Magnificent Obsessions Saved My Life (Paperback)

Matthias Brunner

ISBN 10: 3907236424 / ISBN 13: 9783907236420

Published by Edition Patrick Frey, Switzerland, 2022

About this Item

Paperback. Biographies can be as various as human lives. And yet Magnificent Obsessions Saved My Life really is an outlier, a (auto)biography of a different kind that retraces milestones and turning points in the life of a post-war artist from a dysfunctional family, set against the backdrop of his 68 generations experiences of sexual liberation and his all too personal experience of two deadly pandemics: AIDS and Covid-19. But these biographical and historical elements of the authors life come to the fore in an ongoing dialogue with Hollywood classics, films dauteur, contemporary art and literature. For a work of cinematic or visual art amounts to nothing if it tells you nothing about your own life: film and art are always about what was and what could have been. Magnificent Obsessions takes up these existential questions in texts and images, including selections from Brunners impressive collection of movie stills and reproductions of his favorite art works. As in movies, people are the focus, the protagonists, of Brunners sometimes mordantly blunt and yet affectionate, sometimes almost tender writings. When he loses the love of his life, Swiss art dealer Thomas Ammann, to AIDS, he writes about their shared happiness so as not to be consumed by grief. He remembers the glamorous Elisabeth Bossard (Thema Selection), his lover for many years, and relates anecdotes from a flirtation in Venice with Edmund White, the American writer who became a friend. He recounts his love-hate relationship with Swiss filmmaker Daniel Schmid, replete with intimate glimpses of the late German filmmakers Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Schroeter, their works and the whole scene around them. It was the film curator Brunner who brought the films of his friends John Waters and Andy Warhol to Switzerland early onbypassing the censors. Brunner knew the light and dark sides of the Dream Factory, but was always ready and willing to succumb yet again to its Imitation of Life, as Douglas Sirk titled one of his great melodramas.With a preface by Stefan Zweifel and an epilog by John Waters. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9783907236420

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Magnificent Obsessions Saved My Life (Paperback)
• Publisher: Edition Patrick Frey, Switzerland
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3907236424
• ISBN 13: 9783907236420
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The Swiss film curator’s visual autobiography, with guest appearances from Fassbinder, Warhol, Waters and many more

Set against the backdrop of his generation’s experiences of sexual liberation and his personal experience of two deadly pandemics, AIDS and Covid 19, this visual autobiography traces milestones in the life of Swiss film curator Matthias Brunner (born 1945). Brunner engages in an ongoing dialogue with Hollywood classics, auteur films and contemporary art, but most of all he discusses the people behind the artworks. He recounts his love-hate relationship with Swiss filmmaker Daniel Schmid and provides intimate glimpses of the late German filmmakers Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Schroeter. He also recalls how he brought the films of his friends John Waters and Andy Warhol to Switzerland early on, bypassing strict censorship codes in the process. Altogether, this autobiography testifies to Brunner’s consistent desire to embrace and champion the arts, and his generous, tireless will to share his obsessions with others.