Margit Carstensen
Encyclopedia
Margit Carstensen is a German
theatre and film actress, best known outside Germany for roles in the works of film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder
.
in 1958, she attended acting school in Hamburg
.http://www.filmportal.de/df/e5/Uebersicht,,,,,,,,B49F2B2EE0CB48768E5AA6E82AD0B274,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html This education led to her first stage appearances in Kleve
, Heilbronn
, Münster
and Braunschweig
. In 1965 Margit Carstensen received a four year engagement with the Deutsches Schauspielhaus (German Playhouse) in Hamburg. There she played leading roles in plays by, among others, John Osborne
and the classical Spanish playwright Lope de Vega
.
In 1969 she gained local fame in the Theater am Goetheplatz in Bremen
, where she met director Rainer Werner Fassbinder
.http://www.prisma-online.de/tv/person.html?pid=margit_carstensen She then worked under his direction in a comedy by the eighteenth century Venetian Carlo Goldoni
The Coffee Shop (which was recorded for television in 1970), bringing her to national fame. She subsequently played the role of serial murderess Geesche Gottfried in the premiere of Fassbinder’s own play Bremen Freedom (also televised, in 1972), and then in the title role of his Henrik Ibsen
adaptation Nora Helmer (televised in 1974) derived from A Doll's House
.
From 1973-76 Carstensen held a steady acting engagement in Darmstadt
, and from 1976-77 once again in Hamburg. In 1977 she moved to what was then West Berlin
, where she performed on the highly-regarded Staatliche Schauspielbühnen. In 1982 she moved to Stuttgart
in order to work with director Hansgünther Heyme, where she appeared in a series of plays directed by him.http://www.deutsches-filmhaus.de/bio_sie/a-e_sie/carstensen_margit_bio.htm Over the years she also performed in many smaller roles on the most important of the German-language stages, for example making several appearances in the Munich Kammerspiele
.
By the late 1980s she had developed ongoing working relationships with well-known German directors Werner Schroeter
, Christoph Schlingensief
and Leander Haußmann
.http://www.bad-hersfelder-festspiele.de/index.php?rubrik=6&content=306 In 1995 she followed Haußmann to Bochum
, in order to work with him there http://www.deutsches-filmhaus.de/bio_sie/a-e_sie/carstensen_margit_bio.htm. For the season of 2003/04 Ms. Carstensen appeared in the Vienna
Burgtheater
, in the premiere of Elfriede Jelinek
’s play “Bambiland,” under direction of Schlingensief.http://www.schlingensief.com/projekt_eng.php?id=t041
In 2008 she appeared in the Schauspielhaus Bochum (Playhouse Bochum), in Shakespeare's As You Like It
.http://www.schauspielhaus-bochum.de/spielplan/detail.php?&bereich=spielplan&subbereich=repertoire&id_event_cluster=246853
in which she acted. She played leading roles in the Fassbinder films The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
(1972), her best-known role for Fassbinder; Martha
(1974), with Karlheinz Böhm
, analysing a traditional marriage in a contemporary setting; Fear of Fear (1975); Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven
(1975); Satan's Brew (1976); Chinese Roulette
(1976) and Women in New York (1977). She also appeared in individual episodes of two Fassbinder television productions: Eight Hours Are Not a Day (1972), and Berlin Alexanderplatz
(1980). http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant/participant.jsp?spid=796940&apid=0
Carstensen also participated in international productions. In the third film made by Polish director Andrzej Żuławski, Possession
(1981), a French-German coproduction, she performed together with Isabelle Adjani
, Sam Neill
und Heinz Bennent
. Four years later she worked with Polish-born director Agnieszka Holland
on her film Angry Harvest
(1985), together with Armin Mueller-Stahl
.http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant/participant.jsp?spid=796940&apid=0 This film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
.
Her artistic collaboration with director Christoph Schlingensief
began with two of his film projects. In his Adolf Hitler - A Hundred Years: The Last Hours in the Führer’s Bunker (1989), she played the part of Magda Goebbels. In his satirical political spoof Terror 2000: Intensive Care Germany (1992), she played the role of a Detective.
Carstensen has appeared in films by directors such as Leander Haußmann
(Sonnenallee
, 1999); Romuald Karmakar
(Manila, 2000); Chris Kraus
(Scherbentanz, 2002, a role for which she won the Bavarian Film Award
for Best Actress)http://www.filmportal.de/df/e5/Uebersicht,,,,,,,,B49F2B2EE0CB48768E5AA6E82AD0B274,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html; Oskar Roehler (Agnes and His Brothers
, 2004) and Detlev Buck
(Hands off Mississippi, 2007).
