pynchon movies

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Dave quoted from "a correspondent":

> "It's about Bianca doing V-2 research, and it's called
> Prufstand 7.  The director is Robert Bramkamp, the
> length 114 minutes, and it is said to start in
> January.   An article appeared in the December edition
> of Spex, das Magazin fur Popkultur, which appeared
> yesterday.  Reviews of both movies are on page
> 55: 'Thomas Pynchon. Niemand Filmt Gott.'
>
> "See also page 32 of today's Frankfurter Allgemeine
> Sonntagszeitung, 'Das Phantom der Pixel,' by Peter
> Korte.  Among other things, Pynchon gave Bramkamp (who
> works at the Filmhochschule in Babelsberg) permisson
> to use passages from Gravity's Rainbow."
>

To summarize a few things I know about the "Pruefstand 7" (information I
have posted already, probably somewhere back in 2000): Pynchon's agent
gave Bramkamp permission to use material from GR for up to 10 per cent
of his movie. Bramkamp's focus, if I am not mistaken, is on German
expressionist movies and the rocket or, more specifically, on the
historical and cultural relations between Fritz Lang's and Thea von
Harbou's "Frau im Mond", Wernher von Braun's scientific career, the V2
and the Saturn V (if that's the one that brought Armstrong to the moon).
It is a mixture of documentary and fiction, and there were some
interviews conducted as well. The movie was shot in 1999 and 2000 in
Peenemünde, Potsdam-Babelsberg (where Bramkamp is a lecturer at the
local Filmhochschule), Cologne, the Lueneburger Heide, in Bremen, the
Harz, Los Angeles, and I guess a few other places. The verses on the
final page of GR are performed by Go-Between Robert Forster at the end
of the movie (the music was composed on the spot, so the song is not
among Forster's (who is - I've said it before, do I have to say it
again? - still one of the best songwriters around) most glorious
efforts.

The German "Magazine for Popular Culture" SPEX says the movie is mostly
a chain of associations and that as far as there is a story it is mostly
the story of Bianca's quest. Whatever that means: The movie will be in
(very few, I am sure) German theaters in January.

Thomas