Urs Odermatt
Encyclopedia
Urs Odermatt is a Swiss film director and author.
After working for several years as a freelance journalist, film critic and photographer, Urs Odermatt trained to be a film director and screenwriter under the two Polish pastmasters Krzysztof Kieślowski
and Edward Żebrowski. He works in Germany and Switzerland as a director in film, television and theatre. In 1990 he founded the production company Nordwest Film AG with the cameraman Rainer Klausmann.
Urs Odermatt is the son of the Nidwalden photographer Arnold Odermatt
and has published his father’s work since 1993 (Springer & Winckler Galerie, Berlin; Steidl
Verlag, Göttingen). In 1992 during research for his feature film Wachtmeister Zumbühl (Constable Zumbühl), he discovered his father’s photo archive and grouped the works together into the collections entitled Meine Welt, Karambolage, Im Dienst and In zivil.
Urs Odermatt lives and works in Windisch
in Switzerland. [1]
Along with the cameramen, the Swiss Rainer Klausmann and Pole Piotr Lenar, the Munich composer of film music, Prof. Dr. Norbert J. Schneider (now known as Enjott Schneider
) also regularly work closely with Urs Odermatt.
In 1989, Gekauftes Glück was regarded by the press and cinemagoers as one Switzerland’s most successful films d’auteur. Critics praised the "careful choreography of the images make a pleasant change from the usual locquaciousness of the films d’auteurin the German language" (Frankfurter Rundschau, 11 March 1989).
Wachtmeister Zumbühl was unsettling in its claustrophobic depiction of the closed society of a small village, where everybody knows everbody else and all of their business, "the world in a water droplet" (Krzysztof Kieślowski).
Gekauftes Glück was awarded the R d'argento at the 1989 RiminiCinema Film Festival in Rimini.
Die Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden (Wiesbaden Film Assessment Board) commended Gekauftes Glück as recommended and Mein Kampf
as highly recommended.
Gollenstein Verlag, Blieskastel, ISBN 3-938823-07-0.
After working for several years as a freelance journalist, film critic and photographer, Urs Odermatt trained to be a film director and screenwriter under the two Polish pastmasters Krzysztof Kieślowski
Krzysztof Kieslowski
Krzysztof Kieślowski was an Academy Award nominated influential Polish film director and screenwriter, known internationally for The Double Life of Veronique and his film cycles The Decalogue and Three Colors.-Early life:...
and Edward Żebrowski. He works in Germany and Switzerland as a director in film, television and theatre. In 1990 he founded the production company Nordwest Film AG with the cameraman Rainer Klausmann.
Urs Odermatt is the son of the Nidwalden photographer Arnold Odermatt
Arnold Odermatt
Arnold Odermatt is a celebrated Swiss police photographer whose work spanned more than 40 years. Originally trained as a baker, he was a photographer for the Nidwalden district police from 1948 until his retirement in 1990...
and has published his father’s work since 1993 (Springer & Winckler Galerie, Berlin; Steidl
Steidl
Steidl is a German-language publisher, an international publisher of photobooks, and a printing company, based in Göttingen, Germany.The company was started by Gerhard Steidl...
Verlag, Göttingen). In 1992 during research for his feature film Wachtmeister Zumbühl (Constable Zumbühl), he discovered his father’s photo archive and grouped the works together into the collections entitled Meine Welt, Karambolage, Im Dienst and In zivil.
Urs Odermatt lives and works in Windisch
Windisch
Windisch is a municipality in the district of Brugg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland.-History:Windisch is situated at the site of the Roman legion camp Vindonissa. In 1064 the current municipality was mentioned as Vinse, and in 1175 as Vindisse. Until the 19th Century the official name was...
in Switzerland. [1]
Films
- 2011 - Der böse Onkel (The Wicked Uncle). Feature film, from the play of the same name by Urs Odermatt. With Miriam Japp, Jörg-Heinrich Benthien, Paula Schramm, Julia Heydcamp, Stephan Dierichs, Kasia Borek, Verena Berger, Pascal Ulli, Eva Math, Johanna Leinen.
- 2008 - Mein Kampf (Dawn of Evil). Feature film, from the play of the same name by George TaboriGeorge TaboriGeorge Tabori was a Hungarian writer and theater director.-Life and career:Tabori was born in Budapest as György Tábori, a son of Kornél and Elsa Tábori. His father died in Auschwitz in 1944, but his mother and his brother Paul managed to escape the Nazis. His son Peter Tabori and again his son...
