Fresh Air - The Story Behind Diane Von Furstenberg's Iconic Wrap Dress

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Von Furstenberg and filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy discuss Woman in Charge, a Hulu documentary about the fashion designer's meteoric rise in the '70s. Plus, Maureen Corrigan recommends two perfect summer reads. And David Bianculli reviews the Netflix miniseries Kafka.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. When Dionne von Furstenberg was born, her mother declared, You are my torch of freedom. Just a year before, in 1945, Dionne's mother, Lily, had survived the Nazi concentration camps. Dionne von Furstenberg, simply known by many as DVF, would go on to become one of the most well-known fashion designers of our time, after she designed the wrap dress, which has endured for more than 50 years as a symbol of women's empowerment and liberation. The story of the wrap dress goes like this. One day, Von Furstenberg saw former President Richard Nixon's daughter on television wearing one of her wrap tops along with a skirt. She thought, what if the two pieces could turn into one?

The rest is history. The wrap dress was the go-to garment. Everybody I knew had one. It seemed to epitomize a modern, independent, sexy woman who could have it all. I remember being a young reporter saving up for a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress. It was such a status symbol to have one of those dresses. This dress empowered a giant swath of women who could actually afford to wear it, which, you know, let's be honest, is not true of most high fashion, right?

Like, most high fashion kind of exists over here. And Diane's dress exists in the middle of the history of women's rights and women in the workforce and women kind of finding their own voice. That was Gioia D'Aberto, who wrote a book about von Furstenberg, Oprah Winfrey and Vanessa Friedman, talking about the wrap dress in the new Hulu documentary, Dionne von Furstenberg, Woman in Charge. It's about Dionne von Furstenberg's early life, how her mom raised her after surviving the Holocaust, and how Dionne began working in fashion,

and how she came to own her own fashion company. The documentary is directed by two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Charmaine Obey-Chinoy, whose work highlights gender inequality. Her 2012 win for the documentary Saving Face is about acid attacks on women and their struggle for healing and justice, and made her Pakistan's first Oscar winner. Obey-Chinoy's 2015 documentary A Girl in the River explored an attempted honor killing of a young Pakistani woman who married a man her family had not chosen. After the film's release, Pakistan's parliament passed a law criminalizing honor killings.

Obey Chinoy is also the director of an upcoming Star Wars film, making her the first woman and first person of color to direct the franchise. Her documentary about Dionne von Furstenberg will stream on Hulu on June 25th. Joining me today are both Charmaine Obeidjanoy and Dionne von Furstenberg. Welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you. We're happy to be here. Thank you. I want to go back to this moment 50 years ago with the creation of the wrap dress because of what it signified. I think, Dionne, you've said that it's the dress that the guys like and the mothers don't mind. I didn't say that.

I mean, somebody once said that, and I like that. They said it's the dress that is sexy enough to seduce a guy and his mother won't mind. You liked it so much. Yes. I like the fact that it was both sexy and proper at the same time. Why do you think that dress is so timeless? I have absolutely no idea. It's, you know, the shape of a wrap obviously is a very old traditional shape. It's like a robe or it's like a toga or a kimono. But what was different about my way of wrapping

a dress is that it was a jersey fabric and therefore it was, it molded the body. And I printed on it and my choice of prints are very feline-looking, even if they're not feline motif, but they have a movement that somehow is flattering to the body. Like a dancer. Yeah, but also the print molds it, and somehow the woman puts it on, and she gets gets noticed and it gives life to her body language. And for me, the things that make women beautiful is eye contact, smile, and body language. Well, the catchphrase for the dress at the time when it came out was, feel like a woman, wear a dress, which is a very specific type of liberating message for women. Take us to that time period, because at the time, access to power required almost acting like a man,

dressing in a power suit. And your message was for women to own their femininity. Who were the women that you were looking up to at that time? Of course, I loved Gloria Steinem, and I loved the freedom of that time. The women's liberation, all of that spoke to me, sang to me, and it's what my mother always believed in. And then even when I went in boarding school, my headmistress in Switzerland had fought for the rights to vote. So I was bred in that spirit. And when I did the dress, it was an accident. You know, I was working in that factory. That man had a printing factory.

By accident, he invented this jersey fabric. So then we printed on that fabric. And then we thought, oh, that would make a nice little polo. And then the polo became a dress. And then we thought, oh, that would make a nice little polo. And then the polo became a dress. And then I thought, oh, we should do a wrap top like the ballerinas. And then the wrap top became a dress. So it was a circumstances. And because it was a dress, gave freedom and confidence to millions of women behind me. It came out right at the right time in the right moment with the right messaging and the right look.

