Synopsis
Karl Valentin, Hunger Arstist offers a short introduction to the work of the renowned comedian from Munich, whose anarchistic language art and absurd slapsticks influenced young Bertolt Brecht and impressed Samuel Beckett as well. More generally the short film investigates the relation of art and language and of artist and society. The artist as hunger artist, as Franz Kafka writes in his same-titled novel, doesn’t seem to be a role model for the modern world anymore. Although he still may continue to hunger; and although he immediately may have to vomit again as he does in the novel „The Clown“ by Heinrich Böll. Nevertheless hunger artists may appear suspicious and hunger art may be considered subversive. Frequently they have been banned from their profession like Karl Valentin was banned by the cultural officials of NSDAP for publically showing "tendencies of misery".