German failure: “Filmregisseure” 3rd ed.

In 1999 I was proudly working with Thomas Koebner on a huge German book film directors: “Filmregisseure” (Reclam Verlag). I was completing the texts, researching titles, providing films and finally writing all filmographies. A huge amount of work, which pays off successfully in a – what I thought – nice book, collecting essays on many well-respected filmmakers. For this work I was only briefly mentioned in the editorial.

In 2008 a new and 3rd edition hit the market: The good news is that it features my new text on Kim Ki-duk; and for the first time I am mentioned on the (inside) title page. The bad news is that many of my earlier text as well a several others were skipped due to new articles etc. This might make sense for a stupid publisher hoping to keep the same size for the costs, but it is simply a betrayal of the readers. They will get a new book, this time skipping Paul Verhoeven, Derek Jarman, Michael Cimino, John Woo, Paul Schrader etc. like they lost their importance within ten years!?

To state this very clearly: Avoid this book, dear readers! I distance myself from it. In fact stating this kind of ‘canon’ seems pretty silly in my eyes today. Stick to Steven Jay Schneider’s “501 film directors”, this number makes more sense than the 200 of “Filmregisseure”. And Schneider’s book is much less eurocentristic!