Not Much Luck for Franka Potente

In January we had covered the anti-American remarks of German actor Franka Potente's, who returned from LA complaining about the stupidity of Americans ("You have to lower your expectations and be delighted if someone is interested. Someone who at least will listen, because they usually have a rather short attention span.")

Well, turns out, nobody seems to be interested to listen to Franka back in Germany, too.

The poor girl faces a brick wall in her career. And her boy friend is gone.

The good old days in LA...

Comments

[kid charlemagne]

For a moment I thought you wrote, "The poor girl has a face like a brick wall." Wouldn't have been far off...

There's an interview with her in the current issue of the Berlin city magazine, "Tip", on the occasion of the release of her new film, "Creep". This time, instead of spouting off about America, she mostly discusses films and comes as not very bright or knowledgable, but pedantic nonetheless. (This is, unfortunately, a common German characteristic.) For example, she gives credit to director John Carpenter for influencing a trend toward making horror films effective by not showing a lot of gore, when in fact Carpenter's "Haloween" started the whole gory teen slasher flick trend in the late Seventies.

There is one example of her boneheaded analysis of America, however: She theorizes that the recent remakes of "Dawn of the Dead" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" are an attempt by the Amis to deal with the shock and rage caused by Sept. 11.

[roman thomas]

The funny thing is after the first time Ray wrote about this, I went to her fan club website. I trashed her so bad, that she felt that she had to respond indirectly to me. Making every excuse why everyone was misunderstanding her. She said,"Just read the article, and then make your decision." I wrote her back again, this time, very to the point of what a scumbag she is. The next thing you know, her site was/and still is, down. I like to think she did it for me.

[Hector]

Smart move Franka!

Trashing the people of the world's largest media market (because you are one of millions who did not reach the top) only ensures that door will be much harder to open if you get another shot.

Franka, bitte sag es mir, wie sollte 290 millionen Leute reagieren auf ihren bescheurten hass woerter? Ich habe es gelesen und habe auch entschieden...mein video von Lola Renn ist jetzt in die gelbe mull sacke.

[Tyranno]

. . . German actress Franka Potente's, who returned from LA complaining about the stupidity of Americans

("You have to lower your expectations and be delighted if someone is interested. Someone who at least will listen, because they usually have a rather short attention span.")

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

An uninteresting observation that I have found to be equally true (as true as?) here in Deutschland as in America. Unless, of course, you are parroting the anti-Ami Partyline, in which case, just like in America, suddenly you become the smartest Yank in the room.

Potenta has managed to internalize that daffy leftist trait of blaming a lack of talent on being "too German!" or "too smart! or "too Black!" It is the cross all "progressive" liberals bear up under as they navigate life in a horrible and growing more Red State nation.

I wonder what Arnold Schwarzenegger, Antonio Banderas, Jackie Chan, Penelope Cruz, Rutgar Hauer, Jim Carrey, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Russel Crowe, Elizabeth Hurley, Anthony Hopkins, Ewan McGregor, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Neve Campbell, Mike Myers, Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Rupert Everett, Judi Dench and Sean Connery. etc, etc, etc . . . might have to say about her observations?

Petulant victimization. Hardly a charming or complementary affectation for those more
"complex" and "sophisticated" among us to fall back on.
Take heart Franka there is a place in the world for everyone with a talent as great as yours. Now repeat after me,
"Would you like fries with that ma'am?"
"Would you like that supersized sir?"

Tyranno

[Sean]

The really funny thing is that while she trashed us stupid Americans, we (on this site) are practically the only people who even took note. Everyone else would be like: Who's Franka Potente? She's kind of skanky.

[Jack]

oh my god. This girl is stupid. I found this short video:
http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/26/0,1872,2267322,00.html
Like all boring people, she had the chance to talk with Kerner.
She also talks about her year in LA where:
-people chat on the cellphone 24 hours a day
-where people have this strange bumper sticks on their cars and everywhere the stars & stripes.
-Where people don`t read Kant and Hegel
-and last but not least in LA , if people say "interesting", they in fact mean "shity".

