Marran Gosov(1933-2021)

Marran Gosov was born 1933 as Tzvetan Marangosoff in Sofia to a German mother and a Bulgarian father. As a young man, he had studied to become a painter, but then, while in jail after a clash with socialist authorities, he wrote his first novel "The Indifferent". Partly because of the aforementioned political troubles, he emigrated to West Germany in April 1960. Shortly after settling down in Munich, he started writing radio plays and soon wrote and directed the first of 27 short films which he would make between 1964 and 1978, many of which he also photographed and edited. It is these short films which form his main body of work, and the five feature-length films he would go on to make between 1967 and 1972 could be seen as a kind of mainstream accompaniment to his shorts which typically reflected, humoured, bemoaned and dreamed about washed-up, eccentric or passionately lazy slacker characters, scroungers and smalltime criminals living, drinking and loving in Schwabing, at that time the Chelsea of Munich (but more bohème perhaps) and Gosov's new home by choice. In his heyday, Gosov was so well-reputed in Schwabing that even younger, aspiring filmmakers sought his advice and help, among them Rainer Werner Fassbinder (whom Gosov turned down when he applied for assistant director). Sadly, all of Gosov's outstanding short films have yet to be introduced to the digital world and can currently only be seen at occasional cinema showings in Germany, usually organised by Gosov expert Bernhard Marsch.

In 1967, Dutch producer Rob Houwer (who was based in Munich back then and who would later become young Paul Verhoeven mentor) gave him the opportunity to adapt his short film Sabine 18 (1967) into a feature-length film called Engelchen - oder die Jungfrau von Bamberg (1968) (aka "Angel Baby"), starring the then unknown Gila von Weitershausen in what would become her breakthrough role. The film turned out to be a surprise hit which earned Gosov some attention and led to two more Houwer-produced feature films, Zuckerbrot und Peitsche (1968) (aka "Sugar Bread and Whip") and 24 Hour Lover (1968). Gosov also wrote both films which starred some of Munich's most illustrious artists and filmmakers, such as Roger Fritz (another member "Munich Group") and Helga Anders who were a bit of a "scandalous couple" at the time. Harald Leipnitz, formerly known mostly for impersonating villains and police inspectors in adventure and crime films, was another Gosov regular and friend.

After falling out with Rob Houwer (possibly due to the fact that Gosov disliked a script for a sequel to "Angel Baby" - not written by him - which was later made into a film by Michael Verhoeven), Gosov was hired by titan producer Horst Wendlandt to direct That Guy Loves Me, Am I Supposed to Believe That? (1969), starring shooting-star Uschi Glas. The film's screenplay was written by another peer of the now so-called "Munich group", Klaus Lemke (who had also starred in "Sabine 18"). However, Gosov completely rewrote the script and very little of Lemke's original script remained. He nevertheless asked Gosov to be credited as screenwriter for financial reasons and Gosov, wanting to help out his younger colleague, obliged. By the time he had finished his fourth feature film, Gosov had become somewhat weary of long pre-production periods, weeks of shooting and arguments with producers and went back to his kind of filmmaking: more short films followed, all shot with Schwabing friends on the very little budget that sufficed perfectly for most of Gosov's ideas.

In 1972, however, he got the itch to make one more feature, this time on his own terms. Wonnekloß (1972) (a title which would be hard to translate into English) bore much more resemblance to his earlier short films. Since he could not convince any producers to supply funds and was thriving for complete artistic freedom, Gosov financed the film entirely himself, using up all of his private savings. Made in an intimate atmosphere without any interference by producers, with many of his close friends and long-time collaborators, the film proved one of the most unusual German comedies of its time. Crowned by a mesmerising performance by Dieter Augustin, a former waiter which Gosov had already cast in some of his previous shorts, the film delightfully ridicules the social reactions to the sexploitation film wave that was breaking in on Germany at that time and changes lightly from hysteria to dadaism but always maintains the subtle melancholy and humanitarian pessimism that can be considered Gosov's trademark. But just as he was unable to raise any funding for the film, he could not find a distributor and eventually had to handle the distribution of the film himself which ended in a terrific flop. The film played only for one or two weeks in most of the few cinemas where it was screened.

Indepted and frustrated, Gosov made a few more short films and then, to pay off his debts, started working for German television as a writer of crime series and, occasionally, as a composer (among other films, he scored Rosa von Praunheim's Horror Vacui (1984) in 1982). In 1990, he returned to Bulgaria where he has lived since, writing a couple of novels which, as far as I know, have not been published elsewhere. To this day, he is known to a dedicated handful German cineastes for "Angel Baby" (which still holds a minor cult status in Germany), but the majority of his work, both his short films as well as "Wonnekloß", remain obscure and, apart from occasional cinema screenings in some larger German cities, unexposed to the public. Considering his achievements, it is rather sad how neglected his films (and most other films of the so-called "Munich Group", for that matter) are today.