Oh, the right messaging, yes. So I went, I came to New York with a suitcase full of sample and a baby in my stomach, and I had the baby. And immediately after, Egon knew Diana Vreeland, who was the head coach.

Who was your husband at the time, who was a prince from Germany. Oh, Egon Furstenberg. And we had met in college. And he introduced me to Diana Vreeland, who was the very intimidating head of Vogue magazine, editor-in-chief. And I went to visit her. And they rolled me in her office. And they put a rolling rack. I took my dresses out.

She comes in, she looks at them. And before I know, I'm out of the room and not knowing what had happened to me. And her assistant said to me, I think she liked it and I'm sure she will help you. I said, well, what do I do next? And she said, well, soon is market week. And I said, what is market week? And she said, market week is that time of the year

when buyers come from all over the country to choose and buy the product for the next season. So what you should do is you should take a room in a hotel. You should list yourself in something called the fashion calendar and then take a small ad in Women's Wear Daily. And I called a friend of mine who was a photographer. Would he take a picture of me? I went to take a picture of me. I sat on this big white cube with my very first dress, a shirt, jersey dress. And when the picture came out, the cube, the white cube was taking too much real estate. So I, on the photograph, the print that I had, I wrote, it just came to me without even thinking,

feel like a woman, wear a dress, and I signed my name. Was it just stream of consciousness for you? Totally. The whole thing was stream of consciousness. There was this moment when the popularity of your wrap dress, though, was so intense that the market got saturated. And you woke up one day and all of your dresses were on sale. Looking back, what was the mistake? Oh, you know, I had a salesman who wanted more wrap dresses, more wrap dresses. And I knew because I would go around and I knew that. I mean, when every woman in America has two, three, four, five, sometimes 20 of the same dresses.

At some point, it was going to saturate. And it did. And that's it. I learned. Charmaine, what did chronicling Dionne's life teach you about failure, about reinvention? So much of the documentary does take us to those places. It taught me that if you're following your own yellow brick road, that you are bound to fall, and that you just have to pick yourself up and open another door. You know, my career has been

following my own yellow brick road. I was born and raised in Pakistan, and I came to America as a college student and started my career here with The New York Times and started making documentary films. And I never thought that I would, you know, use film to change legislation, win Academy Awards. I've fallen down many times and picked myself up and tried to find my sort of own door. And many of the doors that have been open for me have been open for me by other women, which has also been a valuable lesson. Diane has opened doors for women and somebody opened a door for Diane. And I think that as I look back at my career and I look at what I'm about to do next, it's always been women who have left the door open for me. And I think that those parallels between what I've learned in Diane's life has equipped me to soldier on into this big world of Hollywood that I'm entering.

Now, if I have this correctly, the two of you got together to do an entirely different film, but somewhere along the way, the focus turned to you, Dion. Charmaine, what was your knowledge of Dion before you said yes? You know, of course, I had known Diane for the better part of a decade. And I had bought my first wrap dress when I was in college. And I knew of Diane's work with Vital Voices and the work that she had done to advance the voices of women. And I immediately wanted to do this film because for me, it's an anthem of freedom. It is the story of a woman who has charted her own life. And she has taken all the adversity that has been thrown her way and turned it into something positive. There is so much learning that we can take from Diane's life.

You mentioned how you bought your first DBF dress in college. Do you remember what you bought it for? I actually bought it for a sorority party when I was in college. I bought it from a thrift store. Northampton, Massachusetts had a thrift store, and's where I went to to get it. So I have that very distinct memory of the wrap dress. You know, Dan speaks a lot about the impact that her mother had on her life. And my mother was 17 when she got married and she had me when she was 18. And she very quickly had five children after that. And she always told me that I had to make sure that I would have a career, that I had to be financially independent, that I needed to have my own voice. And she made sure that each one of her daughters went to college, got a job, and had their own lives. And I think that has played such an important role in

who we are today and where my voice is today, because my mother didn't give me an option not to have a voice. You know, I always had to be independent. Yeah, me too, I must say. I mean, I remember my mother used to, sometimes she would pick me up at school and we would go to a tea room. You know, we called that a tea room, a patisserie with her friends. And we would have, you know, tea and cakes. And this was in Belgium. Yes. In Belgium, in Brussels.

