Luise Fleck
Luise Fleck, also known as Luise Kolm or Luise Kolm-Fleck, née Louise or Luise Veltée (1 August 1873–15 March 1950), was an Austrian film director, and has been considered the second ever female feature film director in the world, after Alice Guy-Blaché. Her son, Walter Kolm-Veltée, was also a noted film director. Technically, however, the second female feature film director in the world after Alice Guy-Blaché was chronologically Ebba Lindkvist, having debuted as a film maker one year before Luise Fleck.
Life
Austria, Wiener Kunstfilm and Vita-Film: to 1926
Luise was born in Vienna, the daughter of Louis Veltée, proprietor of the city panopticon, descended from a family originating in Lyon, who had settled in Austria in the early 19th century. Her brother was Claudius Veltée, also later known as a film director.
Even in her childhood she helped her father in his business by working on the till. In January 1910, she and her first husband,
The company's first productions were short documentary pieces made in Vienna and other parts of the
The French companies were expelled from Austria at the beginning of World War I, but there was new competition in the form of the extremely wealthy Sascha-Film company, also Austrian. During the war the two companies struggled for dominance in the newsreel and propaganda markets, but the superior financial resources of Sascha-Film saw them firmly in the leading position by 1918, and carried them through the economic and political collapse of Austria immediately following the end of the war. Wiener Kunstfilm was obliged to dissolve, but Anton Kolm was able to re-structure its finances and relaunch the company as Vita-Film in 1919.
Work began immediately on prestigious new film studios at Rosenhügel in Mauer,[1] but in 1922, as a result of severe disagreements with their financial backers, Anton and Luise Kolm and Jacob Fleck severed their connection with Vita-Film.[2] Anton died later in the same year. Luise and Fleck married in 1924 and left for Berlin in 1926.[3]
Germany 1926-33; Austria 1933-40
In Germany Luise Fleck and her husband worked for Berlin production companies, particularly for
When in 1938 the
Exile 1940-47
Jacob Fleck was interned in 1938 in
Return to Austria 1947-50
In 1947, the same year in which Austria's first post-war film studio opened[4] the Flecks returned to Vienna to plan their comeback, which however never materialised, although a few films were made under the name of a revived Neuer Wiener-Kunstfilm. Luise Fleck died in 1950, Jacob Fleck three years later.
Works
In 1911 her first credited work as co-director was released: Die Glückspuppe ("Good Luck Doll"). Other dramas followed in the same year: Der Dorftrottel ("The Village Idiot"), Tragödie eines Fabriksmädels ("Tragedy of a Factory Girl") and Nur ein armer Knecht ("Just a Poor Fellow"). In 1913 were premiered her works as director and producer "Der Psychiater" ("The Psychiatrist") and Das Proletarierherz ("The Proletarian Heart").[5]
During World War I, she directed the pro-
She also made use of Austrian literature in
Luise Kolm, as she was then called, was principally responsible for the studio's production of socially critical dramas that dealt with questions of class conflict and ideological questions, unlike the standard productions of other film studios of the time. The actor Eduard Sekler, who worked for Wiener Kunstfilm, described her in this way: "Luise Kolm was a brilliant all-round talent while her husband Kolm just looked after the money - she did everything, she cut and spliced the films, wrote the intertitles and helped her brother in the laboratory. Without her drive and initiative it's doubtful if the firm could have remained in existence." [7]
Further works by her were the film adaptation of
Altogether Luise Fleck wrote at least 18 screenplays, directed 53 films and produced 129 films. Some sources assume far higher figures, allowing for her work being often uncredited.[6]
Selected filmography
- Die Glückspuppe (1911)
- The Wedding of Valeni (1914)
- The Priest from Kirchfeld (1914)
- With Heart and Hand for the Fatherland (1915)
- On the Heights (1916)
- The Tragedy of Castle Rottersheim (1916)
- The Vagabonds (1916)
- Summer Idyll (1916)
- With God for Emperor and Empire (1916)
- The Stain of Shame (1917)
- Lebenswogen (1917)
- The Black Hand (1917)
- In the Line of Duty (1917)
- The Spendthrift (1917)
- Rigoletto (1918)
- Double Suicide (1918)
- Don Cesar, Count of Irun (1918)
- The Ancestress (1919)
- The Master of Life (1920)
- Eva, The Sin (1920)
- Let the Little Ones Come to Me (1920)
- Doctor Ruhland (1920)
- Trance (1920) aka Anita
- The Dancing Death (1920)
- The Voice of Conscience (1920)
- Spring Awakening (1924)
- The Priest from Kirchfeld (1926)
- The Orlov (1927)
- A Girl of the People (1927)
- The Prince's Child (1927)
- Flirtation (1927)
- The Beggar Student (1927)
- The Merry Vineyard (1927)
- Doctor Schäfer (1928)
- The Beloved of His Highness (1928)
- Yacht of the Seven Sins (1928)
- The Little Slave (1928)
- The Most Beautiful Woman in Paris (1928)
- His Majesty's Lieutenant (1929)
- The Happy Vagabonds (1929)
- The Tsarevich (1929)
- Crucified Girl (1929)
- The Right to Love (1930)
- The Citadel of Warsaw (1930)
- When the Soldiers (1931)[8]
- An Auto and No Money (1932)
- Our Emperor (1933)
- The Priest from Kirchfeld (1937)
Notes
- Rosenhügel Film Studiosare still in operation today
- ^ Vita-Film went bankrupt in 1925
- ^ "Filmportal Luise Fleck". Filmportal.de. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
- ^ Belvedere-Film, set up by August Diglas, Emmerich Hanus and Elfi von Dassanowsky,
- ^ it is not clear whether these are two separate films shown together, or the title and subtitle of a single film
- ^ a b Nepf, 1991
- ^ "Filmgeschichte(n) aus Österreich" (Folge 2, ORF, 1970)
- ^ "Luise Fleck on Filmportal.de". Filmportal. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
Sources
- Nepf, Markus. Die Pionierarbeit von Anton Kolm, Louise Velteé/Kolm/Fleck und Jacob Fleck bis zu Beginn des 1. Weltkrieges. Thesis. Vienna 1991, 200 S. (ÖFA Wien)
- Teng; Guoqiang. Fluchtpunkt Shanghai. Luise und Jakob Fleck in China 1939–1946. In: Film-Exil SDK (4/1994)
- Dassanowsky, Robert von. Female Visions: Four Female Austrian Film Pioneers. In: Modern Austrian Literature. Vol. 32, No. 1, 1999
External links
- Luise Fleck at IMDb
- https://www.filmportal.de/person/luise-fleck_7abc98f3fb8049f0bed0cc45443351d3
- "Luise Fleck-Kolm on Women Film Pioneers Project". Women Film Pioneers Project. Retrieved 16 March 2020.