Alexander Tuschinski

For Tuschinski, his films Menschenliebe, Timeless and a planned upcoming project called Revolution! form an informal Trilogy of Rebellion: The films are independent of each other, but feature similar themes, styles and the same two main characters (Arnold and Konstantin). The scope of the topics they address increases with each instalment: While Menschenliebe deals mostly with relationships between individuals, Timeless addresses topics from all aspects of society. Break-Up is a smaller film, independent of the trilogy, but featuring the character of Arnold and some references to the other films.[7] Shortly after filming ended in 2015, Tuschinski considered Timeless "by far" his best film.

Tuschinski has been called an "encyclopledic Brass expert" on Caligula.[9] Tuschinski wrote an essay on Tinto Brass' film The Key.[10] In 2012, Tuschinski restored some of Brass' 1960s films using material from the director's private archive. They were later screened at a retrospective in Hollywood.[11]

In 2018, at the premiere for his documentary Mission: Caligula, Tuschinski made a joint announcement with Penthouse regarding a new cut of Caligula. The project aims to restore and finish Tinto Brass's version of the film. Brass was dismissed by Penthouse in post-production before he could complete his cut of the film.[12] In July 2018, Tuschinski released Mission: Caligula on Vimeo.[4]

Tuschinski's first novel "Das Fahrzeug" was published in Germany in 2011.[13] His novel "Fetzenleben" was published in 2018.

Tuschinski frequently composes and performs songs and instrumental music for his own films.[6] He occasionally performs his songs live on stage, often combined with comedy routines.

In 2014, Tuschinski published an album featuring classical music recorded on synthesizer and vocoder.

Helmut Berger (right) and Alexander Tuschinski on the set of Timeless (2015)

Alexander Tuschinski's films have been compared to "the early works of Woody Allen".[14] He uses an impressionistic camera- and editing-style that is considered experimental by some. His films frequently employ classical music with scenes edited to the rhythm and the structure of the music, as well as satirical songs that are often used to progress the story.

I find it boring when I can predict a film's outcome and find that conventional filmmaking can be quite uninteresting at times. My films have a strange, surrealistic logic to them.

— Alexander Tuschinski, Interview by Steve Williams for Take One 2012.[15]

Tuschinski himself uses an analogy to language when describing his approach to cinematography and editing, calling different shots nouns (e.g. shots showing an object / a person without any additional intention than showing it, like establishing shots), verbs (shots used to depict an action or movement) or adjectives (shots "describing" things, like quick cut-aways and details), comparing regular visual rules of filmmaking to classical literature, while his way of filming is rather like slam poetry.[16]

To return to the example of slam-poetry vs. classical literature and the comparison to language: I throw around "words", meaning shots, in my films; might use more adjectives, nouns etc., than others, but still each sentence needs subject, verb and object so the recipient understands it. But it shouldn't be worded according to textbook rules, else it gets boring.

— Alexander Tuschinski, Interview by Ursula Drees for plusinsight 2015.[17]

In almost all of Tuschinski's films, him and Matthias Kirste share the cinematographer-credit. When Tuschinski is acting, Kirste operates the camera, and when Tuschinski is not seen in the frame, he often operates the camera himself. Sebastian B. is often cast as the lead actor in Tuschinski's films.