Over the 2007/08 season Carstensen assisted with the Austrian-German TV documentary Mr. Karl – A Person for People, directed by Kurt Mayer.http://www.filmportal.de/df/e5/Uebersicht,,,,,,,,B49F2B2EE0CB48768E5AA6E82AD0B274,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html
, for her acting in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant,http://www.filmportal.de/df/e5/Uebersicht,,,,,,,,B49F2B2EE0CB48768E5AA6E82AD0B274,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html and the 2002 Bavarian Film Award, for her acting in Scherbentanz. In 1972 she was chosen by the German Film Critics Guild as Best Actress of the Year.http://www.agentur-jovanovic.de/Klientel/Actress/carstensen.htm
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
theatre and film actress, best known outside Germany for roles in the works of film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
.
Theater career
Margit Carstensen is the daughter of a physician, and was born and raised in the north-German city of Kiel. Upon graduation from the local GymnasiumGymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in 1958, she attended acting school in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
.http://www.filmportal.de/df/e5/Uebersicht,,,,,,,,B49F2B2EE0CB48768E5AA6E82AD0B274,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html This education led to her first stage appearances in Kleve
Kleve
Kleve , is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century onwards, Kleve was capital of a county and later a duchy...
, Heilbronn
Heilbronn
Heilbronn is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is completely surrounded by Heilbronn County and with approximately 123.000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state....
, Münster
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
and Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
. In 1965 Margit Carstensen received a four year engagement with the Deutsches Schauspielhaus (German Playhouse) in Hamburg. There she played leading roles in plays by, among others, John Osborne
John Osborne
John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
and the classical Spanish playwright Lope de Vega
Lope de Vega
Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright and poet. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century Baroque literature...
.
In 1969 she gained local fame in the Theater am Goetheplatz in Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
, where she met director Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
.http://www.prisma-online.de/tv/person.html?pid=margit_carstensen She then worked under his direction in a comedy by the eighteenth century Venetian Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
The Coffee Shop (which was recorded for television in 1970), bringing her to national fame. She subsequently played the role of serial murderess Geesche Gottfried in the premiere of Fassbinder’s own play Bremen Freedom (also televised, in 1972), and then in the title role of his Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
adaptation Nora Helmer (televised in 1974) derived from A Doll's House
A Doll's House
A Doll's House is a three-act play in prose by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premièred at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month....
.
From 1973-76 Carstensen held a steady acting engagement in Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
, and from 1976-77 once again in Hamburg. In 1977 she moved to what was then West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
, where she performed on the highly-regarded Staatliche Schauspielbühnen. In 1982 she moved to Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
in order to work with director Hansgünther Heyme, where she appeared in a series of plays directed by him.http://www.deutsches-filmhaus.de/bio_sie/a-e_sie/carstensen_margit_bio.htm Over the years she also performed in many smaller roles on the most important of the German-language stages, for example making several appearances in the Munich Kammerspiele
Munich Kammerspiele
The Munich Kammerspiele is a successful German language theatre in Munich. The Schauspielhaus in the Maximilianstrasse is the major stage.-History:...
.
By the late 1980s she had developed ongoing working relationships with well-known German directors Werner Schroeter
Werner Schroeter
Werner Schroeter was a German film director and screenwriter, who some consider among the most important German writer-directors of the post-war period.-Biography:...
, Christoph Schlingensief
Christoph Schlingensief
Christoph Maria Schlingensief was a German film and theatre director, actor, artist, and author. Starting as an independent underground filmmaker, Schlingensief later began staging productions for theatres and festivals, which often were accompanied by public controversies...
and Leander Haußmann
Leander Haußmann
Leander Haußmann is a German theatre and film director.The son of actor Ezard Haußmann and costume designer Doris Haußmann, he attended the Ernst Busch theatre school in Berlin....
.http://www.bad-hersfelder-festspiele.de/index.php?rubrik=6&content=306 In 1995 she followed Haußmann to Bochum
Bochum
Bochum is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr area and is surrounded by the cities of Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Castrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Witten and Hattingen.-History:...
, in order to work with him there http://www.deutsches-filmhaus.de/bio_sie/a-e_sie/carstensen_margit_bio.htm. For the season of 2003/04 Ms. Carstensen appeared in the Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
Burgtheater
Burgtheater
The Burgtheater , originally known as K.K. Theater an der Burg, then until 1918 as the K.K. Hofburgtheater, is the Austrian National Theatre in Vienna and one of the most important German language theatres in the world.The Burgtheater was created in 1741 and has become known as "die Burg" by the...
