Law & Society Blog

Michael Schorr’s movie Schultze Gets the Blues is a quiet meditation on the concept of home and belonging. Schultze is a salt miner sent into early retirement and into a life without purpose. Without family, he is going through the motions, trying to enjoy his bleak, unwanted freedom. (Not coincidentally, the story plays in former East-Germany.) Schultze plays polka on his accordion in a local music club, where everyone is old. No one seems to be enjoying the music. The notes are there, but there’s no soul in it. One gets the distinct impression that the club will soon dissolve with demographic inevitability. One night, Schultze listens to a zydeco band on the radio. The heavily syncopated, madly repetitious accordion riff strikes a chord in his soul. He picks up his accordion and plays. Out comes zydeco polka. He’s a natural, this is the music that he was always meant to play. With the realization comes entirely credible, non dramatic alienation. The most outwardly dramatic incident in the entire movie is when someone yells “Negro music!” from the audience as Schultze plays his new tunes. Schultze ultimately ends up going to Texas and from there (on a boat, which was either purchased or stolen) to Louisiana, where he finds kindness and, in a strange yet very literal sense, a home. He dies in Louisiana, and his body is buried in his hometown by his friends who stayed behind. Schultze gets the Blues is a gem of a movie as it shows something fundamental about the human condition: even if you have lived your entire life in one place, even if you fit in seamlessly in every way, even if you truly belong, your home may well be someplace else.

P.S. I’ve finally had it with region coding/DRM chicanery and ordered TVease’s Hannibal.

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