[Lars]

@Sean: I think you are wrong. There is some German media coverage. I remember an SZ article maybe two days ago and a tagesschau.de post which both mentioned (but in a much softer expression) here thinking of the "boring" Americans.

[Hector]

She sounds like a bumpkin describing her first visit to the big city....

I suppose director Roland Emmerich and actor Juergen Prochnow did well in Hollywood on a fluke eh ?

Oh, and why the hell should all Americans read tomes from Hegel and Kant? Earth to Franka: there is a world outside Europe where much thought and contemplation takes place. Try exploring it while taking off your chauvinist-colored glasses. You may find a whole new world out there. By the way, I doubt you've read Hegel or Kant yourself...

Also, how many people in Germany have read Adam Smith, Francis Bacon, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or even the Arthasastra? Should we expect them all to do so Franka?

[RastaBasta]

Her movie was crap anyway.
Lola Rennt,.... yeah,keep on running.

[Jabba the Tutt]

I liked her in 'Bourne Identity', then saw her get killed off in the first 7 minutes of 'Bourne Supremacy'. Reportedly, they paid her a million bucks, so she must have pissed off the producers or the director or Matt Damon. And her anti-American crap wouldn't have pissed them off, (Matt Damon was a neighbor and worshipper of Gnome Chomsky). I wonder what it was.

[Charles]

Art immitates life, or does life immitate art? I thought she was really acting in "Bourne Identity". Now it turns out that when she was playing the part of a confused young woman with no home, she really was a confused young woman with no home.

[RastaBasta]

1,000,000

gasp, for such a

[Steve Mac]

The woman's major claim to fame is she starred (almost mute) in the first full length movie to exploit the (very American, very shallow) MTV format, stupid is as stupid does. The movie repeats itself three times to get it's point across, the first time it's fun, the second interesting, but the third time (yawn, not again) is just boring. Much like Miss Potenta herself, I'm sure. Why is it that Europeans will go on endlessly about the "wrongs" and "evils" of the US to an American audience, while we listen politely to their half truths and prejudices, and they never understand they are boring us to tears? It would never occur to them that these conversations die because they themselves are rude, repetitive, and not the least bit interested in hearing another point of view.

[Queequeg]

Had to look at IMDB to see who the heck this is.... Folks, tell me why I should pay her any attention when so many American actors are constantly feeling the need to trash this country? Just ignore her and she will hopefully return to community theater in Dulmen (see IMDB).

[Chomskybot]

It's horribly poor style to mob someone in this way months after she has made some political statements opposed to your own - even if these statements were not very well-thought.

Note from David: We are deeply ashamed, Chomsky.

[Hector]

Poor style to ressond to ignorant and hate-inspiring rantings from just last week? You have to be kidding. Its amazing the rhetorical gymnastics the Chompskee crowd resorts to these days defending stupidity.

[Queequeg]

Based on what I've read here, they are not political statements but negative generalizations about Americans. Do you understand that distinction, Chomskybot?

[kid charlemagne]

"Folks, tell me why I should pay her any attention when so many American actors are constantly feeling the need to trash this country?"

Speaking of which, dorky techno musician Moby has been spouting anti-American nonsense to the German press, who of course eat it up: Moby: Amerikaner sind dumm

[mamapajamas]

Tyranno: "("You have to lower your expectations and be delighted if someone is interested. Someone who at least will listen, because they usually have a rather short attention span.")

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"An uninteresting observation that I have found to be equally true (as true as?) here in Deutschland as in America. Unless, of course, you are parroting the anti-Ami Partyline, in which case, just like in America, suddenly you become the smartest Yank in the room."

Actually, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I've personally found that "attention span" bears a direct proportional relationsip to "you think just like I do!" ... no matter who you're talking to or where ;).

[mamapajamas]

Charlemagne: re: "For example, she gives credit to director John Carpenter for influencing a trend toward making horror films effective by not showing a lot of gore, when in fact Carpenter's "Haloween" started the whole gory teen slasher flick trend in the late Seventies."

