Austrian arthouse film Egon Schiele: Tod und Mädchen
is perhaps most disappointing in that Egon Schiele led a very interesting life, yet the scriptwriter Hilde Berger and director Dieter Berner have succeeded in making it appear rather dull, in the same way as Mike Leigh served up a snore-fest about J M W Turner a couple of years ago. Perhaps the two most interesting aspects of Schiele's life, his trial for paedophilia and his experiences in the First World War, are completely glossed over in favour of a superficial overview of more or less his entire adult life. There are of course reasons liberal fans of Schiele would want to avoid these issues, which we will address.
