The Screengrab : keri russell

"Rotenburg Cannibal" Loses Privacy Case to Ban Movie; Court Chews Up and Spits Out His Arguments

Phil Nugent — Wed, 27 May 2009 17:30:00 GMT

In one of those news stories that I like to believe have been generated only because the people involved knew how badly I needed to be reminded how lucky I am to be alive at this moment, a German court has ruled that the movie Rohtenburg, which was "inspired by" the story of the convicted murderer Arwin Meiwes, can be shown in that country. The movie was banned in 2006 in response to a complaint filed by Meiwes himself, who is serving a life sentence. Rohtenburg, which was released outside Germany under the title Grimm Love, was directed by Martin Weisz, who later made The Hills Have Eyes 2. The film stars Keri Russell as an American graduate student whose research in criminal pathology leads her to study "Oliver Hartman" (played by Thomas Kretschmann, of The Pianist, King Kong, and Valkyrie). Meiwes argued that, despite the fictionalization of the case, the movie was still close enough to his case that it "infringed" on his "personal rights."

Meiwes, known to tabloids as the "Rotenburg Cannibal", enjoyed a vogue as an Internet cause celebre when word got out that he had killed and eaten a man he had arranged to meet for this purpose through a website called the Cannibal Cafe, which advertised itself as being strictly for fantasy role-playing. Disregarding the fine print, Meiwes and Bernd Jürgen Brandes, who had answered his ad looking for "a well-built 18 to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed", got together in Meiwes's apartment in 2001 and proceeded to videotape their encounter, so that no one would later get the wrong idea. On the tape, Brandes has the bright idea that Meiwes should get things rolling by biting off his penis; what follows confirms that biting a man's penis off is much harder than it sounds, news that will strike many of us on this side of the gender divide as deeply reassuring. After giving Brandes more than enough time to announce that this might not be such a great idea after all, Meiwes finally cut the penis off with a knife, after which he tried to sautee it, but you know how it is the first time you try out a new recipe, especially when you have company over. Meiwes did offer some of the dish to Brandes, but he declined, explaining that he had recently had his penis cut off and so didn't really have much of an appetite. (Meiwes wound up feeding it to his dog.) Meiwes subsequently helped his new friend to the bathroom, where Brandes stretched out in the tub for a little lie-down. There, having made sure that Brandes was well-medicated, Meiwes allowed him to bleed to death before harvesting his flesh and storing it in his freezer. He ate off it for months before getting in trouble by placing another ad online. This resulted in a visit to his home by the police, who found the videotape and proceeded to get the wrong idea from it after all.

The case led to considerable ethical wrangling over whether or not eating someone who has voluntarily signed on to be eaten constitutes a crime. (It also set off a wave of hand wringing when it was discovered that Germany had no actual laws discouraging cannibalism. (For the record, I don't tell everyone who enters my apartment that I expressly forbid them from peeing on the couch. Some things you just assume are understood.) Meiwes was originally given an eight-year sentence for manslaughter, but in 2005 he was ordered retried on the grounds that that ain't right; it was then that he was found guilty of murder and hit with the life sentence, so it's no wonder that he was already in a bad mood when word reached him about that somebody had made the movie of his life, and that it got his name wrong and starred Felicity. In its decision over whether the movie was an intolerable violation of Meiwes's right to privacy, the court reportedly took into account the fact that Meiwes himself "gave many interviews on himself and the crime and signed a marketing contract with a production company in 2004. The case has been the subject of a book, several additional films, and songs by Rammstein and Marilyn Manson." Meiwes has said that he himself hopes to someday write a book discouraging young and impressionable readers from eating people, or maybe just advising that if they're determined to eat people, they should maybe not videotape it and just take their chances. Meiwes's dog could not be reached for comment.

"Justice" for Adrienne Shelly

Phil Nugent — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Last week brought a measure of closure, if something less than perfect justice, in the case of the murder of actress-filmmaker Adrienne Shelly. Shelly's death was first reported as a possible suicide some fifteen months ago, after her husband found her hanging by a bedsheet in the bathroom of her Tribeca office. The police subsequently arrested Diego Pillco, a construction worker who claimed that he had gotten into an argument with Shelly over the noise he was making at his job; he said that he had punched her, knocked her unconscious, and, thinking she was dead, had panicked and staged the suicide. In court last week before Judge Carol Berkman, Pillco changed his story; speaking through a Spanish-language interpreter, he claimed that Shelly had caught him stealing money from her purse and that he had choked her to death when she tried to phone for the police. The change was part of a plea agreement that Pillco, who can be easily distinguished from a five-foot piece of shit in that a five-foot piece of shit would spend less time whining like a stuck pig, worked out with the district attorney's office, in exchange for his agreement to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter, with a fixed sentence of twenty-five years.

