Egon Schiele: Excess and Punishment (1980)

Load of rubbish!!

A Major Disappointment

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

"Egon Schiele - Exzesse" or "Egon Schiele: Excess and Punishment" is a co-production between West Germany, France and Austria and it's a German-language film, but I also found a French-language version which should not be surprising looking at some of the actors in here. This film is from 1981, which means it has its 35th anniversary this year. The writer and director is Herbert Vesely and this is one of his biggest successes as the film got selected to represent Austria at the Academy Awards over three decades ago. It did not manage to get nominated though. The movie runs for slightly over 90 minutes and features a handful of somewhat famous names, such as Mathieu Carrière, who plays the title character in one of his most known movies, Jane Birkin, Christine Kaufmann and Marcel Ophüls, an Academy Award nominee at this point already, but not yet a winner. Fairly decent list of names I would say. Sadly, this film is also once again proof that it is always about the script. Actors can be good or even great, but if the material they are given is not convincing, then it will be really difficult to hope for a quality outcome. This is sadly also the case here. It is the story of painter Egon Schiele and his very special relationship to women. He usually painted them nude, which did not only have a huge impact on his professional life, but temptation always lurked around the corner in terms of his private life. I guess that if you really love films about artists, especially painters, then you will not be disappointed here as this film is by no means a failure. However, I also do not think it is a particularly creative achievement, which will get you interested in films on painters. That's why I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

In 1912, in Austria, the painter Egon Schiele (Mathieu Carrière) is sent to jail accused of pornography with the nymphet Tatjana (Karina Fallenstein) in his erotic paints. His mate, the model Vally (Jane Birkin), gets help from a famous lawyer to release him. Then he leaves Vally, marries with another woman and goes to the war. This movie is a confused and non-linear biography of the unknown artist Egon Schiele. The expressionless Mathieu Carrière does not support much his character. I do not know the biography of Egon Schiele and I was not able to identify his real intentions, for example, with Tatjana, the trigger of his arresting. The beauty and the performance of Jane Birkin and the beautiful naked models are the best this movie can offer. My vote is six. Title (Brazil): `Excesso e Punição' (` Excess and Punishment')

Unlike the previous reviewer I approached this movie as a fan of the exploitation genre. Given the date of production and the extensive nudity including close-up between the legs shots this movie definitely fits. Given this, the background of a good plot with an important historical context, and we have a very nice exploitation film. Nina Finkelstein is reported to be 16, played a 15 year old, at the time of filming, and while this is common in Europe it is still unusual today to see such extensive underage nudity in a film in the USA. It makes one think how in the US we have not come very far in our acceptance of art of this nature in the past 80+ years from the time of this story. Overall I give it an 8, and I would give it more if it was faster paced or Jane Birkin was more than a 32A.

Herbert Vesely was one of the promises for a new German cinema already in the 50's, but after the 60's his star was already dimmed. He made a small number of films in the 70's and 80's, all non too good. This biography of Egon Schiele, one of the most important Austrian artists, is an example of the pretensions and emptiness of a Vesely-film of later date.The life of Schiele is presented here as a puzzle; well, Vesely thinks that Schiele's life was a puzzle: the core of the story is centered around the famous 1912 pornography trial and using this as base the film shows fragments of past and future. The problem is that it never becomes a unity and that the order of scenes and sequences seems to be at random: a cut-and-paste job that could have had any other result. Indeed, after seeing it twice I am almost convinced of it that a unsatisfactory linear thought-out film was changed into the puzzle in the editing room. Egon Schiele was an enigmatic man, but not a total puzzle, and this film does not bring him any closer.The films also fails in conveying the eroticism and meaning of the Schiele's paintings: the camera watches and glides over the models without any understanding of Schiele's intentions, we only see beautiful naked bodies. If interested in Schiele, you better buy a book with his works in stead.