ARTE – WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17 AT 10:30 P.M. – DOCUMENTARY
Her bright smile, her diaphanous complexion and her clear eyes still strike the heart. Over time, the figure has thickened, but Hanna Schygulla continues to impress with her beauty, talent and humor tinged with melancholy.
Between her Parisian house in the Marais, where she lives most of the time, and her Berlin apartment, between voice recordings and shootings, life continues unabated, even, above all, at 77 years old. Filmed by André Schäfer, who signs a magnificent portrait of the actress, Hanna Schygulla tells her life story. And we let ourselves be carried away.
She remembers her childhood as a refugee: “My first home was on a train! I was one of the refugees who had left Silesia for Bavaria. The train got stuck near Munich. We lived in a wagon during the first weeks of the summer of 1945. This episode must have marked me. Space is the only luxury that interests me… ”
She speaks to the missing, who have meant so much to her, Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) in the lead. “Without you, actress Schygulla would never have existed!” “, she launches at the large black and white photo of the German director, who sits in his Parisian house, in the middle of a crowd of other portraits, objects and drawings.
Iconic roles
When images of extracts from Fassbinder films scroll on the screen, the presence of young Schygulla dazzles. Not only in Maria Braun’s Wedding (1979) or Lili marleen (1981), but also, long before these two emblematic roles, as in Love is colder than death (1969) or Effi Briest (1974).
“In my first roles, I was the symbol of Germany, while I was a child of refugees. Later, in European cinema, I always embodied the foreigner ”, she analyzes with a smile. However, it is not only Germany and France in his life. Hanna Schygulla has made a career in the United States, in Latin America. She speaks with immense tenderness of Alicia Bustamante (1935-2018), a great Cuban actress and director, who was her close friend for almost thirty years.
She talks about her thirteen years as a couple with Jean-Claude Carrière (1931-2021), her unfulfilled desire for motherhood, her curiosity still intact. “My most important role is my life. And it must be in motion, all the time, until my last breath ”, she assures, between two shoots.
Because Hanna Schygulla does not stop. Actress on short and feature films, lending her voice to an animated film (Crossing, by Florence Miailhe, in 2021), activities with Berlin families caring for young refugees, singing, discovering distant music, life is too short not to enjoy it.
On all sets, his professionalism and humor are impressive. The young directors are amazed and under the spell, the others too: “I dreamed of touring with Hanna”, admits François Ozon, who offered him a strong and ambiguous role in Everything went well (2021), taken from Emmanuel Bernheim’s novel.
“Running away isn’t just escaping something. It is also saving oneself! “, she says, referring to her parents, whom she watched to the end. The refugee mocked at school by the Bavarians, the former student “Ultra-intellectual” became, by the grace of a meeting with Fassbinder, actress out of the ordinary, still has beautiful things to live.
Hanna Schygulla, a free muse, documentary by André Schäfer (Germany, 2021, 52 min).