Dörrie, Doris 1955-

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DÖRRIE, Doris 1955-

(Dorris Dorrie)

PERSONAL: Born May 26, 1955, in Hannover, West Germany (now Germany); daughter of Hans (a doctor) and Kristin (a doctor; maiden name, Blumenbach) Dörrie; married Helge Weindler (a cinematographer), December 2, 1987 (deceased, 1997); children: Carla Anna Maria. Education: Attended University of the Pacific, 1974-75, and Höchschule für Fernsehen und Film, 1975-78; also attended New School for Social Research. Religion: Lutheran.

ADDRESSES: Home—Bauerstrasse 9, Munich 40, Germany. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Screenwriter and director of motion pictures and stage productions. Munich Academy for Television and Film, Munich, Germany, faculty member. Cobra Productions, cofounder, 1989. Documentary films include Ob's stürmt oder schneit (with Wolfgang Berndt) and Der erste Walzer; director of television films, including Von Romantik keine Spur, Katharina Eiselt, Dazwischen, and Paula aus Portugal (for children). Director of operas, including Cosi fan tutte, 2001, and Turandot, 2003.

AWARDS, HONORS: Max-Ophüls Prize, 1984, for Mitten ins Herz; Gold Cane award, Vevey International Festival of Comedy Films, Golden Screen award, Gilde film prize, IFF Hof, and German film prize, all 1986, all for Männer; German film prize, 1992, forHappy Birthday, Türke, and 1995, for Keiner liebt mich; journalism prize, 1994, for Was darf es denn sein?; Ernst Hoferichter prize, 1995; Bettina von Arnim Literary Prize, 1996, for short story "Der Vater der Braut"; German Book Prize, 2003, for Das blaue Kleid.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Robert Fischer) Kino 78. Bundesdeutsche Filme auf der Leinwand, Nüchtern (Munich, West Germany), 1978.

Lebe, Schmerz und das ganze verdammte Zeug (short stories), Diogenes (Zurich, Switzerland), 1987, translation by John E. Woods published as Love, Pain, and the Whole Damn Thing, Alfred E. Knopf (New York, NY), 1989.

Was wollen sie von mir? und 15 anderere Geschichten, Diogenes (Zurich, Switzerland), 1989, translation by John E. Woods published as What Do You Want from Me? and Fifteen Other Stories, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1991.

Für immer und ewig: eine Art Reigen, Diogenes (Zurich, Switzerland), 1991.

Der Mann meiner Träume (short stories), Diogenes (Zurich, Switzerland), 1991.

Bin ich schön? (short stories), Diogenes (Zurich, Switzerland), 1994.

Samsara (short stories), Diogenes (Zurich, Switzerland), 1996.

Was machen wir jetzt? (novel), Diogenes (Zurich, Switzerland), 1999, translation by John Brownjohn published as Where Do We Go from Here?, Bloomsbury (New York, NY), 2001.

Lotte will Prinzessin sein (for children), illustrated by Julia Kärgel, translated as Lottie's Princess Dress, Dial Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 1999.

Happy (novel; also see below), Diogenes (Zurich, Swizerland), 2002.

Das blaue Kleid (novel; title means "The Blue Dress"), Diogenes (Zurich, Switzerland), 2003.

Contributor of film reviews to Süddeutsche Zeitung, c. mid-1970s. Contributor of short fiction to periodicals, including Brigitte.

SCREENPLAYS

(And director) Mitten ins Herz, 1983, presented in the United States as Straight through the Heart, Film Society of Lincoln Center/Department of Film, Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), 1984.

(With Michael Juncker; and director) Im Innern des Wals, DNS Film/Haro Senft Filmproduktion/Norddeutscher Rundfunk, 1984, released as In the Belly of the Whale, Film Society of Lincoln Center/Department of Film, Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), 1986.

(And director) Männer, Olga Film/ZDF, 1986, released as Men, New Yorker Films, 1986.

Love in Germany (documentary), 1990, Diogenes (Zurich, Switzerland), 1992.

(And director) Keiner liebt mich (title means "Nobody Loves Me"), Cobra Film Production, 1994.

Also author of (and director) Paradies (title means "Paradise"), 1986; Ich und er (title means "Me and Him"; based on a novel by Alberto Moravia), 1988; Geld (title means "Money"), 1989; Happy Birthday, Türke (also released as Happy Birthday; based on the novel by Jakob Arjouni), 1991; (and director) Bin ich schön? (title means "Am I Beautiful?"), 1998; (and director) Erleuchtung garantiert, 2000; (and director) Nackt (title means "Naked"), based on Dörrie's novel Happy, 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Doris Dörrie has distinguished herself as both a short-story writer and filmmaker. She is probably best known, at least in the United States, as writer and director of the 1986 movie Männer —Men—which earned acclaim in both Europe and America. A comedy about love and friendship, Men concerns a young couple and their bachelor friend. The couple, Julius and Paula Armbrust, are among the content bourgeoisie—both enjoy the comforts of life, and both are occasionally unfaithful in their marriage. Though Julius, a successful advertising executive, indulges in sex with his secretary, he is aghast to find that his wife has been similarly indiscreet with a mediocre artist named Stefan. Mystified by his wife's attraction to the frequently unemployed, sloppy Stefan, Julius decides to befriend the lover and thereby determine his appeal. He convinces his wife that he is away on business, then answers Stefan's ad for a roommate.