And she would say, go around, go, leave, go around the block. I mean, you know, wherever I i was she always pushed me to be away for example also the first time i you know i felt in charge is when she put me alone in a train at age eight or nine years old from brussels to go to paris to visit my aunt and at the time it was you know five hour train ride and i inside me, I was a little tiny, a little bit fearful. But the excitement of being alone and going on an adventure alone, you know, was way bigger than the worries. Dionne, this is a retrospective filmed over a year. And the two of you went to some really great places

and also some really hard places. It really does show that to understand you, we have to understand your mother. I saw the documentary for the first time really last night at the opening of Tribeca, and this morning when I woke up, I realized that this movie may be about me, but it is really about my mother. It is really about this woman who, even though she was a

prisoner of war in the absolutely worst circumstances, refused to be a victim, refused to die, and survived. And once she survived, in spite of not being able to have a child, she had me and then my brother, and she did everything so that to encourage us not to be a victim, not to be afraid. Fear was not an option. And she wanted us to have big lives. And because of her, there's 13 people. You know, she had two children. Each of the children had four children and now grandchildren. So we are now 13, a dynasty of 13 behind her. And we carry her flag, her flag of freedom. This story about your mother, what she went through, doctors told your mom that it was risky for her to try for a baby. She weighed just around 49 pounds when she got out of the concentration camp.

How did you process those stories in the moment? And when did you come to the understanding of what she was trying to do for you? No, I didn't. I mean, I just, that was my universe. That was my mother. I mean, there's no, what I realized really about our family, because now it's not just my mother, but it's all the seeds that she put in us, that none of us is a victim, no matter what happens. And that is actually the best gift that a parent can give you, is to teach you not to be afraid and to navigate whatever happens to you. There's this really powerful moment in the documentary because you tell your mother's story today with such ease. It's seamlessly a part of who you are.

We learned that it wasn't always this way. You kind of had to come into it. There was this moment many years ago where you were getting an award from the Anti-Defamation League, and when you went to accept it, you told the crowd about your mother and what she went through. And as you spoke, you were actually in shock that this was pouring out of you. No, no. I remember I went to accept this award and I didn't want to go. And my assistant said, oh, you have to go. These women buy your dresses.

So I'm just saying that to explain the state of mind. I wasn't into it. And then I listened to the program, and the Anti-Defamation League is a wonderful, wonderful organization that does great work. And so I got into it. And then at the end, I was getting the award. And I went on stage and I heard myself say something that not only I had never said, but I had never thought. And that was, you all know me because of my dresses, but what you don't know is 18 months before I was born, my mother was in Auschwitz. And I heard myself say that, and I was in shock. I don't like to show emotions, and I started to tremble,

and I remember I walked home, and that's when I realized that actually I had a responsibility to talk about that. And so, yes, that was a revelation. Even though I knew my mother had been in the camps when I was a little girl. She had two, you know, tattooed numbers on her arm, which she had removed. So I knew it, but it was kind of in the background. And it was never, you know, something too heavy. Because my mother didn't want us to have that weight.

And yes, so I was 33 actually that day of the anti-deformation ring. It's so amazing how our parents' stories, as we get older and we step into different versions of ourselves, it carries deeper meaning. Do you see it that way? Is that, as you carry your mother's story, does it serve even bigger, bigger revelations come to you if you have a strong mother, it's a good thing because the chances are it will make you strong. But when you have a strong mother, you have to keep distances because her strength can be overpowering. And I know that as a daughter, and I know that as a mother, and even as a grandmother. So, but of course, then when your mother is no longer there, when my mother died 24 years ago, then I had, you know, I didn't have to, to push her strength away. You know, I had an open corridor and then I could, I could give her so much more credit and I could, and I kept on, I mean, I always quote her. She was so annoying because she would always give advice to everyone, all of my friends.

Did she have quotes that she would just recite? Yes. And now I repeat them. And, you know, I'm a hundred times worse than she was. You have a lot of one-liners. You have a lot of quotes that you give that are inspirational. I love words, and I give a huge importance to words. And that's also something that I learned from my mother. She would say, you know, words have energy and words have power. I remember I used to say at one point, oh, it's divine, it's divine, and she would get so upset. What do you mean divine? That's not

what divine means, you know? So yes, paying attention to words is important to me. Our guests today are Dionne von Furstenberg and Charmaine Obey-Chinoy. We'll talk more after a break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. Hi, this is Molly. And I'm Seth. We're two of the producers at Fresh Air. If you like listening to Fresh Air, we think you'll also like reading our newsletter.

