Cultural journalist, essayist and publicist of the New German Film Peter W. Jansen has passed away.

After a long illness and a few days after his 78th birthday, Peter W. Jansen died on November 15. The well-known journalist and long-time director of the national radio station SWR was one of Germany`s most renowned film critics. Since the Oberhausen Manifesto (1962) his unfailing reviews accompanied the New German Film. While the magazines he wrote for include Filmkritik, Filmbulletin as well as Kirche und Film he also contributed regularly as cultural correspondent to such newspapers as Frankfurter Rundschau, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Tagesspiegel and DIE ZEIT. A larger public knew him through his contributions for "aspekte", a regular show on Germany`s national TV station ZDF.

Together with Wolfram Schütte, Jansen edited one of the most important compendia on author`s films: With its distinctive blue design, the 45-volume-series "Reihe Film" has become a standard work. It appeared in the Carl Hanser Verlag between 1972 and 1982. Following the volume François Truffaut, the second monograph in the series was already dedicated to Rainer Werner Fassbinder. After numerous updated editions, Fischer Cinema republished it in 1992.

Over the years, Peter W. Jansen made various intense radio- and TV-interviews with Rainer Werner Fassbinder. To this day, they hold an important position in the history of film. Of major importance is the conversation they had in Paris on January 9, 1978: In it, RWF offers his views on Germany, his own work and on himself in an unusually open manner. (Compare also Fassbinder über Fassbinder: Die ungekürzten Interviews, edited by Robert Fischer, 2004)

The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation had a long and deep friendship with Peter W. Jansen and wishes to express its sadness regarding his loss. Please refer also to Juliane Lorenz`s personal homage in our blog.


Part of Peter W. Jansen`s cinematic and cultural heritage is without doubt the series of radio plays entitled "Jansens Kino". In it, he narrates the history of cinema through 100 films he selected:
http://www.bertz-fischer.de


For more information about Peter W. Jansen:
http://www.swr.de/swr2/-/id=7576/nid=7576/did=4200160/4c9a5s/