ARMIN MUELLER-

ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL
A retrospective at the Northwest Film Center, Portland, Oregon

In a career spanning over 40 years and more than 100 films, actor Armin Müeller-Stahl is at once familiar and unknown. For the first two decades of his career, his performances were in East German films, works which did not easily cross borders. In the 70s, blacklisted because he protested against the treatment of another artist, his career stalled. Emigrating to West Germany in 1980, the second stage of his career blossomed as he worked with directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Istvan Szabo and Agnieszka Holland among others. Most recently seen in such U.S. productions as Barry Levinson's AVALON, Costa Gavras' MUSIC BOX, Jim Jarmusch's NIGHT ON EARTH and Chris Carter's THE X-FILES, Müeller-Stahl received an Academy Award nomination for his role as David Helfgott's father in SHINE. The Film Center is pleased to present this select retrospective showcasing rarely seen films of this consummate actor who embodies the characters he plays with such authenticity and shades of emotion he appears to be an architect of the soul. Organized by the Goethe-Institute, Washington, D.C. by Sylvia Blume. Two key works, FIVE EMPTY CARTRIDGES and PRIVATE PARTY, have been subtitled especially for this retrospective.

9 DECEMBER
WED 7 P.M.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL   PORTLAND PREMIERE
NAKED AMONG WOLVES
EAST GERMANY, 1963
DIRECTOR: FRANK BEYER
One of the first dramatic films, made in the East or West, to deal with the issue of the Nazi concentration camps, Frank Beyer's (JACOB THE LIAR) early masterpiece was based on a novel by Bruno Apitz, himself a camp inmate. In Buchenwald during the spring of 1945, American troops are advancing and the prisoners fear their SS captors will quickly execute them. With Armin Müeller-Stahl in a principal role, a secret camp resistance group organized by Communist inmates decides this is their last chance for an uprising—and possible freedom. Their plans are jeopardized, however, by the arrival of a new prisoner with a small boy hidden in his suitcase. One of the most powerful anti-fascist films made in East Germany, with indelibly written characters, NAKED AMONG WOLVES easily draws positive comparison to SCHINDLER'S LIST in its ability to portray the triumph of human spirit. (124 mins.)

10 DECEMBER
THUR 7 P.M.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL   PORTLAND PREMIERE
PRIVATE PARTY (AKA NO EXIT)
EAST GERMANY, 1978
DIRECTOR: FRANK BEYER
"One of several Frank Beyer works to run into political difficulties with the censorious East German authorities (Beyer's THE TRACE OF STONES, THE HIDING PLACE, and HELD FOR QUESTIONING were all also banned or suppressed at one time or another), this 1978 television film was broadcast in the GDR but once, late at night, and then promptly shelved until 1990. PRIVATE PARTY features Armin Müeller-Stahl and Jutta Hoffman as a couple on vacation with their 11-year-old son. When they unexpectedly find themselves the only guests at a resort complex, their holiday becomes the occasion for some difficult soul-searching, as unresolved conflicts and submerged resentments begin to surface, and they are forced to come to terms with the pain they have inflicted on themselves and their child. PRIVATE PARTY offers a contemplative, uncompromising, provocative look at the human struggle with the truth; its intimate tale of one couple confronting problems and conflicts long swept under the carpet was very much intended as an allegory for the larger frustrations and failures of East German society."—Pacific Cinematheque. (118 mins.)

12 DECEMBER
DOUBLE FEATURE
SAT 7 P.M.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL   PORTLAND PREMIERE
THE MOVIE TELLER
GERMANY, 1993
DIRECTOR: BERNHARD SINKEL
Like CINEMA PARADISO, THE MOVIE TELLER evokes a bygone era, when movie going didn't mean queuing up at a multiplex. In this tender, inter-generational story, Armin Müeller-Stahl is the kinoerzähler (the movie teller), a man who narrates silent films on stage, describing the unfolding events on screen—the laughter and the tears, the lands of enchantment and, most importantly for the movie teller, the most beautiful women in the world. Working at the Apollo in Babelsberg (site of the famed studio where many of the great German silent films were made), dressed in his tuxedo and holding his violin, he considers himself an artist—the screen's equal and necessary companion. But with the imminent coming of sound, his career is in jeopardy. Armin Müeller-Stahl inhabits the role of the movie teller, a man so consumed by this threat to his livelihood, he ignores the growing crisis of his marriage and the larger political events unfolding around him. As seen through the eyes of the movie teller's grandson, direrctor Bernhard Sinkel has crafted "...a deceptively simple saga made of rich fabric and imbued with often chilling and resonant echoes."—Variety. (100 mins.)
AND
9 P.M.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL   PORTLAND PREMIERE
NAKED AMONG WOLVES
EAST GERMANY, 1963
DIRECTOR: FRANK BEYER
Repeat of 9 Wednesday program.