Exactly. In fact, what's really happening is that the film industry is rediscovering the works of the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock never showed us ANYTHING. And that worked in favor of letting our imaginations work us even more than what was actually implied ;).

[lemmy]

Geez, wouldn't you know it. As long as I have lived in Germany and as little TV I watch (except some sports and news), it would be just my luck to have come across this "Lola Runs/Lola Rennt" two times now within the last year or so. But to find out that "Lola" was Franka Potente is even more weird (just like the few clips of that movie).

I agree with one of the other posters, above. Although her hypocritical comments about Hollywood and life in the States are absurd, she's a nobody in the big scheme of things.

And good for Julian...glad to hear he cut his losses!

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

@ Kid Charlemagne

Well found that article on Moby.

If Moby says Americans are stupid then it must be true, after all he is an American himself! / Sarcasm

A translation for those who require it:

"Amerikaner sind fette Comicfiguren, die Fast-Food essen, idiotische Fernsehserien sehen und Waffen tragen"

Americans are fat comic figures who eat fast food, watch idiotic television and carry guns.

"Bush reduziert komplizierte Weltpolitik auf simples Gut und Böse - und Millionen applaudieren."

Bush reduces complicated world politics to a simple good and evil - and millions applaud

- I wonder why Moby thinks that Bush needs an expert like Condi in his team if its all just that simple, but perhaps that is beyond the thought process of a crap musician who only wrote two good songs.

@Chomskybot

"It's horribly poor style to mob someone in this way months after she has made some political statements opposed to your own - even if these statements were not very well-thought."

I would suggest that these statements (that were not political opinions but rather stupid stereotypes) were actually very well thought out. You will have to have a better argument than that before people start to shame themselves about this poor style of Schadenfreude, me thinks.

[Lou Minatti]

I still think Franka Potente is hot. Let's be fair. Are her anti-American comments any different from those made by the other Hollywood idiots? Regardless, it's too bad that she's burned the bridges. Her career was growing in the US, anyway. Not now.

I will agree that she is an ass kisser. While listening to the commentary on the Run Lola Run (US version of Lola Rentt) DVD, she was a major sycophant. "Me and Tom did this...", "Tom and I did that..." Gag. It was kinda disgusting.

[kid charlemagne]

Mamapyjamas: Yes, I was going to mention Hitchcock.

Thanks for translating, DBA, I was too lazy to do it.

I originally found a similar Moby interview in "Die Welt", who titled it, with obvious glee, "Moby: Amerikaner sind dumm" ("Moby: Americans are dumb"). And this is Germany's most conservative and pro-American newspaper!

At one point the interviewer asked Moby, who owns a vegetarian restaurant in New York, if he was going to teach the Americans about food culture. Can you imagine the stupidity and provinciality of such a question? As if there were no food culture in New York of all places!

[Jason Frank]

Having lived in N. San Diego for 12 years I found myself taking extreme measures to avoid Hell A (L.A.). The people there truly are shallow. They are also xenophobic and don't like foreigners so it would be unlikely that any german would ever get an accurate view. It is truly a miserable place and I hope that visiters don't think the rest of the US is like that. It is also a warning to all cities about what can happen with bad governance and planning even if the weather is beautiful.

[Doughnut Boy Andy]

More Franka stuff. I wont bother translating it all. It seems that there have been some complaints about the film´s rating- perhaps a publicity thing but BZ reckons the film sucks anyways. Lola has been type cast. In an interview she admits to having filmed only 14 days in the whole of last year, denies flopping in LA and describes her day off ( off which she had 352 last year!) as drinking litres of coffee, smoking packets of cigarettes and watching sex and the city and the news. On the U-Bahn / Metro today the news tv said that she was thinking about quitting as she doesnt like the fame and the stardom! Reality Check: Nobody knows who you are Franka! I think she might be a TV celeb soon and on celebrity big brother within a few years.....

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=52&story_id=17922&name=Germans+protest+against+new+horror+film

"BERLIN - Audiences in Germany are protesting against Christopher Smith's horror thriller "Creep", saying it contains so much graphic violence that it should be restricted to mature audiences only, the film's German distributors said on Friday.

