Winter Haiku - actual movie or movie folklore?

[Yllaria]

Ran across an article here about a “lost” film called Winter Haiku by a director named Schwarzschild. It was supposed to be 3 hours of blizzard with no identifiable shapes beyond the title and credits.

I googled and couldn’t find any other reference to the movie. Is this an urban legend or is it something that actually happened?

[Tangent]

The whole article reads like a joke, IMO. I googled “winter haiku” and “Schwarzschild” and the only hit was your linked article.

[Johnny_L.A]

[H]e was granted the opening slot at Cannes in May of 1951. However, Fate was waiting to crush the aspiring artist: Cannes was hit by the only blizzard in its recorded history…

As soon as the closing credits ran, the German cinematographer, Bruno Sturm, stood up and denounced von Schwarzschild as a fraud. Before he was escorted forcibly from the theater and cast into the drifting snow, he shouted that the crew managed to shoot only fifteen minutes of usable footage… he was killed in a tragic skiing accident days after making his legendary claim.

He became a legendary recluse… For twenty years, he seldom went outside, venturing forth only to attend the funerals of his mother and father and for a yearly trip to a pub for a stein of porter on the anniversary of his fateful Cannes screening… He died in 1985…

So which is it? He died a few days after saying the film was overexposed, which he said at Cannes in 1951; or he became a recluse and died in 1985?

[Johnny_L.A]

@Tangent

The whole article reads like a joke, IMO.

Well, let’s see… Winter Haiku is supposedly a white screen, and ‘Schwarzschild’ means ‘black sign’…

[mobo85]

@Johnny L.A.

So which is it? He died a few days after saying the film was overexposed, which he said at Cannes in 1951; or he became a recluse and died in 1985?

Sturm was killed in the skiing accident after making the claim, not Schwartzchild.

[Johnny_L.A]

@mobo85

Sturm was killed in the skiing accident after making the claim, not Schwartzchild.

I stand corrected.

Never mind.

[Contrapuntal]

It’s a joke. I suspect the answer to your question is “neither.”

[kellner]

A few things about the names are a bit strange.
[ul]
[li]Although it is a perfectly good German surname “Sturm” also means “storm”. Ok, that might be a coincidence.[/li][li]The Großglockner is a mountain. If there is a village of the same name, the Austrian zip code directory doesn’t know about it.[/li][li]von Schwarzschild is said to have lived in Austria in 1948. In German-language surnames a “von” usually indicates at least lower nobility. There are exceptions but they are more typically found in north-western Germany (comparable to the Dutch “van”.) At least a “von” that indicates nobility would have been illegal in Austria after 1918.[/li][/ul]

[Mops]

Looks very much like a would-be UL (would-be because it hasn’t even gained currency).

In addition to the points kellner mentioned:

[ul]
[li]the movie isn’t listed in the festival’s official list for films entered in the 1951 festival[/li][li]the haiku is a form that in my impression is much less known in the German speaking world than it seems to be in the English-speaking one, i.e. it would be less likely to figure in an Austrian’s movie title.[/li][li]there is a Bruno Sturm listed on IMDB but he seems to be a production manager for some 1990s/2000s TV series.[/li][li]a stein of porter? Would have been pretty hard to get in your average Austrian pub.[/li][li]no Google hits for “Werner von Schwarzschild” or “Werner Schwarzschild” except for the site linked in the OP.[/li][/ul]