Shelly, who achieved instant indie-film immortality with her performances in Hal Hartley's The Unbelievable Truth (1989) and Trust (1991), had begun to branch out into writing and directing by the mid-'90s, and had completed her third feature, Waitress, by the time of her death. The film, which featured a breakthrough performance by its star, Keri Russell, was accepted by the Sundance Film Festival, news that Shelly didn't live long enough to hear. The movie went on to earn good notices in its theatrical run and is now available on DVD. Adrienne Shelly was forty years old.

Pregnant Pause

Peter Smith — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Ah, what a fecund year 2007 has been at the cinema. Katherine Heigl got Knocked Up. Keri Russell found herself in the family way in Waitress; yet another waitress tested positive in the independent drama Bella. And sassy sixteen-year-old Juno (opening in New York Dec. 5) joined the baby-bump club. Congratulations, ladies! Or not. In every one of these movies, the pregnancy iss unplanned. And in every one of these movies, the mothers-to-be opt not to terminate the pregnancy. Somewhere, the cinematic doppleganger of Randall Terry is doing a little dance of joy.

This isn't so much about taking those movies to task. Bella in particular was made with a specifically "pro-life" agenda; the other three were comedies of situation, and abortion doesn't lend itself to big yuks (Citizen Ruth notwithstanding). But for some time now, the supposedly left-leaning movie world has studiously avoided stories about women opting for abortion — which makes the raw guts of Tony Kaye's documentary Lake of Fire all the more startling for acknowledging this hard reality.

Thirty years ago, Kay Corleone announced to Michael in The Godfather Part II that she had aborted their unborn son rather than bring another child into this "Sicilian thing." Today, look who's carrying to term: A career woman who risks her big shot after a one-night-stand. A woman in an abusive relationship. A high-school student. You could call these brave narrative decisions. Or you could wonder if "lib'rul Hollywood" hasn't decided that "pro-choice" is all well and good, except when it comes to alienating potential ticket-buyers.

— Scott Renshaw

Trailer Roundup: Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood, August Rush

Peter Smith — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

When it was announced that Hollywood was finally going to adapt Steven Sondheim’s hit musical, it seemed a no-brainer for Tim Burton to be tapped to direct. Yet judging by the trailer, I’m not sure he was the right choice. Sure, Burton has become the go-to guy for dark-yet-commercial, but Sweeney Todd is unpleasant stuff, and Burton’s tendency towards cartoonish style and scary-yet-sensitive man-children may lead him to soft-pedal the story’s less savory aspects. Too bad, because Sweeney Todd could be a hell of a movie if made right. Jury’s still out on the singing voices of the actors — Sweeney’s a demanding role vocally, and Depp mostly speak-sings his one song in the trailer. But let’s not forget that (a) a really strong voice isn’t altogether necessary when you’ve got multiple takes and post-production facilities at your disposal, and (b) for whatever reason Hollywood studios are still reluctant to give musicals an all-out singing-and-dancing push. Perhaps they’ve realized that the core audience for musicals is both older and more female than the demographic of teenage boys they court so aggressively?

There Will Be Blood

Oh man, I’m so pumped (sorry) for this. Every P.T. Anderson film is an event for a certain strain of filmgoer, but this could be even more than that. Blood appears to be as much of a departure as Punch-Drunk Love was. Unlike many filmmakers of his generation, he’s impossible to pigeonhole. And that he’s got Daniel Day-Lewis on board this time only makes this even more promising. Here’s a director who got startling performances from Burt Reynolds and Adam Sandler, neither a particularly acclaimed thespian, and so a collaboration with the most uncompromising talent among recognizable "name" actors is pretty irresistible. Based on ecstatic early word coming out of Austin’s Fantastic Film Fest, my high hopes seem to be justified. Also, just to clear something up: There Will Be Blood is the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. It is not the new Saw movie. Get it? Got it. Good.

August Rush

Let’s see: cute kids, music, an orphan trying to find his parents. If this weren’t in English it’d be a shoo-in for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. But as it is it’s a big-studio release, so it’s got to stand on its own merits. I’ve got nothing against anything this movie is about, but August Rush looks like it’s been calculated for maximum tear-extracting shamelessness. And just when you don’t think it could look any more dire, Robin Williams shows up in full twinkling-eccentric mode as a inspirational street-corner guitarist in a cowboy hat. At least Terrence Howard is around to deliver the trailer’s one good moment, when he asks the long-lost mom played by Keri Russell the question on everyone’s mind — "Why’s it so important that you want him now?"

— Paul Clark