the best moments of fierce social satire ever shown on Austrian television, exposing the "golden heart" of the Viennese as brutal backstabbing and showing the rotten core hiding behind the pretty facades--the postman who rings twice and the decapitated garden gnomes being just two truly great moments. Over time, running gags and moments of truly Pythonesque humor were introduced and continued, until the series turned into an absurd, sometimes even surreal slapstick comedy.
- DirectorErnst MarischkaStarsRomy SchneiderKarlheinz BöhmMagda SchneiderIn the first of a trilogy of movies about Elisabeth "Sissi" of Austria, the vibrant young princess catches the eye of her sister's fiancé, Emperor Franz Josef.
- DirectorErnst MarischkaStarsRomy SchneiderKarlheinz BöhmMagda SchneiderThe second in a trilogy of movies about Elisabeth "Sissi" of Austria, the film chronicles the married life of the young empress as she tries to adjust to formal and strict life in the palace and an overbearing mother-in-law.
- DirectorErnst MarischkaStarsRomy SchneiderKarlheinz BöhmMagda SchneiderThe final film in a highly romanticized trilogy about Elisabeth "Sissi" of Austria finds the young empress traveling throughout Europe.
- StarsMax von ThunVittoria PucciniOmar SharifA retelling of the tragic love affair between Austrian Archduke Rudolf and Baroness Mary Vetsera.
- DirectorTerence YoungStarsOmar SharifCatherine DeneuveJames MasonBased on real life events that led to tragic deaths of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and his lover Baroness Mary Vetsera.