14 DECEMBER
MON 7 P.M.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL   PORTLAND PREMIERE
THE ESCAPE
EAST GERMANY, 1977
DIRECTOR: ROLAND GRAF
Armin Müeller-Stahl is Dr. Schmit, a conscientious obstetrician living in a provincial town in the GDR. Working in relative obscurity, he grows increasingly disenfranchised when the local administrators dismiss his research ideas. Entering into a dangerous contract to be smuggled into the West to assume a medical directorship, Schmit finds his predicament more than unsettling. The local authorities are rethinking their position and he has fallen in love with a female colleague. Roland Gräf's unusual East German film, dealing as it does with the subject of illegal emigration and Western body-brokers, offers a view of a defector that differed dramatically from East German propaganda. In this gripping story of love, blackmail and deceit, Müeller-Stahl embodies the role of a well-intentioned gentleman who must choose between the state and his own soul. (94 mins.)

15 DECEMBER
TUES 7 P.M.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL   PORTLAND PREMIERE
UTZ
GREAT BRITAIN, GERMANY, ITALY, 1992
DIRECTOR: GEORGE SLUZIER
"This adaptation of Bruce Chatwin's novel provides us with a loving and rich portrait of that eccentric species: the collector. In the case of Baron Kaspar Joachim von Utz, resident of Prague, his obsession is the beautiful, decorative and finely detailed Messein porcelain figures which enjoy an international reputation. Even as a child Utz was obsessed with these small, endlessly evocative statuettes. During World War 11 and under the communist regime, when other collectors were forced to sell their collections Utz managed to build his treasure through a ruthless combination of dedication and willpower. Living in a small apartment, tended to by a faithful housekeeper who holds many of his secrets, Utz is a man cut off from the world around him, at the service of his collection and nothing more. Armin Müeller-Stahl gives a finely modulated and distinguished performance as the aristocratic Utz, whose single-minded dedication to his collection beautifully captures both the dignity and limitations of the man. Peter Riegert plays a New York gallery owner and art dealer who has cultivated a relationship with Utz over time and who hopes to buy parts of the old man's collection. The relationship between the two men is drawn with conviction by Sluizer (THE VANISHING), and the enigma of Utz provides an endlessly engrossing canvas for him to explore questions surrounding art, the collector, and a set of values which are in the process of disappearing. "—Toronto Festival of Festivals. (98 mins.)

22 DECEMBER
TUES 7 P.M.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL   PORTLAND PREMIERE
THE SPIDER'S WEB
GERMANY, 1989
DIRECTOR: BERNHARD WICKI
This powerful epic, based on the prophetic novel by Austrian writer Joseph Roth, is considered veteran director Bernhard Wicki's (DIE BRUKE) magnum opus. Straddling both sides of the tumultuous year of 1923, the story chronicles the rise of an overly ambitious and unscrupulous German Navy lieutenant, Theodor Lohse (Ulrich Muhe), whose career takes off when he joins a secret right-wing extremist organization headed by Baron von Rastschuk (Armin Müeller-Stahl). As our anti-hero Lohse begins spinning a web of betrayal and murder, he ensnares both friend and foe alike. His increasing power and plundering seem unstoppable until he meets up with Jewish anarchist and double agent Benjamin Lenz (Klaus Maria Brandauer, MEPHISTO, COLONEL REDL). Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, THE SPIDER'S WEB is an impressively mounted production that fully evokes the foreboding times of post-World War II Europe. (198 mins.)

23 DECEMBER
WED 7 P.M.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL   PORTLAND PREMIERE
BRONSTEIN'S CHILDREN
GERMANY, 1990
DIRECTOR: JERZY KAWALEROWICZ
The emotional shrapnel of the Holocaust, its ongoing anguish, has edured long after the events of the war. In BRONSTEIN'S CHILDREN by one of Poland's most gifted filmmakers, Jerzy Kawalerowicz (DEATH OF A PRESIDENT), set in East Berlin in 1973, 18-year-old Hans (Matthias Paul), journeys to his family's cottage in the woods for a tryst with his girlfriend. When he arrives, he makes a bizarre discovery—his father (Armin Müeller-Stahl) and two strangers interrogating and beating an old man handcuffed to a bed. As events unfold, we learn the father and his accomplices are Jewish survivors and the man being held captive was the commandant of the Nazi concentration camp where they were held. The son pleads with his father to turn the man over to the authorities, but is rebuked. Over the next few days and at the center of the film, is the intense moral battle that takes place between father and son, a battle compounded by their already complex and difficult relationship. Like Bryan Singer's APT PUPIL, the effects of the Holocaust across generations is deftly explored in this bold adaptation of Jurek Becker's novel. (98 mins.)

30 DECEMBER
WED 7 P.M.
ARMIN MUELLER-STAHL: ARCHITECT OF THE SOUL   PORTLAND PREMIERE
FIVE EMPTY CARTRIDGES
EAST GERMANY, 1960
DIRECTOR: FRANK BEYER
One of three works in this Armin Müeller-Stahl retrospective directed by Frank Beyer, FIVE EMPTY CARTRIDGES is set during the Spanish Civil War and focuses on five soldiers, each from a different country, who receive a top secret plan from their dying commanding officer. These five members of an international brigade, trapped behind enemy lines, are each given a part of the plan which is hidden among five cartridge casings. Their mission, to smuggle the plan back to their home base, proves a treacherous journey that tests the limits of their endurance and friendship. It is only upon their arrival that the true nature of the mission is revealed. "Had it been made in the U.S. with a big budget and famous stars, I believe it would have become a cult movie"—Armin Müeller-Stahl. (88 mins.)