You'll find the interviews and reviews from the show all in one place. Plus, staff recommendations you won't hear on the show, behind-the-scenes Q&As, bonus audio. It's also the only place to find out what interviews are coming up. We keep it fun, and it comes straight to your inbox once a week. Subscribe for yourself at whyy.org slash fresh air. Dionne, you talk quite extensively about your marriage to German Prince Egon von Furstenberg. You've said most fairy tales end with the girl marrying the prince, but for you, that's where your story began. Was it just natural at such a young age to have this understanding of yourself? Or did you grow into that outlook? You all later divorced.

But instead of being this jealous wife or victim, you flipped it. Yeah. You know, once in my heart, always in my heart. There's no one in the world that I could say, oh, I don't speak to him or her anymore. And then when you deal with people that I was involved romantically, then of course, I mean, I always takes a long time because sometimes they're not happy that you left them. But I work at it. And eventually, you know, I stay in their lives. And as it relates to Egon, I mean, Egon gave me, he was the first person to believe in me. He made me a princess. He gave me two children. He insisted upon having these children. And he pushed me and encouraged me to work. So I owe him so much. I just there was one point that I no longer wanted

to be part of a couple for whatever reason, things that I did not necessarily endorse, but I don't judge. And we stayed very good friends. He used to come every, you know, every end of the day to see the kids, have drinks with my mother. I mean, we stayed friends and we loved each other. He became like a brother to me. And when he died, I was with him in the room and the children, and I love him to this day. You mentioned motherhood, and both of you are mothers. There's no doubt, as we see in this documentary, ambition and drive and mission-driven work, it does have an impact on that role of motherhood. I'm a mother too. We know the way that mothers are perceived in society and what society says a mother should be. And I want to ask this question to both of you guys. Dionne, how do you feel like you managed that or juggled that? And when you look at this

retrospective of your life and you see the relationship between your children and some of the things that they say, like you weren't always there or they became closer to you as you got older. I had this conversation with my daughter today on the phone. And I said, well, I mean, she wouldn't actually. I said, would you have liked to have another mother? And this is the mother I was. I was the best I could. And I was a lot more there than they thought I was. But the result, I mean, the result is extraordinary.

And not only who they became, but the children that they later had. And I don't think there's anyone who has the relationship. My children are now 52 and 53 or 53 and 54. And, I mean, they both call. We speak at least twice a day, every day. And because they're my friends. I mean, they are. I was barely an adult when they were born.

And if I need anything, it's them that I call. And so we have, I mean, I was the best mother I could have been. And voila. And, I mean, your children are supposed to feel that way. Yeah. Even though I didn't feel like that to my mother. But also the most important things you can give your children and teach their children is to be independent. Because that is the biggest gift you can give them.

Nothing is worse than raising people, children who become needy and dependent. What were the ways that you did that for your children? Me? Yes. So my children, I used to say, you have to be responsible. You know, I could die. And I remember one day I told them that they may have been, I don't know, four and five, and they looked at me. I said, I don't intend to, but things can happen, and you have to learn how to be responsible for yourself. You know, my father died when he was fairly young, and I was in my late 20s. And he always said, be independent. And I remember when I was 17 years old, and I had written this article in the newspaper, and that had drawn this ire of

a lot of people, and they had spray painted my name, and my family's name with like unspeakable profanities on our main gate and around our neighborhood, in order to shame us. And my father said that, I thought he was going to ground me, to be honest. But instead of that, he said to me, if you speak the truth, I will stand with you and so will the world. And he was telling me, be independent. You know, someone will step in to help. Don't shy away from it. Don't stay in sort of, you it. Don't stay in a cover. Go out.

Explore your dreams. Be yourself. Be independent. And I think that was such a valuable lesson at the age of 17 to know that someone was telling you that consistently. And I think that empowered me to follow my dreams. Charmaine, you as a documentary filmmaker has spent quite a bit of time documenting stories in your home country of Pakistan. And when did you know or come to understand that storytelling was your calling? I think I was always a storyteller. I'm the eldest of six children. And my mother was always dividing her time with her children. And I was that annoying child who would ask far too many questions. And I think I was 14 when my mother told me that I needed to start badgering someone else. And so she recommended that I start writing and putting these questions out to the universe.

