Sheer Madness
Original Title
Heller Wahn- Director: Margarethe von Trotta
- Writer: Margarethe von Trotta
- Producer: Eberhard Junkersdorf; Margaret Ménégoz
CGiii Comment
Olga and Ruth become friends. Olga is independent, separated from her husband, living with an immigrant pianist, and teaching feminist literature. Ruth is withdrawn, a painter, possibly mentally ill. Ruth dreams in black and white, sometimes of her suicide. Olga lectures on a 19th-century writer, von Günderrode, a suicide after the breakup of her intense friendship with Bettina Brentano. Ruth's husband Franz encourages the women's friendship, then, as Olga draws Ruth out and the friendship deepens, he becomes jealous. After the women travel to Egypt, Franz has a tirade. Ruth seems crushed between her husband and her friend, and how she responds is the film's climax.
Trailer...
Cast & Characters
Hanna Schygulla as Olga;
Angela Winkler as Ruth;
Peter Striebeck as Franz;
Christine Fersen as Erika;
Franz Buchrieser as Dieter;
Wladimir Yordanoff as Alexaj;
Agnes Fink as Ruth's mother;
Felix Moeller as Christof;
Jochen Striebeck as Bruno;
Therese Affolter as Renate;
Werner Eichhorn as Schlesinger;
Karl Striebeck as Bruno's father;
Peter Aust;
Helga Ballhaus;
Selda Bondy