After befriending Stefan, Julius gradually adapts to the relaxed, casual nature of the artist's lifestyle. When Paula arrives at Stefan's apartment for a tryst, Julius disguises himself in a gorilla mask and disrupts the couple's flirtations by throwing bananas and grunting loudly. Stefan becomes increasingly uncomfortable with Julius's antics, but Paula is amused and even intrigued. Realizing that Paula is drawn by spontaneity and humor, Julius recovers those childlike aspects of himself that had eroded during their relationship. In turn, he converts Stefan to the bourgeois ethic by encouraging his ambition and materialism. After fitting the bohemian Stefan with business suits, Julius helps him find work as a commercial artist. The results are not quite what either man had anticipated, however, and by film's end Julius and Stefan find themselves decidedly alike—naked in an open elevator.

With Men Dörrie endeared herself to American critics as a provocative and—within the context of German cinema—surprisingly funny artist. Dave Kehr, in his review of the film for the Chicago Tribune, called Men "a sophisticated sex comedy inflected by a contemporary sense of male role-playing," and he reserved his greatest applause for the author's screenwriting ability. "Doerrie's real talent is as a writer," he contended. "Her screenplay has . . . both a firm sense of character and a creative sense of how characters can be made to interact." Similarly, Washington Post reviewer Paul Attanasio, who found Men a "blithely satirical" film, wrote that it "has a wonderful texture built of tiny insights, of behavioral details got exactly right."

Reviewers of Men were also impressed with Dörrie's directorial skills, particularly her flair for visual humor and her sense of pacing. Kehr noted the film's "uncluttered" frames and "efficient, straight-ahead comic rhythm," while Attanasio asserted that "Doerrie directs with a sense of play that can explode into high hilarity."

Although Men was Dörrie's first international success, it was not her first film shown in America. Mitten ins Herz, her debut work, showed in New York City at the 1984 New Directors/New Films series as Straight through the Heart. In West Germany the film immediately established her as an exciting new talent in its detailing of the odd relationship between a young woman and a rich fellow who hires her as his platonic companion and housekeeper. After she nonetheless seduces him, the woman is dismissed. Later, however, she kidnaps a Turkish baby and returns, claiming the child as her own. Although the man professes love for the child, violence ensues and the woman eventually flees to Turkey. Edmund Luft, in his appraisal of the film in the International Film Guide 1985, commended Mitten ins Herz for its "disarming irony and exuberance."

Another of Dörrie's films, Im Innern des Wals, was shown at the 1986 New Directors/New Films series as In the Belly of the Whale. Described by New York Times critic Vincent Canby as a "small, sad German movie," Im Innern des Wals is about a teenage girl who leaves her violent father and finds romance on the road. Canby noted that "the specific details of the story are vividly dramatized and well acted." Dörrie's other films include Paradies, about a dull marriage that revives when another woman makes the acquaintance of the primary characters. This film proved popular with West German audiences.

Aside from her films, Dörrie has also received recognition in the United States for her short-story collection Lebe, Schmerz und das ganze verdammte Zeug. The volume features prose renderings of Dörrie's films Mitten ins Herz, Männer, Paradies, and Geld, all of which deal with men-women relationships. Geld provides a particularly quirky portrait of relations between the sexes, as a housewife attempts to overcome her family's increasing financial burdens by robbing a bank. However, instead of using the stolen funds accordingly, she pursues still greater riches by investing the cash in a vast swindle. Richard Eder, in his Los Angeles Times review of Dörrie's collection, expressed particular praise for Geld, which he described as "wonderfully absurd." Eder wrote that Dörrie's sensibility is one that enlightens as it amuses. "There is no flesh around Doris Dörrie's laughter," Eder declared; "it warns, like a skull's." New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani found Dörrie a similarly provocative writer, noting that she "is concerned not only with the games men and women play with each other, but also with the tensions that exist between the wealthy and the bohemian, between conformists and rebels." Kakutani added that in Dörrie's fiction "the potent emotions of love, jealousy and greed . . . drive her characters to the extremes of farce, creating bizarre three-way relationships and messy complications."

Dörrie once told CA: "I consider life to be vital for a writer."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Cowie, Peter, editor, International Film Guide 1985, Tantivy Press/New York Zoetrope (New York, NY), 1984.

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, August 27, 1986, Dave Kehr, review of Männer.

Europe, November, 1995, Fred Hift, review of Keiner liebt mich, p. 47.

Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1989, Richard Eder, review of Lebe, Schmerz und das ganze verdammte Zeug.

New York Times, April 17, 1986, Vincent Canby, review of Im Innern des Wals; June 23, 1989, Michiko Kakutani, review of Lebe, Schmerz und das ganze verdammte Zeug.

New York Times Book Review, September 10, 1989.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), July 9, 1989.

Variety, September 14, 1984, review of Mitten ins Herz, p. 24.

Washington Post, August 22, 1986, Paul Attanasio, review of Männer.