And so I wrote this letter to the editor of an English language newspaper in Pakistan. And I said, hi, I'd like to start writing for the newspaper. And by the time I was 17, I was doing investigative reporting. And I think that from print, that was a natural trajection to filmmaking. Your work has had such an impact, Sharmeen, in Pakistan. You are now like a household name in Pakistan. And the lives of many women who live there, they're still struggling with many things, still struggling with this idea of honor killings. I just want to know, how does it feel, though, to know that you are

making this change in where you're from? And what have been some of the response since Parliament passed that law criminalizing honor killings? You know, as a filmmaker, there can be no greater joy than knowing that something that you've created impacts legislation and is able to change the lives of hundreds and thousands of women. You know, we, once A Girl in the River came out, we screened it in small towns and villages on a mobile cinema and we pushed it through colleges in order to create advocacy and to change the way people see things and it has the ability to change people's lives. If you're just joining us, I'm talking to Dionne von Furstenberg and filmmaker Charmaine Obey-Chinoy about their new documentary, Dionne von Furstenberg, Woman in Charge. What new things did you learn about yourself, Sharmeen, in the making of this documentary? Many things. I learned many things about myself. You know, I have always been somebody who has embraced age. I have a lot of gray hair. For someone who's 45 years old, I don't die.

And the opening of the film with Diane in the sink talking about the map of her life really resonates with me because I think that women need to see age and experience age in a totally different way. We need to change the narrative around ageism and how we perceive ourselves. And to look at the lines on our face as the map of our life and our experiences and to frame it that way is empowering.

And when Diane said that, I was like, yeah, exactly. That is what I'm doing. This is the map of my life, and I am going to embrace it. And I hope that younger women today reframe the conversation in this context. You know, when I saw that in the documentary, now every time I'm looking at myself in the mirror, I'm seeing it a little bit differently. I'm thinking about what she said, thinking about what you said, Dionne. But having said that, now that I watch the way I look, I said, oh my God, I look so terrible. No, really? But yeah, but no, I don't know if I said that already, but in the mirror, I find strength in my own eye contact. The eye contact is so important with yourself, you know, because that's how I get my strength. You know, when you look at yourself in the mirror, Dionne, and you've always looked how you looked, you've just gotten older. Have you ever felt pressure in an industry like fashion to alter yourself?

Plastic surgery, Botox, those types of things. I don't want to lose myself. Okay, do I want to improve myself? Sure. And if I can, but I am very afraid of losing myself. How hard is it in an industry that is always pushing, being youthful, being young, that is where your power lies, to really be standing in this place where you're saying, no, my power actually lies in the years that I've lived. No. First of all, I never wanted to be a girl. I always wanted to be a woman. When I was growing up, I admired women like Jeanne Moreau. You know, I always liked faces that looked like they had lived. So I still do like that.

I don't want to look like a doll. I don't want to look like I'm upholstered. I want to look, I mean, wrinkles are the expression of your life. So, you know, it's, and I don't take those things, industry wants, society wants. I never thought like that. I never thought like that. What does it mean, society wants? What is society?

What does it mean? That has never entered my preoccupation, ever. But I do believe in being a good human being. I believe in kindness. I believe in empathy. I believe in courage. But I don't believe in the rules of society. Dionne von Furstenberg and Charmaine Obey-Chinoy, I really thank you for this documentary and thank you for this conversation. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.

Dionne von Furstenberg and filmmaker Charmaine Obey-Chinoy talking with us about their new documentary, Dionne von Furstenberg, Woman in Charge. After a short break, book critic Maureen Corrigan shares part one of her summer book recommendations. And TV critic David Bianculli reviews the drama series Kafka. This is Fresh Air. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan has been preparing for the official start of summer by what else? Reading. Here's part one of her summer book's recommendations. Summer reading.

For me, those words suggest an unhurried expanse of time to lose myself in a good story, fiction or nonfiction. Save the dystopian novels till the fall, please. Right now, I want books that glimmer like fireflies with dashes of humor and nostalgia. I've just read two that fit those summery specifications. Catherine Newman's new novel is called Sandwich, after the town on Cape Cod where her characters have rented a cottage for one precious week every summer for the past 20 years. The title also winks at the situation of our main character, Rachel, nicknamed Rocky,