. With Götz GeorgeGötz GeorgeGötz George is a German actor, son of actor couple Berta Drews and Heinrich George. His arguably best-known role is that of Duisburg commissar Horst Schimanski in the TV crime series Tatort.-Early years:...
, Tom SchillingTom SchillingTom Schilling is a German television and film actor.Schilling had his acting debut in the 1996 drama Hallo, Onkel Doc! as a boy named Mark. In the critically well-received film Before the Fall , he played a young student in one of the elite 'Napola' schools, alongside with Max Riemelt...
, Bernd Birkhahn, Anna Unterberger, Elisabeth Orth, Wolf Bachofner, Simon Schwarz.
- 1998 - Tatort - Ein Hauch von Hollywood. TV film. With Winfried Glatzeder, Robinson Reichel, Marie-Lou Sellem, Johannes Brandrup, Götz Schubert, Dieter Mann, Martin Wuttke, Michael Gwisdek, Falk Rockstroh, Gustav Peter Wöhler, Klaus Manchen, Astrid Meyerfeldt, Bruno Cathomas.
- 1997 - Lisa Falk - Ein ganz einfacher Fall. TV series. With Ulrike Kriener, Peter Striebeck, Felix Eitner, Gustav-Peter Wöhler.
- 1997 - Lisa Falk - Der letzte Besucher. TV series. With Ulrike Kriener, Peter Striebeck, Nina Hoger, Axel Wandtke, Ueli Jäggi, Sylvie Rohrer.
- 1996 - Zerrissene Herzen. TV film. With Suzanne von Borsody, Nadja UhlNadja UhlNadja Uhl is a German actress.She studied at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy College of Music and Theatre in Leipzig between 1990 and 1994, beginning her career as a theatre actress at the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam in 1994...
, Burghart Klaußner, Ernst Jacobi, Michael Gwisdek, Siegfried Kernen, Martin Horn.
- 1996 - Polizeiruf 110 - Kleine Dealer, grosse Träume. TV film. With Angelica DomröseAngelica DomröseAngelica Domröse is a German actress, who became famous in the role of Paula in Heiner Carow's film "The Legend of Paul and Paula". Her Mediterranean appearance is the result of her biological father being a prisoner of war from France.-Life:After training as a shorthand typist Domröse worked in a...
, Dominic Raacke, Jürgen Vogel, Nadja UhlNadja UhlNadja Uhl is a German actress.She studied at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy College of Music and Theatre in Leipzig between 1990 and 1994, beginning her career as a theatre actress at the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam in 1994...
, André Jung, Kathrin Angerer, Götz Otto, Ueli Jäggi, Rosemarie Fendel, Siggi Schwientek, Gottfried Breitfuss, Martin Horn. Title song: The Cranberries: Zombie.
- 1994 - Wachtmeister Zumbühl (Constable Zumbühl). Feature film. With Michael GwisdekMichael GwisdekMichael Gwisdek is a German actor and film director. He has appeared in over 130 films and television shows since 1968. His debut film as a director, Treffen in Travers, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.-Selected filmography:* Woman Doctors * Just for...
, Jürgen VogelJürgen VogelJürgen Peter Vogel is a German actor, screenwriter, film producer and singer.-Biography:Jürgen Vogel is the son of a Hamburg waiter and a housewife. He worked as a child model, later had various jobs and visited the Munich drama school for one day. In 1985 he moved to Berlin, where he shared a...
, Anica Dobra, Rolf Hoppe, Norbert Schwientek, Siggi Schwientek, Roeland Wiesnekker, Ueli Jäggi. ISBN 3-7165-0960-4. Colosseum Records CD CST 34.8050 LC 3387.
- 1991 - Lopper. Documentary film. Made using historic film footage by Arnold OdermattArnold OdermattArnold Odermatt is a celebrated Swiss police photographer whose work spanned more than 40 years. Originally trained as a baker, he was a photographer for the Nidwalden district police from 1948 until his retirement in 1990...
on the early construction of Swiss motorways at Acheregg and in the Lopper tunnel.
- 1991 - Gesichter der Schweiz. Rhaeto-romansch contribution to a series of documentary films. Other films made by Kurt Gloor, Francis Reusser, Claude Goretta, Hans-Ulrich Schlumpf, Nicolas Gessner, Thomas Koerfer and others.
