Film Diary (Film Text) 2nd version

Filming and calling the result a diary is literary. It is filmic to write a film diary and have this writing scroll by as film. (E.S.)

"'The film adaptation of a book', taken literally," wrote Ernst Schmidt Jr. about his film Burgtheater. This is also one of his many book films. Film Diary Short Version ends with a book – programmatically beautifully blurred, and therefore unreadable as such – resting on film cans and then being closed several times. The film-book-film ending is framed by the film title – which, atypically for Schmidt Jr., is added later and is not scribbled on paper but neatly set in plastic block letters – and by two title additions: "Film Diary," "Short Version," "Wien 1967-1975." All the titles here are to be understood as programmatic, even more so than usual with Schmidt Jr., because, similar to his encyclopaedia of crime film directors (Kriminalfilm), this hundred-second film diary lists titles: German dubbing titles of films that Schmidt Jr. probably saw during the period mentioned, namely in the "Kino [cinema]", as the first lettering reads. This is just a short version, which ends in three "usw." [short for 'und so weiter', 'and so on'] – and this is as tellingly vague as the memory of all the films becomes over the years (especially when memory is not supported or burdened by intermedia multiple exploitation and platform archives, as it is today). The titles then stand, word for word, for images that are fading or can be imagined: "Der" "Pate" "Teil" "2" [The Godfather Part 2], followed by "Faust" with Schmidt Jr.'s fist punching the picture in a visual pun, the slavery shocker "Mandingo" three times, "Lustschreie" "hinter" "Klostermauern" [Justine de Sade] and "Rollerball" twice each. These numbers may represent a diary-like accuracy in reflecting a consumer´s preferences, but they may also be a question of rhythm in cinematic graphism. There is no film viewing without reading (and vice versa) with Schmidt Jr. – and elsewhere too. (Drehli Robnik)