Surprisingly good film, which in retrospect turns out to be the third part of a tetralogy devised by Helmut Dietl about the German / German-speaking media society.
"Schtonk" (1992) was about the Hamburg-based print media (especially STERN, of course), "Rossini" (1997) was about the Munich-based film industry (Constantin Film), "Late Show" (1999 ) is of course about the depraved private television (RTL) in beautiful Cologne and with "Zettl" (2012) we then went to Berlin, the center of power. Of course, the dialectal colors that can be heard everywhere also fit. All four areas, all four cities mentioned, functioned as melting pots of the German-speaking area, in which Dietl can celebrate a swan song for the cultural industries of the old Federal Republic style.
The film "Late Show" was of course made in the 1990s, a time marked by decisive upheavals. On the one hand, there is a spirit of optimism (remember the euphoric founding of new television channels such as VOX, n-tv and VIVA in the first half of the decade), and on the other, bitter disillusionment as more and more flat-headed people like Beckmann, Kerner and Pilawa emerge as new television stars (, some of which still shape the television business today!!!) and gave a devastating testimony to the further development of the medium of television. One also remembers the events of 2004, when Rudi Carrell almost single-handedly destroyed EUROVISION hostess Anke Engelke's late night show via an interview because, as a woman, she supposedly couldn't handle such a show. So Dietl definitely knows what he is saying here.
Dietl's quotes from German film history are also well done: the Heimatfilm, Fassbinder and the lying soft-focus images (especially in the horse scenes with Veronica Ferres) in the "Emmanuelle" imitators always send greetings. There is more to this film than anyone was prepared to see at the time. It is a lost world that is portrayed here. In 1999, when the film came out, it was still very much alive. Social media like Facebook and You Tube still had their meteoric rise ahead of them. Unfortunately, ACADEMY AWARD nominee Helmut DIETL was no longer able to make his own film about it.
You should definitely give this film a second viewing, there might be surprising insights!
