Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-screen

Description

Synopsis

A “well wrought investigation of the often mysterious life of Edgar G. Ulmer,” (Village Voice) that ambitiously blends film clips, interviews, audio tapes and vintage music cues into a fascinating documentary, Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen is “a nice homage” (New York Times) to the filmmaking genius behind The Black Cat, Detour, and The Man From Planet X. Featuring testimonials from Roger Corman, John Landis, Joe Dante, Wim Wenders, and Detour’s ultimate femme fatale Ann Savage, The Man Off-Screen paints a vividly impressionistic portrait of a no-budget auteur stylistically able to “take a rat and make Thanksgiving dinner out of it.”

On his own and in collaboration with movie-legends F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder, from Berlin’s legendary UFA Studios to poverty-row purgatory in Hollywood (where he was blackballed for stealing a studio exec’s daughter-in-law), Ulmer created a unique and heady blend of old world culture and twentieth century pulp pizzazz.

Director

Michael Palm

Michael Palm was born in 1965, attended the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Department of Film and Television (Film Academy), and the University of Vienna, where he studied philosophy and drama. Filmmaker and editor. Composes film music, sound editor, and sound designer, freelance film scholar and author. Countless lectures and publications on theory and aesthetics of film and cinema, lectures on film theory at the University of Music and Performing Arts and at the University of Vienna. Lives and works in Vienna.