, in the premiere of Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek
Elfriede Jelinek is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004 for her "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that, with extraordinary linguistic zeal, reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."-...
’s play “Bambiland,” under direction of Schlingensief.http://www.schlingensief.com/projekt_eng.php?id=t041
In 2008 she appeared in the Schauspielhaus Bochum (Playhouse Bochum), in Shakespeare's As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
.http://www.schauspielhaus-bochum.de/spielplan/detail.php?&bereich=spielplan&subbereich=repertoire&id_event_cluster=246853
Film and television
Carstensen is best known outside Germany for the many film and television productions of Rainer Werner FassbinderRainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
in which she acted. She played leading roles in the Fassbinder films The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is a 1972 German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, based on his own play. This film has an all female cast and is set in the home of the protagonist, Petra von Kant. It follows the changing dynamics in her relationships with the other women...
(1972), her best-known role for Fassbinder; Martha
Martha (1974 film)
Martha is a 1974 drama film made for German television which was directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It features Margit Carstensen in the title role with Karlheinz Böhm as her abusive husband. It is one of the earliest of Fassbinder's films to be influenced by the American work of Douglas Sirk...
(1974), with Karlheinz Böhm
Karlheinz Böhm
Karlheinz Böhm is an Austrian actor. The son of conductor Karl Böhm, he is best known internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell...
, analysing a traditional marriage in a contemporary setting; Fear of Fear (1975); Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven
Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven
Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven is a 1975 German film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It stars Brigitte Mira, Ingrid Caven, Karlheinz Böhm and Margit Carstensen. The film was shot over 20 days in February - March 1975 in Frankfurt am Main....
(1975); Satan's Brew (1976); Chinese Roulette
Chinese Roulette
Chinese Roulette is a 1976 German film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It stars Margit Carstensen, Ulli Lommel and Anna Karina. The film, a bleak psychological drama, centers on a truth guessing game, which gives the film its title...
(1976) and Women in New York (1977). She also appeared in individual episodes of two Fassbinder television productions: Eight Hours Are Not a Day (1972), and Berlin Alexanderplatz
Berlin Alexanderplatz (television)
Berlin Alexanderplatz, originally broadcast in 1980, is a 14-part television film adapted and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder from the Alfred Döblin novel of the same name, and stars Günter Lamprecht, Hanna Schygulla, Barbara Sukowa, Elisabeth Trissenaar and Gottfried John...
(1980). http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant/participant.jsp?spid=796940&apid=0
Carstensen also participated in international productions. In the third film made by Polish director Andrzej Żuławski, Possession
Possession (1981 film)
Possession is a 1981 cult horror film directed by Andrzej Żuławski.-Plot:Mark returns home to Berlin to find his wife Anna is leaving him for unclear reasons. He initially suspects an affair and hires detectives to track her, but gradually discovers clues that something far stranger is afoot...
(1981), a French-German coproduction, she performed together with Isabelle Adjani
Isabelle Adjani
Isabelle Yasmine Adjani is a French film actress and singer. Adjani has appeared in 30 films since 1970. She holds the record for most César Awards for Best Actress with five, for Possession , One Deadly Summer , Camille Claudel , Queen Margot and Skirt Day...
, Sam Neill
Sam Neill
Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
und Heinz Bennent
Heinz Bennent
Heinz Bennent was a German actor.Bennent was born in Stolberg, Rhineland, and served in the Luftwaffe during World War II. His career began after the end of World War II in Göttingen. He moved to Switzerland in the 1970s, where he lived until his death at age 90...
. Four years later she worked with Polish-born director Agnieszka Holland
Agnieszka Holland
Agnieszka Holland is a Polish film and TV director and screenwriter. Best recognized for her highly political contributions to Polish cinema, Holland is one of Poland's most prominent filmmakers.-Personal life:...
on her film Angry Harvest
Angry Harvest
Angry Harvest is a 1985 West German film directed by Agnieszka Holland. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It is based on a novel written by Hermann Field and Stanislaw Mierzenski while they were imprisoned by the Polish government in the early 1950s...
(1985), together with Armin Mueller-Stahl
Armin Mueller-Stahl
Armin Mueller-Stahl is a German film actor, painter, writer and musician.-Early life:Mueller-Stahl was born in Tilsit, East Prussia...
