Afterwards: “Vienna in Hollywood – Pioneers of Film Music” – on December 11th from 10:30 p.m. on ORF 2
Vienna (OTS) – The “kulturMontag” presented by Clarissa Stadler on December 11, 2023 presents a wide range of topics: The program deals, among other things, with the new film “Maestro” by Hollywood star Bradley Cooper about Leonard Bernstein, which was criticized for “Jewfacing”, and the magazine also throws On the occasion of the election to the EU Parliament next year, we take a look behind the scenes of European cultural policy and also provide first impressions of the new folk theater production “The Incommensurables”, the implementation of which uses artificial intelligence. Barbara Weissenbeck’s new documentary “Vienna in Hollywood – Pioneers of Film Music” (11:15 p.m.) will then be on the program.
Brilliant musician and bon vivant – Bradley Cooper’s criticized biopic about Leonard Bernstein
He is considered one of the greatest musical geniuses of the 20th century, was an exceptional conductor, pianist and brilliant composer – including the global hit “West Side Story”; he loved Marlboros, Ballantine’s Scotch – and his Chilean wife Felicia, with whom he had three children. But he also loved men like his student Tom Cothran, for whom he left the family. The mentally unstable artist – at the same time a baroque bon vivant – experienced phases of excessive greed for life that alternated with times of fear of artistic failure. He survived his pulmonary emphysema, which was diagnosed in his mid-20s, and his death, which was predicted to be very soon, until the age of 72. Hollywood star Bradley Cooper is now chronicling Bernstein’s extraordinary life in his biopic “Maestro”. The film, for which Cooper not only directed and wrote the film but also took on the lead role, premiered at the Venice Film Festival and sparked heated controversy. The accusation was “Jewfacing,” because Cooper portrayed the legendary US musician with an exaggerated nose and thus served Jewish stereotypes. Cooper justified himself by saying that he wanted to look as similar to Bernstein as possible in this emotional drama. “kulturMontag” meets RSO Vienna boss Marin Alsop, whose mentor was Leonard Bernstein, and talks to her about the film and the outstanding artist.
United in diversity? The European idea and cultural policy
The European Union is a success story of peace and prosperity. But in recent years the challenges seem to have overwhelmed the international community. Only 26 percent of EU citizens and 19 percent of people in Austria are convinced that things are going in the right direction. From the debt crisis to the migration issue, Europe is fighting for a geopolitically strong voice in global competition. Next June, the 27 EU member states will again elect their representatives to the European Parliament. Their representatives have extensive powers, such as participation in legislation in the EU or democratic control rights with regard to EU institutions. As far as culture is concerned, the representatives at the EU Council of Culture Ministers have suggested a European fairness process to improve the social conditions of artists. The background to the debate is the recent recommendations of an EU group of experts, which call for an EU framework for working conditions in the cultural sector, fair pay as a criterion in national and EU cultural funding programs and the strengthening of European cooperation. But how does the EU’s cultural policy actually work, what tasks does it pursue, what is funded and what measures are taken? The “KulturMontag” with an inventory.
Curtain up for AI – “The Incommensurables” in the Volkstheater
Digitalization and artificial intelligence are increasingly being used in the theater world. The new achievements open up unprecedented possibilities, especially in stage technology. The Vienna Volkstheater shows this with its current production:
The German artist collective around Nils Voges, brother of the current Volkstheater director, has taken on the multi-award-winning novel “The Incommensurables” by the Austrian author Raphaela Edelbauer. The story, which takes place in Vienna on the eve of the First World War, was adapted for the stage and incorporated artificial intelligence. The collective calls their genre format “Live Animation Cinema”, a mixture of classical theater, radio play, performance and video. It is a visually opulent journey through time that takes the audience through magnificent palaces and queer underworld bars and makes the atmosphere in Vienna during the crumbling Habsburg monarchy palpable. “kulturMontag” offers initial insights into the unusual project and spoke to the artist collective sputnic and leading actress Gerti Drassl.
New documentary “Vienna in Hollywood – Pioneers of Film Music” (11:15 p.m.)
Austria is known worldwide as a music country. Most people think of the world-famous sounds of Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss and other famous classical composers. But hardly anyone associates it with film music. Austria is also involved in this genre at a world-class level. The often emphasized difference between so-called serious and popular music for the great cinema temples of the time – it doesn’t hold up. Austria’s film music pioneers received classical training and created symphonic works before heading to Hollywood and achieving fame there.
In her film, Barbara Weissenbeck spans the spectrum from the beginnings of musical accompaniment to silent films, through the film music for “King Kong” composed in 1933 by the Austrian Max Steiner, to the crisis in the film music industry in the 1990s. Steiner, referred to as the “father of film music,” set off for Hollywood in 1929, composed around 200 soundtracks, was nominated for 24 Oscars and won three of them. But other giants of the genre who had to go into exile because of their Jewish origins are also honored: Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Hanns Eisler, a student of Arnold Schönberg and Erich Zeisl.
In her documentary, Barbara Weissenbeck also describes how film music became an “important war” instrument, both on this and the other side of the Atlantic. In 1938, the Wien Film and the Synchronhalle became the third largest film studio in Nazi Germany, in which all of the Nazi regime’s propaganda films were set to music. The synchronous stage created back then is now, decades later, one of the most booked studios for the production of contemporary Hollywood music.