March 31 - Volker Schlöndorff

Happy 81st Birthday, Volker Schlöndorff! Born today in 1939, this German screenwriter, producer and film director was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

This also included Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Margarethe von Trottaan. 

  

Among his credits, Schlöndorff is best known for co-writing and directing the 1979 West German/French/Polish/Yugoslavian war drama film 'Die Blechtrommel' ('The Tin Drum'). 

  

Adapted from Günter Grass' eponymous 1959 historical political magic realism bildungsroman novel, the film tells of Oskar Matzerath (David Bennent), who is a very unusual boy.  

  

Refusing to leave the womb until promised a tin drum by his mother, Agnes (Angela Winkler), Oskar is reluctant to enter a world he sees as filled with hypocrisy and injustice, and vows on his third birthday to never grow up.  

  

Miraculously, he gets his wish. As the Nazis rise to power in Danzig, Oskar wills himself to remain a child, beating his tin drum incessantly and screaming in protest at the chaos surrounding him. 

  

For the film, Schlöndorff received the Palm d'Or at the 32nd Cannes Film Festival in May of that same year. The following year, he won an Oscar for Best International Feature Film at the 52nd Academy Awards in April 1980. 

  

Schlöndorff has been active from 1960–present. 

  

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