.http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant/participant.jsp?spid=796940&apid=0 This film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
.
Her artistic collaboration with director Christoph Schlingensief
Christoph Schlingensief
Christoph Maria Schlingensief was a German film and theatre director, actor, artist, and author. Starting as an independent underground filmmaker, Schlingensief later began staging productions for theatres and festivals, which often were accompanied by public controversies...
began with two of his film projects. In his Adolf Hitler - A Hundred Years: The Last Hours in the Führer’s Bunker (1989), she played the part of Magda Goebbels. In his satirical political spoof Terror 2000: Intensive Care Germany (1992), she played the role of a Detective.
Carstensen has appeared in films by directors such as Leander Haußmann
Leander Haußmann
Leander Haußmann is a German theatre and film director.The son of actor Ezard Haußmann and costume designer Doris Haußmann, he attended the Ernst Busch theatre school in Berlin....
(Sonnenallee
Sonnenallee
Sonnenallee is a 1999 comedy film about life in East Berlin in the late 1970s. The movie was directed by Leander Haußmann. The film was released shortly before the corresponding novel, Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee...
, 1999); Romuald Karmakar
Romuald Karmakar
Romuald Karmakar is a German film director and screenwriter. He was born in Wiesbaden as the son of an Indian father and a French mother. From 1977 to 1982 he lived in Athens. He won several awards, including the Bavarian Film Award for Best Screenplay...
(Manila, 2000); Chris Kraus
Chris Kraus (filmmaker)
Chris Kraus , born 1963 in Göttingen, is a German author and film director.-Life and work:Chris Kraus was employed as a journalist and illustrator before attending the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin from 1991–98, where he studied film directing...
(Scherbentanz, 2002, a role for which she won the Bavarian Film Award
Bayerischer Filmpreis
The Bavarian Film Awards have been awarded annually since 1979 by the State Government of Bavaria in Germany for “exceptional achievement in German filmmaking.” Along with the German Film Awards, these are the most highly regarded awards for filmmaking achievement in Germany.The Bavarian Film...
for Best Actress)http://www.filmportal.de/df/e5/Uebersicht,,,,,,,,B49F2B2EE0CB48768E5AA6E82AD0B274,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html; Oskar Roehler (Agnes and His Brothers
Agnes and His Brothers
-Cast:* Martin Weiß as Agnes Tschirner* Moritz Bleibtreu as Hans-Jörg Tschirner* Herbert Knaup as Werner Tschirner* Katja Riemann as Signe* Tom Schilling as Ralf* Suzan Anbeh as Desiree* Vadim Glowna as Günther* Margit Carstensen as Roxy...
, 2004) and Detlev Buck
Detlev Buck
Detlev Buck is a German film director and actor.-Life and work:From his first short film at the age of 21 in 1982, Erst die Arbeit und dann?, he has remained one of the most important filmmakers working in Germany...
(Hands off Mississippi, 2007).
Over the 2007/08 season Carstensen assisted with the Austrian-German TV documentary Mr. Karl – A Person for People, directed by Kurt Mayer.http://www.filmportal.de/df/e5/Uebersicht,,,,,,,,B49F2B2EE0CB48768E5AA6E82AD0B274,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html
Awards
Margit Carstensen has received many awards in her career. Among these are the 1973 German Film Awards (Gold)Deutscher Filmpreis
The Deutscher Filmpreis is the highest German movie award. From 1951 to 2004 it was awarded by a commission, since 2005 the award has been given by the Deutsche Filmakademie...
, for her acting in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant,http://www.filmportal.de/df/e5/Uebersicht,,,,,,,,B49F2B2EE0CB48768E5AA6E82AD0B274,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.html and the 2002 Bavarian Film Award, for her acting in Scherbentanz. In 1972 she was chosen by the German Film Critics Guild as Best Actress of the Year.http://www.agentur-jovanovic.de/Klientel/Actress/carstensen.htm
Filmography
|
Derrick (TV series) Derrick is a German TV series produced by Telenova Film und Fernsehproduktion in association with ZDF, ORF and SRG between 1974 and 1998 about Detective Chief Inspector Stephan Derrick and his loyal assistant Inspector Harry Klein , who solve murder cases in Munich and surroundings Derrick is a... (TV series, episode “Wer bist du, Vater?”/“Who are you, Father?”) |
External links
- Margit Carstensen in the Internet Movie Database
- Her Agent Page with a current photographPhotographA photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
(German)