A star is someone who is loved by many and wants to be loved by everyone. Whether he is aware of it or hides his ambition behind defiance and snodwit does not play an important role. Lucia Schmid’s documentary begins where Kai Wessel’s feature film “Hilde” ended: with Hildegard Knef’s appearance in the Berlin Philharmonic. Accompanied by the Kurt Edelhagen orchestra, she sings her most famous song: “For me it should rain red roses”. The top title comes from its text: “I want everything.” On this occasion, the “Report on a concert” was also produced in 1968. In the scenes that Luzia Schmid uses from it, it becomes clear for the first time what will shape the rest of her documentary: Hildegard Knef’s professionalism. Schmid mainly uses material that was rotated for television: close -ups that have an overwhelming effect on the screen. Sion -sized Mrs. Knef: Her face with the black piping roofs who make their eyes appear brighter. To the nice German girl, which her explorers from Tobis looked into in 1943, or the face of the post -war period, which she showed in 1946 in the first German debris film, Wolfgang Staudtes “The Murderers are among us”, has only distinguished similarity. The sophisticated hair is more reminiscent of Julie Christie or Melina Mercouri. The PIN-UPS of the studios that this face does not correspond to Hollywood’s curvy ideal of beauty in the 1950s will still be shown. Demandowsky, head of production of the Tobis and confidants from Joseph Goebbels, gets to know and love. Your first marriage also seems to speak for a certain economy of feelings. In 1947 Hildegard Knef married the US officer Kurt Hirsch-the Jewish emigrant will later produce films-the Knef’s supporter Erich Pommer Prophet: “The marriage will take as long as you can be useful for her career.” Activate external content in 1952, marriage was divorced. Previously, Hirsch, just in her early twenties, placed his wife in Hollywood, where David O. Selznick made her under contract without ever producing a film with her. For their part, this was a “huge dumbbeit”, as Hildegard Knef expressly admits in an interview. She explains this with her youthful ambition. The star probably deserves that the director leaves her the sovereignty of interpretation. Most of Knef’s assessments are more reflected than the storm and urge pathos of some of their chanson texts suggest. The questions of the male interviewer, which are exceptionally, are sometimes not just boring, but even more intrusive than the camera. One wants to know whether she had already thought of suicide after failures. After a short time reflection, Hildegard Knef comes to the conclusion that she considers it to be presumptuous to put an end to him. In addition, she says on another occasion, failures are much more interesting. Her fate, with important directors, including Anatole Litvak, Carol Reed and Billy Wilder, mostly insignificant films, shares with stars like Brigitte Bardot. Only success is boring, so Hildegard Knef is right: Little is boring than a uninterrupted row of successes. So she does not save her professional flops, on the contrary, she can be proud of her repeated comebacks. Incidentally, she does not even say that she “reinvented” herself in her chanson texts; There is talk of “new development”. She also saves us the cliché of the strong woman. The Knef as a public person: scene picture from the documentary filmdpaim contrast to Romy Schneider, the other German -language film star of that time, she accepts the public as a necessary part of her profession. Her daughter Christina Antonia, called “Tinta”, suffered from this, who expresses herself with reluctant and understanding about her mother; She also mentions her all -dominating professional ambition. Likewise, the jealousy of the Knef, who probably contributed to the failure of her second marriage with David Cameron. The cooperation between the two led to Knef’s career as a singer and to the appearance of her autobiography “The gift Gaul”. The literary success may be even more surprising than the musical. And he is deserved, because compared to other autobiographies of celebrities, the book still looks remarkably unone -off today. In dependencies, there are no issue of the third husband Paul von Schell in the last act when Hildegard Knef has to deal with serious illnesses. She accompanied it from Schell until her death in 2002. A shy -looking man who, like the daughter Tinta, seems to have suffered from constant public relations. Both mention Knef’s dependence on various drugs; During interviews she smoked almost continuously, the pain stunned her with alcohol, tablets and morphine. Details are unnecessary. In the film everything remains uncommented, also the off-texts, read by Nina Kunzendorf, come from Hildegard Knef. This creates a kind of self -portrait, counteracted by the headlines of the tabloid press, which correspond to the reliable Bigotten Zeitgeist; Today’s does not have their say. Unfortunately, there are no moving pictures from her greatest success in America. Cole Porters musical “Silk Stockings” ran on Broadway for more than a year. “Hildegarde Neff” played the leading role 478 times the main role that Greta Garbo had embodied in Ernst Lubitsch’s “Ninotschka”. So Selznick’s baseless promise that he would make her “the new Garbo” almost fulfilled.
