Liebeskonzil 42 years old

Oskar Panizza’s The Council of Love (1895) is a blasphemous play set in 1495, during the first recorded outbreak of syphilis, which Panizza satirically presents as the punishment from Satan for sexually active humans. As a result, Panizza was imprisoned for obscenity. Schroeter alternates scenes from the Panizza’s work with a dramatization of his trial, presenting the play as an expressionist spectacle performed by actors wearing exaggerated makeup who gesture and grimace grotesquely. The film thus forms a bridge between Schroeter’s use of tableaux in his early experiments with the political urgency of his 1980s films. On the eve of the AIDS crisis, Schroeter is presciently worried about disease as an excuse for governmental repression and the oppression of sexuality. - Harvard Film Archive

Credits

Margit Carstensen as Staatsanwältin

Magdalena Montezuma as Doppelzeugin

Heinrich Giskes as Verteidiger

Kurt Raab as Gerichtspräsident

Liebeskonzil Cast

Name	Character
Margit Carstensen She was 42, now 84 years old	as Staatsanwältin
Magdalena Montezuma She was 39, 41 years old when she died	as Doppelzeugin
Heinrich Giskes He was 35, now 78 years old	as Verteidiger
Kurt Raab He was 40, 46 years old when he died	as Gerichtspräsident

Liebeskonzil Crew

Name	Department
Werner Schroeter as Director. He was 36 (65) years old when He died	Directing
Dietrich Kuhlbrodt as Screenplay. He was 49 (now 91) years old	Writing

Liebeskonzil (42 years)

Release day: Friday, March 12, 1982
Runtime: 92 minutes