Last year the film director Edgar Reitz celebrated his 90th birthday. He is best known for his series Heimat which charts the lives of a family in the Hunsrück region of Germany throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. To mark his 90th birthday the autobiography Filmzeit, Lebenszeit (C219.c.2371) was published in October 2022 in which Reitz offers us a detailed insight into his development as a film director. I was particularly interested in the chapters covering his early career as I had recently cataloged a brochure (CCA.60.792) documenting the fascinating multi-media project “VariaVision” from 1965. This brochure is part of the library of Walter Schobert, former director of the Filmmuseum Frankfurt, which the University Library received as a donation and is a unique resource for film studies. Continue reading “Edgar Reitz – VariaVision “
Tag: Walter Schobert cinema collection
German fiction in the Schobert film collection
Processing of two large collections of cinema books, totalling several thousand titles, is currently in progress. Cataloguing of the Glynne Parker collection is well advanced, and specific items have already been the basis of posts on the European languages across borders blog. Rather more work remains to be done before processing of the Walter Schobert collection is completed. A film historian whom I recently took to view the two collections is sure they include many titles not otherwise available in national libraries.
The Parker and Schobert collections complement each other remarkably well. To the limited extent in which they duplicate each other, and existing holdings in the University Library, it is in the English language component, but for neither collection is English the largest language grouping. The emphasis of the Parker collection is on French and Italian material, whilst among Schobert’s books German language material predominates.
Continue reading “German fiction in the Schobert film collection”
Luchino Visconti : a lecture on his theatre and opera
A lecture on Visconti will be given by the Italian journalist and writer, Gaia Servadio, on Monday 30th June.
Luchino Visconti di Modrone was born in 1906 in Milan. He was a director and screenwriter, directing plays, films and opera, developing, with others, the movement of “Italian neo-realism” in the 40s and 50s. Although he is probably best known for his films Rocco and his Brothers (1960), The Leopard (1963) and Death In Venice (1971), his opera and theatre productions were lavish and highly acclaimed. He died on March 1976 in Rome. Continue reading “Luchino Visconti : a lecture on his theatre and opera”
Languages across Borders 