A 110-minute German documentary tracing Rudolf Steiner's biography from Austria through Vienna, Weimar and the Goetheanum at Dornach, then documenting the Waldorf pedagogy, biodynamic farming and anthroposophic medicine his ideas produced, with both supporters and critics given space.
Facts
Subject Matter
Religious Subject MatterSourced to the subject's own accountRudolf Steiner's biography and the anthroposophical movement his ideas produced: Waldorf schools in Germany and Africa, an anthroposophically run farm in Egypt, and the Goetheanum at Dornach. The film traces Steiner's racial theorizing, including antisemitic elements, back to the folk beliefs and mystical currents of late nineteenth-century Vienna rather than omitting that history. 1 Production
Release YearSourced to the subject's own account DirectorSourced to the subject's own account Country of OriginSourced to the subject's own account FormatSourced to the subject's own account Learn More
A German Filmmaker Holds Steiner's Legacy in One Frame
German director Rudiger Sunner spent 110 minutes trying to answer a question most people who know the word Waldorf have never asked: what did Rudolf Steiner actually believe, and does it still matter. Released on DVD in April 2008 through absolut Medien, Abenteuer Anthroposophie, Rudolf Steiner und seine Wirkung, follows Steiner's biography from provincial Austria through Vienna and Weimar to the Goetheanum he built at Dornach, Switzerland, the anthroposophical movement's architectural and spiritual center.
Sunner does not stop at biography. He visits Waldorf schools in Germany and in Africa and an anthroposophically run farm in Egypt to show what Steiner's ideas became once they left his own writing: a pedagogy, a system of biodynamic agriculture, an approach to medicine and architecture that together make up a movement still active a century after its founder's death in 1925. The film gives space to both defenders and critics, tracing what its own description calls Steiner's occasionally bizarre and sometimes antisemitic racial theorizing back to the folk beliefs and mystical currents of late nineteenth century Vienna, without setting that history apart from the pedagogy it also documents approvingly.
The result is neither an advertisement for the Anthroposophical Society nor a takedown of it, but an attempt to hold a genuinely contested legacy in one frame: a man whose ideas built working schools and farms on several continents, and whose racial theories the film refuses to leave out of the account.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Austria directly: "Rudolf Steiner's biography from Austria through Vienna, Weimar and the Goetheanum at Dornach, then documenting the Waldorf pedagogy, biodynamic farming and anthroposophic medicine his ideas..."
Vienna, Cities This source names Vienna directly: "biography from Austria through Vienna, Weimar and the Goetheanum at Dornach, then documenting the Waldorf pedagogy, biodynamic farming and anthroposophic medicine his ideas produced, with both..."
Belongs to Tradition
An outside filmmaker's biographical and critical portrait of Steiner and the movement he founded, giving space to both supporters and critics, rather than a production of the Anthroposophical Society itself.
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