Jürgen Knieper Explained

Jürgen Knieper
Birth Date:	14 March 1941^[1]
Birth Place:	Karlsruhe, Germany
Occupation:	Film score composer
Alma Mater:	State High School of Music
Awards:	German Film Award for Best Music

Jürgen Knieper (born 14 March 1941) is a German film score composer. Born in Karlsruhe, he was educated at Berlin's State High School of Music.^[2]

Career

He began working for director Wim Wenders with his 1972 film The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty.^[2] For Wenders' 1975 film The Wrong Move, Knieper won the German Film Award for Best Music.^[3]

Wenders turned to Knieper again for the music of his 1987 film Wings of Desire. Knieper assumed harps and violins would suffice for a score for a film about angels, until he saw a cut of the film. Seeing the angels were discontent, he wrote a different score employing a choir, voices and whistling.^[4] Musicologist Annette Davison argued this score includes elements of Eastern European and Orthodox Christian music.^[5]

In 1990, he was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Composer for December Bride.^[6]

Filmography

His films include:^[7]

• The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972)
• The Scarlet Letter (1973)
• The Wrong Move (1975)
• The American Friend (1977)
• Germany, Pale Mother (1980)
• Christiane F. – We Children from Bahnhof Zoo (1981)
• Room 666 (1984)
• River's Edge (1987)
• Wings of Desire (1987)
• Paint It Black (1989)
• December Bride (1990)
• Lisbon Story (1994)
• Tuvalu (1999)

Notes and References

1. Web site: Jürgen Knieper . 28 August 2017 . BBC.
2. Book: Monaco, James . Knieper, Jürgen . The Encyclopedia of Film . Perigee Books . 1991 . 0399516042 . 302 . registration . https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaoffi00mona/page/302 .
3. Web site: Deutscher Filmpreis, 1975 . 9 June 2016 . Deutscher Filmpreis.
4. Kenny . J.M. . Wenders . Wim . Knieper . Jürgen . 2009 . The Angels Among Us . Blu-ray . The Criterion Collection.
5. Book: Davison, Annette . Music to Desire By: The Soundtrack to Wim Wenders's Der Himmel über Berlin . "Hollywood Theory, Non-Hollywood Practice ": Cinema Soundtracks in the 1980s and 1990s . Routledge . 2017 . 978-1351563581 .
6. Web site: 1990: The Nominations . 28 August 2017 . European Film Academy.
7. Web site: Jürgen Knieper . https://web.archive.org/web/20170829030943/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba1754ea0 . dead . August 29, 2017 . 28 August 2017 . British Film Institute.