Thousands of phone calls and emails have been received by X-Verleih, the distributors in Germany, protesting against graphic scenes which include one man's throat being slit and another man being disemboweled.

"It is true that 'Creep' contains some unsavoury scenes that go far beyond what the average movie-goer is willing to stomach," X-Verleih spokeswoman Anja Oster told Deutsche Presse-Agentur"

http://bz.berlin1.de/kino/050311/creep.html

"BZ-Wertung: Schade eigentlich. Der Film beginnt richtig gut, die Kamera treibt ein tolles Spiel mit dem Unheimlichen. Doch als der Creep - eine Mischung aus Elefantenmann und Gollum - einmal aus dem Sack ist, ist die Luft raus. Statt haarsträubendem Horror wird uns eine wilde Splatterstory mit wirren Motivationsversuchen vorgesetzt. Und der Rest ist einfach nur unappetitlich."

http://bz.berlin1.de/kino/050307/potente.html

"Sie hatten 2004 nur 14 Drehtage. Ist das normal?

Für mich war das bisher nicht normal. Ich habe schon immer weniger gearbeitet als der Durchschnitt. Letztes Jahr war es aber zu wenig. Ich bin Schauspielerin, das ist mein Job, kein Hobby. 14 Drehtage sind nicht genug.

Galten Sie nach Ihrer Rückkehr aus L.A. als "gescheiterter Star"?

Es hielt sich in Grenzen. Ich bin ja nicht nach Los Angeles gegangen, um beruflich durchzustarten, sondern weil ich ein gebrochenes Herz hatte. "

"Wie sieht ein drehfreier Tag bei Franka Potente aus?

Heute bin ich viel zu früh aufgewacht, um halb acht, weil ich aufs Klo mußte, dann konnte ich natürlich nicht mehr einschlafen. Dann habe ich lange im Bett gelegen und über Kaffee nachgedacht, da war ich hellwach. Dann hab ich ein paar Liter Kaffee gekocht, eine halbe Schachtel Zigaretten geraucht und dabei eine Folge "Sex and the City" geguckt. Nebenbei hab ich mir noch eine Badewanne eingelassen, Zeitung gelesen und Nachrichten geguckt. "

LOL

[James]

I wonder why ARD didn't report on Diane Kruger's success?

[tn]

[quote] Like all boring people, she had the chance to talk with Kerner.
She also talks about her year in LA where:
-people chat on the cellphone 24 hours a day
-where people have this strange bumper sticks on their cars and everywhere the stars & stripes.
-Where people don`t read Kant and Hegel
-and last but not least in LA , if people say "interesting", they in fact mean "shity". [/quote]

Jack, I cannot comment on the statements Potente made a while ago, but IMO you are totally misrepresenting that interview (at Kerner's).

First off, she decidedly apologized BEFORE making these statements, and said TWICE that they might be generalizing and too simple.

Second (as for the bumper stickers) she thoroughly explained why this is something that a German is unfamiliar with. She said this without any trace of sarcasm or ignorance, in my opinion at least. When you grow up in 70s and 80s Germany (like both she and I did), patriotism (of any form) is considered "childish" and "stupid". Whether that's an idiotic attitude or not is another discussion, but the fact remains, that this is something that you NOTICE as a difference once you are living a while in the US (as both her an I did).

As for the cellphone thing: She mentioned it in conjunction with making appointments, which, as we all know, functions a bit differently in the US than it does here (no judgement, just a fact) -- as does the whole dating complex (no judgement, just a fact), which she mentioned briefly. She also said that in L.A it is natural that you are a lot on the road (distances) and that you consequently handle the major part of your daily communications via cellphone. So, how is that "anti-American"?

Again: she was talking about the differences that she noticed and how they sprung her eye and mind in a time where she was trying to get a new life started (after the split from Tykwer). She did not necessarily judge these things. She just pointed them out as personal motives to return to Berlin in the end. And after all Kerner was ASKING her, why she had returned to Berlin...

