Luis Trenker

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Luis Trenker

Born	Alois Franz Trenker (1892-10-04)4 October 1892 Urtijëi, Tyrol
Died	13 April 1990(1990-04-13) (aged 97) Bolzano, South Tyrol
Occupation	Film producer, director, writer, actor, architect, alpinist
Years active	1921–1982
Spouse(s)	Hilde Bleichert (1903–1988)

Luis Trenker (born Alois Franz Trenker, 4 October 1892 – 13 April 1990) was a South Tyrolean film producer, director, writer, actor, architect, and alpinist.

Biography

Early life

Alois Franz Trenker was born on 4 October 1892 in Urtijëi, Tyrol (German: St. Ulrich in Gröden, Italian: Ortisei) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (in present-day northern Italy). His father Jacob Trenker was a painter from North Tyrol, and his mother Karolina (née Demetz) was from Urtijëi in Val Gardena. He grew up speaking two languages: German, the language of his father, and Ladin, the language of his mother. He attended the local primary school from 1898 to 1901, and then attended the Josefinum in Bolzano in 1902 and 1903. From 1903 to 1905, he attended the arts and crafts school in Bolzano, where he developed his skills as a woodcarver.

In 1912, he entered the Realschule in Innsbruck, where he studied Italian as a foreign language. There he began his middle school studies. During his high school years, he spent his holidays working for mountain guides and ski instructors. After his matriculation examinations in 1912, Trenker studied architecture at the Technical University in Vienna.

World War I

At the start of World War I, Trenker fought as a cadet in an Austro-Hungarian heavy artillery unit on the Eastern Front in Galicia and Russisch-Polen. From 1915 to 1918, he fought in the mountain war against Italy in the border fortress of Nauders. Later he fought in Trento. From 1916 he served as a mountain guide in the Dolomites. At the end of the war he had achieved the rank of Lieutenant. He would write 23 books based on his war experiences, the most important of which were Fort Rocca Alta and Berge in Flammen, the latter of which was made into the 1931 film Mountains on Fire.

At the end of the war, Trenker made several unsuccessful attempts to start an architecture business in Bolzano. In 1924, he enrolled at the Technical University of Graz, and then worked as an architect in Bolzano, forming a business partnership with the Austrian architect Clemens Holzmeister. In 1924, Trenker participated in the Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix as a member of the Italian five-man bobsled team. Under the leadership of Pilot Lodovico Obexer, they ended up in sixth place.

Film career

Trenker's first contact with film came in 1921, when he helped director Arnold Fanck on one of his mountain films. The main actor could not perform the stunts required, and so Trenker assumed the leading role. He gradually assumed more roles on the set, and by 1928 was directing, writing, and starring in his own films. By now he had abandoned his job as an architect to concentrate on his films.

In 1928 he married Hilda von Bleichert, the daughter of a fabrics manufacturer from Leipzig, and together they had four children. In 1932 Trenker created (with Curtis Bernhardt and Edwin H. Knopf) an historical film The Rebel. Trenker stated that the film's plotline of a Tyrolean mountaineer Severin Anderlan leading a revolt against occupying French forces in 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars. The greatest Tirolean patriot Andreas Hofer was a proto-type of "Severin Anderlan" ... Trenker was designed to mirror what was happening in contemporary Germany as it rejected the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.^[1]

The main theme of Trenker's work was the idealization of peoples connection with their homeland and pointing out the decadence of city life (most clearly visible in his 1934 film Der verlorene Sohn (The Prodigal Son). This loosely played into the hands of Nazi propagandists, who seized upon the nationalistic elements of his work. However, Trenker refused to allow his work to be subverted as such and eventually moved to Rome in 1940 to avoid further governmental pressure. After a pair of documentary films, however, Trenker returned to Bolzano and stopped making films. The style he had developed in the thirties was not limited to nationalistic, folkloristic, and heroic clichés. His impersonation of a hungry, downtrodden immigrant in depression era New York was regarded as one of the seminal scenes for future Italian neorealism by the likes of Roberto Rossellini.

World War II

Trenker was accused of fascist opportunism after the war, but the charges were eventually dropped. In the 1950s, he returned to the movie industry, though by 1965 he was making primarily documentary films that focused on the Austrian province of Tyrol and South Tyrol (his homeland), which had become part of Italy. He also returned to writing about the mountains.

Later life

In 1988 Hilda Trenker von Bleichert died. Luis Trenker died on 13 April 1990 in Bolzano at the age 97. He was buried in his family's plot at St. Ulrich in Gröden. In 1992, for the centennial of his birth, his native town of Ortisei dedicated a monument that shows him in mountaineer dresses while looking at the Langkofel, a mountain he liked to climb. In March 2004, the Museum Gherdëina displayed a collection of Trenker's belongings from a bequest of his family. On 7 October 2013, the article "Тренкер, Луис" (Trenker Luis) (ru) was created in the Russian Wikipedia.

