Most recently, he was seen as a very old gentleman at the celebrations for his 85th birthday and at the Berlin Film Museum, where an exhibition of his works was shown in 2009 in honor of his life’s work. The universe of Vicco von Bülow, whom we knew as Loriot, will only be able to be fully measured little by little.
The early cartoons, the animated films, the small rolls of film, the moderations, then the famous “Sketches”, two feature films, opera productions. The influence that Loriot’s bulbous-nosed males, his clumsy philistines and uptight women, order fanatics and obsessive-compulsive neurotics had on German culture cannot be overestimated. Anyone who was young in the 1970s will never forget those six programs in which von Bülow held up a mirror to the Germans and television (on television!). Mr. Müller-Lüdenscheid, back then, the breakfast egg and the pasta on your face were more part of the educational treasure than of pop culture; Loriot’s precise staging always had the splendor of beautiful craftsmanship, goldsmith work or watchmaking.
Bernhard Victor Christoph-Carl von Bülow was born on November 12, 1923 in Brandenburg an der Havel; his father Johann-Albrecht was a police major. Vicco’s mother Charlotte von Roeder died when the child was six years old; a year earlier she had divorced Johann. Vicco lived with his grandparents in Berlin for a few years, moved to Stuttgart with his brother and father in 1938, did the so-called emergency high school diploma in 1942 and was a professional officer on the Eastern Front for three years.
In Loriot’s sketches, virtue often becomes a fetish
These experiences did not destroy his life and his spirit; later, at best, he spoke cautiously about the horror, always without panache and pathos. But the insight that man is man’s wolf forms the backdrop for some scenes about crazed petty bourgeois fighting for a parking space, a formulation or a regulation. The pedantry, the arrogant attitude, the principled riding of the military can be found in all Loriot figures, in which the supposed virtue has become a fetish and a perversion.
Vicco von Bülow studied at the art school in Hamburg and from 1950 drew cartoons for magazines, briefly also for the “stern”. In 1954, Diogenes published the first volume of drawings, the proverbial “On the Dog”. In two war films, Bernhard Wicki’s “The Bridge” (1959) and the major Hollywood project “The Longest Day” (1963) about the Allied invasion, he played very small roles, but in perfect form. From 1967 he presented the television series “Cartoon”, also wrote the texts and was co-director.
In 1971, he drew the dog Wum for the “Solution Child” campaign and gave him his voice. Later, Wendelin was added to “The Great Prize”: Every child knew her call “Thooooeeelke!” after the quiz master, whose funnily enough name was Wim. After a broadcast on the visit of the British Queen in 1974, he directed six episodes of “Loriot” in 1976 – almost all of his famous works come from this series, the cartoons like the drama with Evelyn Hamann. Loriot found his female counterpart in the actress, who was so good at combining the boring with the blase. When he harasses her as a juicy newt, she acts completely outraged innocence. The most awkward dinner ever (“Don’t say anything now!”) comes from the discrepancy between the man’s romantic intentions and blustering smugness—and the woman’s obtuseness and auntie-likeness.
Loriot: Humor is the art of talking past one another
Loriot has pointed out that his comedy arises from communication disorders – the chattering past one another, the ranting, boasting, babble and lectures are all part of his characters, who always puff themselves out as masters of their fate. In “Oedipussi” (1988), Loriot – like Woody Allen – showed the mother as the overpowering matron, disciplinarian and lover of the elderly son – unforgotten as she served him fried mashed potatoes. In “Pappa ante Portas” (1992), Loriot proves that a man knows no retirement and only causes damage in the comfort of his own home – he doesn’t understand his wife, the household is alien to him and without responsibility he’s just a poor sausage. This quiet gentleman has always cloaked the sausage-like nature of man, which he actually exhibits in all brutality, with forgiving mildness.
Vicco von Bülow later fulfilled his wish to stage Der Freischütz and to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic (a distant relative once conducted the orchestra). He hasn’t wanted to work for television since the 1980s; the modes of production had become alien to him, the allotria seemed too coarse, the claim too modest. It has to be said: everything that is called comedy today was an insult to the excellently educated precision mechanic and psychologist of humour. Not only in the ceremonial speeches for his 85th birthday, every single laudator confessed that nobody can follow Loriot’s mastery. There will never be anyone like him again – here it is true. And it’s our loss.
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