I didn't consider her attitude to be anti-American at all. We all know that cultural differences and habits can in the end influence you and make you decide, that you don't want to live somewhere anymore. But what's wrong with leaving, when you don't like something? Some folks on this forum never cease to point out how fucked up we Germans are, and how tired they are to live here (they have to, for the job), and how we Germans get on their balls and that they want to leave and yadda, yadda, yadda. And now a German decided to not stay in LA for various reasons (told and untold). And you guys start a riot and declare her an anti-American.. Come on...

Finally to me Kerner was the one who wanted to steer the interview into a decidedly anti-American direction (since I suppose this is what he thinks his audience wants to hear), but Franka wouldn't let him.

Again: she sure might be a hypocrit and have said things in the past which were stupid, but I was referring to that particular interview, in which I quite liked her, because she seemed to be honest and without the intention to blurt out the usual PR-bullshit, DESPITE the fact that her standing even and especially in Germany is at a current all-time low.

[WhatDoIKnow]

The Kerner talk was just as bad as her previous interviews, only a little bit diluted for national TV consumption. She repeated the same stereotypes about Americans, but, as I said, in a milder tone. Her motivation definitely doesn't seem to be "cultural differences". Anyone who so mindlessly parrots stereotypes(any kind of stereotypes) is nothing but plain stupid. In her case you have to add frustrations to the already existing mental receptivity to lame stereotypes.

When you grow up in 70s and 80s Germany (like both she and I did), patriotism (of any form) is considered "childish" and "stupid".

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." - Oscar Wilde ;-)

[James]

@Chomskybot

"It's horribly poor style to mob someone in this way months after she has made some political statements opposed to your own ..."

If only the Germans would adopt a similar mature attitude in their obvious contempt for George Bush. Even though recent events demonstrate democracy rising in the Middle East.

What was that, "not in my name." No worry, it wasn't.

[Karl]

@tn: I totally agree with you. Your post did really well encompass my thoughts while reading this blog. People here are always whining about how „the“ germans stereotype the US, and that „the“ germans never seem to distinguish, How ridiculous! I can only reply with Jesus here (what you folks probably like because your role-model George W. pretends to chose him as his guidance, poor Jesus):

„Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.“
(Luke 6: 36-42, but as good Neocons you´ll know the exact scripture, I assume)

Thank You & goodbye.
Karl

[kid charlemagne]

Poor Karl, complaining about generalizations with a holier-than-thou attitude, then making silly generalizations about the posters here ("you folks", "Neocons", worshippers of George W.). Right back at you, Karl.

[Gabi]

kid charlemagne,
well said. I had the same thoughts when I read "you folks".
-----------------

Tagespiegel wrote this about Wolfowitz:

17.03.2005

Unrecht verhindern – auch mit Gewalt
...
Sein Vater, ein polnischer Jude, kam nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg in die USA. Der Rest der Familie wurde fast komplett von den Nazis ermordet. Das hat ihn geprägt. Das „Nie Wieder!“ hieß für ihn nie wieder untätig sein, wenn Unrecht geschieht, sondern handeln, eingreifen, zur Not mit Waffengewalt. Oft spricht er von Kitty Genovese. Das ist eine New Yorkerin, die 1964 ermordet wurde, während Dutzende von Nachbarn zusahen, ohne die Polizei zu rufen. Der gelernte Mathematiker, der fließend Französisch, Hebräisch und Indonesisch spricht, war der Intellektuellste im Bush-Kabinett. Ruhig im Ton, nie agitierend, trägt er seine Sicht der Dinge vor. Nach John Bolton, dem künftigen US-Botschafter bei den UN, zieht nun ein zweiter prominenter Neokonservativer in ein Herzstück des Multilateralismus ein. Malte Lehming"

[aphilosopher]

@ Niko:

Does that "Neocon" smear work well in your circles? Fine.

Why do you regard is as "smear" when someone names the political ideology the Bush administration and its admirers stand for?

Oh, as far as Franka Potente's appearence at Kerner's is concerned, you can watch the entire interview on the ZDF website and then you see that TN described it accurately.