- 1990 - Der Tod zu Basel. TV film, from a script by Markus Kutter. With Günter Lamprecht, Dietmar Schönherr, Stefan Walz, Ueli Jäggi, Wolfram Berger, Siegfried Kernen, Hans-Michael Rehberg, Stephanie Glaser.
- 1988 - Gekauftes Glück (Bride of the Orient). Feature film. With Wolfram Berger, Werner HerzogWerner HerzogWerner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner...
, Mathias Gnädinger, Günter Meisner, Annamirl Bierbichler, Helen Vita.
- 1986 - Rotlicht!. Feature film. With Uwe OchsenknechtUwe OchsenknechtUwe Adam Ochsenknecht is a German actor and singer.-Work:Films Uwe Ochsenknecht has starred in include Schtonk!, Das Boot and the TV miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune.-Personal life:...
, Anouschka Renzi.
- 1985 - Besuch bei der alten Dame. Short film.
Along with the cameramen, the Swiss Rainer Klausmann and Pole Piotr Lenar, the Munich composer of film music, Prof. Dr. Norbert J. Schneider (now known as Enjott Schneider
Enjott Schneider
Enjott Schneider is a German composer, musicologist, and music educator. As a composer he is best known for his film work, having won the Bavarian Film Award for Best Film Score in 1990, the Filmband in Gold in 1991, and the Deutscher Fernsehpreis in 2007, the latter for his work on March of...
) also regularly work closely with Urs Odermatt.
Criticism
Urs Odermatt worked on two of the craziest episodes of the TV shows Tatort and Polizeiruf 110, that really took off with their "successful mix of seriousness and intelligent humour that makes a pleasant change from the monotony of crime series" ( Stern 25/1996) with a "curious collection of crazy characters (...), providing the realistic main characters with a grotesque wallpaper as a background" (FAZ, 17 June 1996). "Having so much wicked humour was a rarity in the crime genre" (Der Spiegel 24/1996).In 1989, Gekauftes Glück was regarded by the press and cinemagoers as one Switzerland’s most successful films d’auteur. Critics praised the "careful choreography of the images make a pleasant change from the usual locquaciousness of the films d’auteurin the German language" (Frankfurter Rundschau, 11 March 1989).
Wachtmeister Zumbühl was unsettling in its claustrophobic depiction of the closed society of a small village, where everybody knows everbody else and all of their business, "the world in a water droplet" (Krzysztof Kieślowski).
Awards
The TV film Zerrissene Herzen (1996; camera: Piotr Lenar) was nominated in the competitions at the Baden-Badener Tage des Fernsehspiels TV awards.Gekauftes Glück was awarded the R d'argento at the 1989 RiminiCinema Film Festival in Rimini.
Die Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden (Wiesbaden Film Assessment Board) commended Gekauftes Glück as recommended and Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
as highly recommended.
See also
- Wachtmeister Zumbühl
- Gekauftes Glück
- Der Tod zu Basel
- Gesichter der Schweiz
Stage adaptations
- 2005 - Dieses. Kleine. Land., by Alfred Gulden. Saarländisches Staatstheater, Saarbrücken. Premiere. ISBN 3-938823-02-X.
- 2005 - TrainspottingTrainspotting (novel)Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is written in the form of short chapters narrated in the first person by various residents of Leith, Edinburgh, who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are...
, by Irvine WelshIrvine WelshIrvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelist, best known for his novel Trainspotting. His work is characterised by raw Scottish dialect, and brutal depiction of the realities of Edinburgh life...
. Theater St. Gallen. Swiss premiere.
- 2004 – The CrucibleThe CrucibleThe Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...
, by Arthur MillerArthur MillerArthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
. Chur Open-Air Theatre.
- 2002 - The Wicked Uncle, by Urs Odermatt. Theater Reutlingen. Premiere.
- 2002 - Die Bauchgeburt, by Rolf Kemnitzer. Saarländisches Staatstheater, Saarbrücken. Premiere.
- 2001 - Der Ignorant und der Wahnsinnige, by Thomas BernhardThomas BernhardThomas Bernhard was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet. Bernhard, whose body of work has been called "the most significant literary achievement since World War II," is widely considered to be one of the most important German-speaking authors of the postwar era.- Life :Thomas Bernhard was...
