Helge Schneider – “The Trimperclown”: Who asks why has already lost

There is an old and admittedly somewhat rubbed, but nevertheless true saying: it says that life write the best stories. The entertainer and musician Helge Schneider would probably agree without hesitation. He recently said that as an adolescent he had spent many afternoons in pedestrian zones-in “these Eduscho shops that no longer exist today”. There he simply listened to the people and thus randomly collected inspiration for his creative output. Today he calls these years his “Eduscho studies”.

And in fact, his work, which, so to speak, is based on the top guideline, is basically based on the simple principle of the mimicry. Schneider mimics word -finding disorders, dialects, irritating and irritated looks, bizarre everyday habits and regional oddities, turns them through the Schneider meat grinder of the absurdity and thus compresses them to great art – even if he would of course never call his work that. Sometimes he acts as an actor and director, sometimes as an entertainer and comedian, sometimes as a visual artist and writer, but above all: as a musician.

On the subject: Working and playing – the musician and entertainer Helge Schneider is now 70 years old

He learned to play the piano early on, at the age of five he already played pieces by Beethoven. Later, as a teenager, he discovered jazz for himself, which still represents his musical elixir. As a young adult, he studied music for two semesters, but then broke off. The anarchic free spirit Helge and the Piefig Academic World of the early seventies did not really match. Instead, he struggled as a freelance musician and also worked as a landscape gardener, street sweeper and decorator.

After he became a hybrid artist that is largely unknown to the West German Underground, but largely unknown to the mainstream, followed the commercial breakthrough with the famous hit “Katzeklo” from the album “Katzeklo” in the early nineties. But Schneider distrusted the success – while he wanted to play jazz, his audience awaited Klamauk. He felt increasingly restricted and finally pulled back from the stage for a few years. Public expectations have always been a horror. If they already exist, they only serve the purpose of breaking them.

But a life without a stage seemed possible, but senseless. So he soon returned to the public. And it seems that he has now found his peace with his presumably inevitable success. His concerts are regularly sold out, a year with 100 live appointments is more the rule than the exception. One reason for this is his obvious restlessness. Another the precarious life situation of the solo self-employed artist: He opened the ARD magazine “Brisant” two years ago that his tireless concert workload was also due to his chronic shortage of money.

The ARD’s offer may therefore not be completely inconvenient to shoot an autobiographical film documentary on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The film that he has made with his longtime musical partner-the guitarist Sandro Giampietro-is called “The Trimperclown” and which has recently been running in the ARD media library and in selected cinemas. However, if you know Schneider -and these are actually all -probably already suspects that he was told about a linear, in the warm -comfortable veil of authenticity, he would not let the strip wrapped.

Nd.Diewoche – Our weekly newsletter

With our weekly newsletter Organization Look at the most important topics of the week and read them Highlights our Saturday edition on Friday. Get the free subscription here.

In the film, reality and fiction, meaning and nonsense, real and wrong mix. And yet: In terms of expectations of a new Helge-Schneider film, “The Trimperclown” is almost sentimental. For example, he presents the audience early video recordings and photos that show him in the family environment with his parents and sisters in Mühlheim an der Ruhr – his hometown.

Rare can also be seen from that time when Schneider, as an almost unknown, anarchic cabaret artist roamed through the country. Other scenes show him in private interaction with friends, such as the pop singer Peter Kraus or the filmmaker and writer Alexander Kluge. At one point, the latter tells of the difficulty of the journalist to grasp tailors: “Questions that you are deliberately asked – you will notice that, and then you don’t answer.”

This observation can also be transferred to other parts of the film: In a bizarre scene, Schneider stages himself as a future professional boxer in training, and in another his birth is reproduced. This sudden, rapid comparison of reality and fiction is the entertainment value of the film. Of course, there is no form of meaningfulness, but that would also be an almost misleading expectation. Because who asks why has already lost at Helge Schneider.

Available in the ARD media library and in selected cinemas.