Early works Schlöndorff returned to Germany to make his feature film debut,
Young Törless (
Der junge Törless, 1966). Produced by Malle and based on
Robert Musil's novel
The Confusions of Young Törless, it debuted at the
1966 Cannes Film Festival. Taking place at a semi-military Austrian boarding school, Törless witnesses the bullying of a fellow student but does nothing to prevent it despite his superior and mature intellect. He gradually begins to accept his personal responsibility for the abuse through his inaction and runs away from the school. The analogy to prewar Germany is obvious and the film was highly praised upon release, winning the
FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes. The
New German Cinema movement unofficially began in 1962 with the
Oberhausen Manifesto, calling new young German filmmakers to revitalize filmmaking in Germany, much like the
French New Wave of the previous few years. Although not among the initial group of filmmakers involved, Schlöndorff was quick to align himself with the group and
Young Törless is considered one of its most important films. Schlöndorff's next film was
Degree of Murder (1967), a counter-culture-saturated film with a musical score by
Rolling Stones guitarist
Brian Jones. The film stars Jones's then girlfriend
Anita Pallenberg as a young waitress who accidentally kills her boyfriend and hides the body with the help of two male friends. The film was very popular upon release among "swinging sixties" youths.
International success at the
1984 Venice International Film Festival Schlöndorff (and the New German Cinema movement as a whole) had his first financial hit film with
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975). Based on the
novel by
Heinrich Böll, Schlöndorff co-wrote and co-directed the film with von Trotta, in her directorial debut. The film stars
Angela Winkler as Blum, who after falling in love and spending the night with a young army deserter becomes the victim of a corrupt police investigation and predatory tabloid newspaper, which cast her as both a terrorist and a prostitute. The newspaper is based upon the real right-wing German tabloid
Bild-Zeitung, whose publisher
Axel Springer was the inspiration for the character Werner Tötges. In Schlöndorff's view, West Germany had fallen into political hysteria over the activities of a terrorist group, the
Red Army Faction. The police and journalistic activities in both Böll's novel and Schlöndorff's film portray the Red Army Faction era as reminiscent of
McCarthyism in the 1950s U.S., including illegal police raids, phone tapping and tabloid smears. Böll was heavily attacked after the publication of the novel, but both it and the film were hugely successful in West Germany. He served as the chief executive for the
UFA studio in Babelsberg between 1992 and 1997. In 1996 he contributed to the French TV series
Lumière sur un massacre with the episode "Le parfait soldat". Schlöndorff returned to Germany in to make
The Ogre (1996), his most well-regarded feature film since
The Tin Drum. Based on a novel by
Michel Tournier and starring
John Malkovich as the titular Abel Tiffauges, the film revisited many of the themes and time period of
The Tin Drum. Tiffauges is a slow-witted French soldier who has been accused of child molestation. After being captured by the Nazis and put in an internment camp, he is made a servant at an elite German training camp and kidnaps local children, officially as a way to recruit them for the camp, but in his mind to protect them. The film was screened in competition at the
1996 Venice Film Festival and won the UNICEF award. The film was released in Germany in 1996 and gained positive reviews. On the audio commentary for
The Tin Drum, Schlöndorff said that he had wanted to film a sequel to
The Tin Drum, as the film was based only on the first two thirds of the novel. But because actor David Bennent was too old to reprise the role and he did not want to recast Oscar, he considers
The Ogre to be an unofficial sequel to his masterpiece. Schlöndorff returned to Hollywood for
Palmetto (1998). In a noir plot, the film stars
Woody Harrelson as a falsely accused journalist who was sent to jail after uncovering corruption in the local government. After getting out of jail and unable to find work, he encounters Rhea Malroux (
Elisabeth Shue), a
femme fatale who propositions him to help her extort money from her millionaire husband. The film was not a financial success and was Schlöndorff's last film in the US to date.
Later career Schlöndorff returned to Germany to make the film
The Legend of Rita (2000). Loosely based upon the lives of members of the
Red Army Faction who exiled to East Germany in the 1970s, the film centers around Rita, who most closely resembles real RAF member Inge Viett. Rita abandons the revolution and lives in East Germany under protection of the secret service, but after German reunification she faces the risk of discovery and consequences for her past crimes. After the documentary
Ein Produzent hat Seele oder er hat keine and a contribution to the
omnibus film Ten Minutes Older (both in 2002), Schlöndorff made
The Ninth Day (2004). The film is Schlöndorff's third film to center around World War II and is based on the diary of
Father Jean Bernard.
Ulrich Matthes plays Father Henri Kremer, a Catholic priest who is interned at
Dachau concentration camp during the Second World War. He is inexplicably released for nine days and sent to Luxembourg. There he meets a young SS soldier who informs him that his mission there is to convince the local bishop to cooperate with the
Nazi Party, in which case he will not be sent back to
Dachau. He is thus faced with the moral dilemma of betraying his faith or returning to the concentration camp. Schlöndorff next completed the TV movie ''
(2005). He returned to what was Danzig to film Strike'' (2006), a docudrama about labor strikes at the
Gdańsk Shipyard during the
Polish 1970 protests. The film is also a history of the
Solidarity Movement in Poland leading up to the fall of Communism. Schlöndorff's
Ulzhan (2007) stars
Philippe Torreton as a treasure hunter on his way home who has lost his soul and Ayanat Ksenbai as Ulzhan, the woman who falls in love with him.
David Bennent also co-starred. In the summer of 2012, he worked with Andrew Turner, who had formerly been a runway model for the late
Alexander McQueen. Schlöndorff's World War II-era film
Diplomacy, dedicated to his friend
Richard C. Holbrooke, debuted at the
64th Berlin International Film Festival. Set in 1944, it explores how the Swedish consul general in Paris,
Raoul Nordling, helped persuade
Dietrich von Choltitz, the German military governor of Paris, not to obey Hitler's orders to destroy the historic city should it fall into enemy hands. == Personal life ==