. Oldenburgisches Staatstheater.
- 2000 - CloserCloser (play)Closer is the third play written by English playwright Patrick Marber. The play was premiered at the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in London in 1997, and made its North American debut at the Music Box Theatre on Broadway on 25 January 1999....
, by Patrick MarberPatrick MarberPatrick Albert Crispin Marber is an English comedian, playwright, director, puppeteer, actor and screenwriter.-Early life and education:...
. Oldenburgisches Staatstheater.
- 1998 - The Cripple of InishmaanThe Cripple of InishmaanThe Cripple of Inishmaan is a dark comedy by Martin McDonagh who links the story to the real life filming of the documentary Man of Aran....
, by Martin McDonaghMartin McDonaghMartin McDonagh is an Irish-British playwright, filmmaker, and screenwriter. Although he has lived in London his entire life, he is considered one of the most important living Irish playwrights.-Life:...
. Oldenburgisches Staatstheater. German premiere.
- 1995 - Entertaining Mr SloaneEntertaining Mr SloaneEntertaining Mr Sloane is a play by the English playwright Joe Orton. It was first produced in London at the New Arts Theatre on 6 May 1964 and transferred to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre on 29 June 1964.-Plot summary:Act 1...
, by Joe OrtonJoe OrtonJohn Kingsley Orton was an English playwright.In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies...
. Kleines Theater, Bonn.
- 1993 - AndorraAndorra (play)Andorra is a play written by the Swiss dramatist Max Frisch in 1961. The original text came from a prose sketch Frisch had written in his diary titled Der andorranische Jude . The Andorra in Frisch's play is fictional and not intended to be a representation of the real Andorra located between...
, by Max FrischMax FrischMax Rudolf Frisch was a Swiss playwright and novelist, regarded as highly representative of German-language literature after World War II. In his creative works Frisch paid particular attention to issues relating to problems of human identity, individuality, responsibility, morality and political...
. Neues Theater, Halle (Saale).
Directing style
"...as (...) an example of the broad spectrum of directing styles in plays staged at the Saarländischen Staatstheater, by far the most unsettling are those that defy expectations of spoken drama and are reputed to be those present in the work of film and theatre director Urs Odermatt. His premieres of Rolf Kemnitzer’s Die Bauchgeburt and Alfred Gulden’s grotesque Dieses. Kleine. Land. confronted audiences with a barrage of signs and symbols conveyed through language and physical gestures. A plethora of information and impulses through the use of an edited film and video-clip aesthetic drew attention to our truncated, edited perception of reality and the nature of our connections of meanings and contextualisation as a construct of our perspective. The viewer is required to forego entirely his contemplative attitude towards that which is presented, and be consciously selective in his perception. The border with that which is experienced in a non-semantic way is crossed in this form of presentation: where energetic manifestations take the place of "meaning", where the chasm of the loss of communication and the perversion of issues of meaning are intended evoke questions about power for the audience. Odermatt’s theatre of rhythmic, alienated, choral voices and expressive physicality attempts to confront that which we never see on the surface of the theatre as portrayed in the media."Gollenstein Verlag, Blieskastel, ISBN 3-938823-07-0.
Stage design
For most of the theatre productions staged by Urs Odermatt – especially the premieres – the Berlin stage designer Dirk Seesemann built the sets. He supports Urs Odermatt’s staging concepts "with his minimalist austerity" (Saarbrücker Zeitung, 21 November 2005).Dieses. Kleine. Land.
"[Dieses. Kleine. Land.] ...is concerned with the for (preservation) and against (intergration) of small countries, the delusion of one-sided notions and the persecution of personal interests. As his means of portraying this, (...) he [Urs Odermatt] employes the grotesque and occasionall drifts off into the absurd. The play represents a huge challenge for the actors as well as for the audience" (Benno von Skopnik, Welt kompakt, 22 November 2005)."It is not only the play [Dieses. Kleine. Land.] that is deconstructed and reassembled, but also its characters and their language. Sentences collapse time and time again like a house of cards, and new façades are created from the rubble.. With Odermatt, everything turns into a quote within a quote, which explains why choruses of Schlager songs are sung, phrases are scratched like vinyl records and scenes (like those created specially by Gulden) function as a play-within-a-play.. As a result, speech develops that is by turns choral and concerted, where the voices in the dialogue cross each other and cut each other off. A deconstructivist procedure that mixes pantomime with slapstick and absurdist theatre with concrete poetry. For a long time, this tried and tested deconstructivist ritual captivated audiences just as it had done three years ago at the Saarbrücken premiere of Rolf Kemnitzer’s 'Die Bauchgeburt', and reveals the dialogue-like qualities of Gulden’s play" (Christoph Schreiner, Saarbrücker Zeitung, 21 November 2005).
