"Basically, you shouldn't be famous. It breaks you"

"I can't go out and travel." The film is less than three minutes old when Elfriede Jelinek's phone rang. In the following shot, the famous door opens in Stockholm, the secretary of the Swedish Academy speaks staccato sentences that fascinate anew every year, because everyone is waiting for the momentum of an audible name. At that time, the reason for the Nobel Prize in Literature was presented in German to the österrikisk föfattere: "for the musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and dramas, which reveal the absurdity and compelling power of social clichés with unique linguistic passion".

You are watching Claudia Müller's successful film portrait, entitled “Elfriede Jelinek. Letting the language off the leash” will be shown in German cinemas from November 10th, enchanted from the first minute. On the one hand, this is due to the acoustics: Actors' voices from Sophie Rois to Sandra Hüller to Martin Wuttke let Jelinek's texts ring out from the off - a congenial implementation of the polyphony that characterizes Jelinek's work more strikingly than almost any other. On the other hand, there is the phenotypical diversity of Jelinek himself, from all phases of life: Jelinek as a fashionable young communist; as a short-haired punk; as a hoodie protester with a whistle in her mouth. Müller has assembled a convincing collage from material from the film and radio archives, with newly filmed locations and stations from Jelinek's life, with recitations of works from theater and prose texts, music from Schubert to Bach and original tones of the author from earlier interviews.

Jelinek, reduced to the role of the scandal author by Austrian tabloid media for decades, can be experienced in this film portrait as close as never before - and yet without home story kitsch, because the writer no longer appears in front of the camera, she only has background talks and a a few new quotes granted. The traumatic childhood known from "The Piano Player", when the young Elfriede was to be raised by her hyper-ambitious mother to be a competitive musician, occurs naturally. Once Jelinek almost casually says the crazy sentence "I have the feeling that I haven't experienced anything since my childhood". Another time Jörg Haider speaks (and like many compatriots who have settled into Jelinek hatred, from the dull soul?): "I think that she only became famous because she railed against Austria."

The reduction to the role of the notorious motherfucker is certainly one reason why Jelinek lives so aloof from the public. "Basically, you shouldn't be famous. It breaks you up.” Austria has never forgiven her for addressing national icons such as Paula Wessely (mother of actress Christiane Hörbiger) in their involvement with the Nazis in the play “Burgtheater” in 1985.

Is Jelinek resigned today? "It's all been said. If I say something, I'll write it.” The film takes this attitude seriously by appropriately juxtaposing the image of the Jelinek persona with quotes from works. As a result, the documentation succeeds in conveying an idea of ​​what this author stands for, what drives her linguistically obsessive oeuvre from "Lust" to "Rechnitz" to "Sports Piece", what his contemporaneity in the context of coming to terms with the Nazi past, Austria and distinguishes feminism. Possibly, one thinks when looking at the powerfully eloquent scenes from their dramas, which were brought to the stage by directors such as Claus Peymann and Einar Schleef, perhaps nobody but Jelinek derives from traumatisation, both individual and collective, a discursively musical, in the sense of polyphony made resounding literature.

Elfriede Jelinek. Let the language off the leash. Director: Claudia Mueller. From 10.11. in the cinema