I Film (Name Film)

The title of the film is a window to the world – that is, to the interpenetration of reality and writing. (That is the world.) As so often, Ernst Schmidt Jr. holds up a piece of paper with the film title on it to the camera, but here it is framed by a window that opens out onto the city. And the city contains the filmmaker's name in its diverse inscriptions: not concentrated, as in a narcissistic or paranoid fantasy in which the whole world would mirror me. Rather, the name is fragmented, scattered into individual letters that are collected, collectured, in extreme close-ups of facades – extracted from other word arrangements, from illuminated and advertising letters in a wide variety of fonts. Ernst Schmidt Jr. comments on this montage of letters from off-screen (in German): "I am looking for the letters of my name in reality. E, R, etc. Unfortunately, one letter is missing; it has been forgotten." (It is the M.) The filmmaker, who is (probably rightly) said to have a penchant for producing mistakes, notes this in an almost reproachful tone. But at the end, the suffix is not forgotten: ""J und R, das heißt Junior: Das g´hört zum Namen dazu." – "J and R, that is Junior: that's part of the name." Exactly.

It should also be remembered that the Ichfilm (alternative title according to Linda Bilda: Namensfilm) was edited into the beginning of Schmidt Jr.'s opus magnum Wienfilm 1896-1976 like a director's signature: The Ichfilm is followed by the Wienfilm title and the list of the film´s participants; the list picks up on the Ichfilm's self-discovery in Viennese reality, using classic statues of great figures of yesteryear, each of which stands metaphorically for the participating artists. (Drehli Robnik)