Der böse Onkel
"Odermatt has looked around, and as an author has created a hybrid of Kroetzen’s village tragedies with Ravenhill’s beat-up Brit furore, then throws in Castorf’s- savagery and splatter movie - an overloaded but polemical attempt. As an experienced director he has condensed his theatrical debut into a pacy example of the grotesque. Rather than descending into banal denunciation, in a host of excellently choreographed scenes, he conjours up deeply affecting dreamlike and nightmarish images onto the stage. As a result,in the plays best moments, all the controversial issues suddenly appear to be linked. The stage setting then proceeds to turn into a bizarre analysis of time, becoming a dark, glittering essay on sexuality and power." (Otto Paul Burkhardt: Liebst du mich? Ja, ich dich auch - Urs Odermatt inszeniert seinen Theatererstling als Furioso über Sexualität und Macht, Reutlinger Nachrichten, 29. April 2002).Trainspotting
"An absurd ballet rushes across the stage, cascades of words are layered over each other and fuse together with each other, often barely comprehensible, then into a forceful, insistent crescendo of staccatto: I am, I was, everything goes by so quickly!' Cascades of words with a directness that can barely be beaten, right through to faecal language and further into a highly artificial idiom, pushed too far by precisely placed stuttering or the echo-like repetition of individual words or parts of sentences.(...) Urs Odermatt’s staging is merciless in its immediacy, even more , even more open in its pacy choreography, which demands a huge presence from the ensemble cast dressed in rustling paper with printed pages from tabloid newspapers. Merciless in its physical proximity, which doesn’t required any nudity or exposure because the inner exposure is brought out into the open" (sda, 28 April 2005).Closer
"Men drop their trousers, women break through a huge vagina on a backdrop screen and out onto the stage. Deflowered from behind, the parted labia are flaunted right in the faces of the audience in Oldenburg. The premiere of Partick Marber’s 'Closer' under the direction of Urs Odermatt lives up to its title and after the interval separated the theatregoers into those of a more delicate sensibility from those with a more open mind. The latter were clearly in the majority and greeted the end of the performance with huge applause" (Marijke Gerwin: Wie das Lotterleben so spielt - Sie fickten und sie schlugen sich, taz, 5. April 2000).Scripts, plays, audio plays
- 2006 - Targa Florio.
- 2004 - Fünfzehn beide.
- 2001 - Der böse Onkel.
- 1998 - Kora.
- 1991 - Wachtmeister Zumbühl.
- 1989 - St. Moritz.
- 1987 - Die Neger kommen.
- 1986 - Rotlicht!
- 1984 - Gekauftes Glück.
Author
- Urs Odermatt: Der böse Onkel. Play. In: Programme for the premiere. Theater Reutlingen, Reutlingen 2002.
- Urs Odermatt: Kora. Play. Theaterstückverlag, München 1998.
- Urs Odermatt: Wachtmeister Zumbühl. Script for a feature film with 79 stills photos by Arnold Odermatt. Benteli Verlag, Bern 1994. ISBN 3-7165-0960-4.
- Urs Odermatt: Schweiz - Freibrief für den Sonderfall "Ich", in: Dominik Riedo: Heidis + Peters. Eine Anthologie. Verlag Pro Libro, Luzern. ISBN 978-3-9523525-3-3.
Editor
- Arnold Odermatt: In zivil. Hors service. Off Duty. Edited by Urs Odermatt. Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-86521-796-7.
- Arnold Odermatt: Im Dienst. En service. On Duty. Edited by Urs Odermatt. Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-86521-271-9.
- Arnold Odermatt: Karambolage. Edited by Urs Odermatt. in German, French and English. Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-88243-866-5.
- Arnold Odermatt: Meine Welt. Photographien/Photographs 1939–1993. Edited by Urs Odermatt. Benteli Verlag, Bern 1993, 2001 and 2006, ISBN 3-7165-0910-8.