Filmography

Mountain of Destiny (1924), Der Berg des Schicksals, actor
The Holy Mountain (1926), Der heilige Berg, actor
The Great Leap (1927), Der grosse Sprung, actor
Struggle for the Matterhorn (1928), Der Kampf ums Matterhorn, actor
The North Calls (1929), Der Ruf des Nordens, producer, actor
The Son of the White Mountain (1930), Der Sohn der weißen Berge, director, story, actor
The Great Longing (1930), Die große Sehnsucht, actor
Les Chevaliers de la montagne (1930), Knights of the Mountains, writer, actor
Die heiligen drei Brunnen (1930), actor
Mountains on Fire (1931), Berge in Flammen, director, novel, screenplay, actor
Doomed Battalion (1932), director, story, screenplay, actor
The Rebel (1932), Der Rebell, director, story, actor
Der verlorene Sohn (1934), director, novel, screenplay, actor
Der Kaiser von Kalifornien (1936), producer, director, writer, actor
Giovanni de Medici: The Leader (1937), director, story, screenplay, actor
Condottieri (1937), director, story, screenplay, actor
The Mountain Calls (1938), Der Berg ruft, director, writer, actor
The Challenge (1938), director, actor
Love Letters from the Engadin (1938), Liebesbriefe aus dem Engadin, producer, director, writer, actor
Boundary Fire (1939), producer
Urlaub im Schnee (1939, short), producer
Der Feuerteufel (1940), producer, director, writer, actor
Der König der Berge (1940, short), producer, writer
Pastor Angelicus (1942), director
Germanin: Die Geschichte einer kolonialen Tat (1943), actor
Monte Miracolo (1945), producer, director, screenplay, actor
Mountain Smugglers (1950), Barriera a settentrione, Duell in den Bergen, director, writer, actor
Aus König Laurins Rosengarten (1951), producer, actor
Bergsommer (1952, short), producer
An der Dolomitenstraße (1952, short), producer, director, writer
Kleine Kletterfahrt (1952, short), producer, director, writer
Niemals mutlos (1952, short), Don't Surrender Never!, producer, director, writer
Gondelfahrt durch Venedig (1952, short), Venetian Walk, producer, director, writer
Lofotenfischer (1952, short), The Lofoten Fisher, producer, director, writer
Die Sphinx von Zermatt (1953, short), producer, director, writer
Kavaliere im Eis (1954, short), producer, director, writer
Il prigioniero della montagna (1955), director, writer, actor
S.O.S. Zinnennordwand (1955, short), director
Gold aus Gletschern (1956), producer, director
Von der Liebe besiegt (1956), director, novel, actor
Wetterleuchten um Maria (1957), director
Unser Freund, der Haflinger (1957, short), Our Friend Haflinger, producer, director
Zwei Wege, ein Gipfel (1961, short), producer, director, writer
Sein bester Freund (1962), His Best Friend, director, screenplay, actor
Vacanze scambio (1962), director
Luftsprünge (1969–70, television series), actor
Skifreuden in den Dolomiten (1970, short), producer, director, writer
Ich filmte am Matterhorn (1970), producer, director, writer
Olympia (1971), actor
Die Glückspirale (1971), actor
Heimat aus Gottes Hand (1979), producer, director, writer
Hochkant (1982), actor

Bibliography

Meine Berge (1931), with Walter Schmidkunz
Berge in Flammen. Ein Roman aus den Schicksalstagen Südtirols (1931), with Walter Schmidkunz
Kameraden der Berge (1932)
Der Rebell. Ein Freiheitsroman aus den Bergen Tirols (1933)
Berge und Heimat: Das Buch von den Bergen und ihren Menschen (1933), with Walter Schmidkunz
Der verlorene Sohn. Roman (1934)
Berge im Schnee. Das Winterbuch (1935)
Helden der Berge. Roman (1936), with Karl Springenschmid und Walter Schmidkunz
Leuchtendes Land. Roman (1937), with Karl Springenschmid
Sperrfort Rocca Alta. Der Heldenkampf eines Panzerwerkes (1937)
Hauptmann Ladurner. Ein Soldatenroman (1940)
Der Feuerteufel. Ein Speckbacherroman (1940)
Sterne über den Gipfeln. Roman (1942)
Heimat aus Gottes Hand. Roman (1948)
Duell in den Bergen. Ein Roman aus den Dolomiten (1951)
Glocken über den Bergen. Roman (1952)
Sonne über Sorasass. Ein heiterer Roman aus den Dolomiten (1953)
Schicksal am Matterhorn. Roman (1957)
Helden am Berg. Roman (1956)
Das Wunder von Oberammergau. Roman (1960)
Sohn ohne Heimat. Roman (1960)
Die Farm am Kilimandscharo (1960)
Der Kaiser von Kalifornien. Roman (1961)
Alles gut gegangen. Geschichten aus meinem Leben (1965, autobiography)

Honors and awards

1936 Venice Film Festival Award for Best Foreign Film for Der Kaiser von Kalifornien
1966 Cross of Honor of the City of Vienna
1966 Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
1977 Order of Merit of the State of Tyrol
1978 Karl Valentin Order of Merit
1979 Bavarian Order of Merit
1982 Deutscher Filmpreis for Outstanding Individual Contributions to German Cinema^[2]

Gallery

Luis Trenker's grave in St.Ulrich in Gröden
Luis Trenker's gravestone
Portrait sculpture by David Moroder
Luis Trenker memorial statue
Hotel Adler designed by Luis Trenker and Clemens Holzmeister

References

↑ Prawer p. 207.
↑ "Luis Trenker". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 December 2013.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Luis Trenker.

Authority control	WorldCat VIAF: 92746323 LCCN: n50011646 ISNI: 0000 0000 8078 2065 GND: 118623818 BNF: cb13524291h

Persondata
Name	Trenker, Luis
Alternative names
Short description	Film director and actor
Date of birth	1892-10-04
Place of birth	Urtijëi
Date of death	1990-04-13
Place of death	Bolzano, Italy

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