Schultze Gets the Blues

Paramount Classics | Release Date: February 18, 2005

7.5	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Ratings

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ConradK.Oct 7, 2005

After one or two motionless shots of the German landscape playing the part of . . . the German landscape . . . we don't need a third, fourth, or fifth shot to tell us not much is going on in Schultze's world. It's annoying to After one or two motionless shots of the German landscape playing the part of . . . the German landscape . . . we don't need a third, fourth, or fifth shot to tell us not much is going on in Schultze's world. It's annoying to have that stationary camera recording, recording, recording, while the actors walk on or off--mostly off--and we sit waiting for something to happen. Perhaps that's what they should have titled this film: "Waiting for Something to Happen." When something finally does happen (Schultze gets to the bayou) nothing really happens because he doesn't get to play his accordion and he don't speak English (or Cajun). So he dies. Excuse me, Mr. Michael Schorr, but I can tell you're not making this for an American audience because you have deliberately obscured anything which might be mistaken for a plot, and you know how much we backward, traditionalist Americans are stuck in our rut of plot and character (ideas coined by another European--Aristotle). Schultze (Horst Krause) IS a character, a gentle one--reminds me of Gert Frobe in "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" without the bluster--but, doggone, give the man a script to act, Herr Direktor. Und Himmel! why must we see him in a Speedo? If you want to watch a stationary camera filming nothing in particular, I would recommend Andy Warhol's "Empire State Building," which ought to cure you of such cinematic compulsions. At least Warhol knew how to aim the camera properly so that his subject filled the frame, rather than cinematographer Axel Schneppat's habit of framing his subjects' faces dead-center, giving us half a frame of German grey sky. If this was intentional, it is not genius, just plain cussedness; if unintentional, it is gross incompetence. Europhiles (and I am one), take note: This film is kind to us Americans, showing us as generous and innocent. But there is no passion in it, as if the director was too timid to take a stand of any sort . . . and isn't that just what's wrong with Europe?… Expand

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