who's halfway in age between her young adult children and her elderly parents, all of whom crowd into that ramshackle cottage. In the opening scene of Sandwich, Rocky's husband, Nicky, stands paralyzed, plunger in hand, before the cottage's single, overflowing old toilet. As Rocky's vacation week progresses, other things also slosh and overflow. Secrets, messy emotions like anger and shame, and, as Rocky tells us, her own aging body. Menopause, she says, feels like a slow leak, thoughts leaking out of your head, flesh leaking out of your skin, fluid leaking out of your joints. You need a lube job, is how you feel, body work. Newman elegantly segues from Nora Ephron-like comic passages like that one to elegy. To return to the same place every summer, after all, is to be periodically brought up short by the passage of time. In the middle of the novel, for instance, Rocky uses another metaphor to describe her position in her family, and this time

her tone is infused with anticipatory grief. Life is a seesaw, Rocky says, and I am standing dead center, still and balanced, living kids on one side, living parents on the other. Nikki here with me at the fulcrum. Don't move a muscle, I think, but I will, of course. You have to. Sandwich is my idea of the perfect summer novel, shimmering and substantive. One more aspect of Newman's book deserves highlighting Like many other novels by best-selling female authors I'm thinking of Jennifer Weiner, Ann Patchett, and Megan Abbott Newman introduces a storyline here about abortion She writes about that contested subject And the emotions it engenders

In a way that I've never encountered in fiction before. As a city kid who grew up in an apartment without air conditioning, I have happy memories of seeking relief from the heat by wandering around grand New York department stores like Bloomingdale's, Macy's, and B. Altman. Julie Sato's new narrative history, called When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, is a treat for anyone like me who yearns to time travel back to some of those palaces of consumption at the height of their grandeur. But even more revelatory are the stories Sato excavates of the women who presided over three of suburbs by turning its small size into an advantage,

creating exclusive boutiques within the store that attracted customers like Gloria Vanderbilt, Cher, and Barbra Streisand. Some 30 years earlier, Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor, who Life magazine dubbed America's number one career woman, revolutionized fashion by championing the sporty American look at a time when French designers held sway. But the standout figure of the trio is Hortense Adlam, a self-described housewife whose husband bought a near-bankrupt and sagging Bonwit Teller during the Great Depression and asked her to visit the store to judge it with a woman's eye. One of her first smash successes was the introduction of a hat department on the main

floor. In 1934, Hortense became the first woman president of an American department store. Sato specializes in entertaining cultural histories. Her previous book was a history of New York's Plaza Hotel. Here, she intersperses descriptions of such wonders as Salvador Dali designed window displays at Bonwitz with accounts of the racism pervasive in these department stores. For those readers immune to the allure of shopping or the shore, be assured that more summer reading recommendations, especially mysteries and crime novels, are coming your way. Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed Sandwich by Katherine Newman and When Women Ran Fifth Avenue by Julie Sato.

Coming up, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the drama series Kafka. This is Fresh Air. The drama series Kafka is about the Jewish writer Franz Kafka, who worked in Prague dealing with insurance claims and benefits while composing short stories and novels by night, writings which mostly went unpublished during his lifetime. The six-part series was shown on German TV earlier this year and is now streaming on High Flix, a platform that showcases movies and TV shows with Jewish or Israeli themes or origin. Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review. Netflix and other streaming services have made movies and TV series from other countries more available to U.S. audiences than ever before. And they're being gobbled up by viewers fascinated by the originality

and the compelling oddity of everything from South Korea's Squid Game to Germany's Babylon Berlin. Now comes another TV series from Germany, a six-part biographical drama called Kafka. And like those other imported dramas, subtitles and unfamiliar actors don't keep you from being sucked in. I ended up loving Kafka. And like those other imported dramas, subtitles and unfamiliar actors don't keep you from being sucked in. I ended up loving Kafka, and for some of the strangest reasons. I loved the structure of the miniseries, which is loose enough to have characters break the fourth

wall and talk to the narrator, and bold enough to slip from scenes of Kafka's life to imagined scenes from his stories. I loved the show's interiors, which were so full of detail that you felt transported back to turn of the century Prague, kind of like an old-world Wes Anderson approach. I loved the exteriors, too. Most of one entire episode takes place during a hike in the gorgeous countryside of Vienna. And most of all, I loved the dialogue, which pulls from Kafka's writings to examine his thoughts and feelings and put them into quick exchanges which are both bizarre and funny. Franz Kafka, as portrayed here, was surrounded by oppression, regimentation, and rejection. Kafka was born in Prague in 1883, and his stern father constantly ridiculed and belittled him. Kafka's career, eventually working as a claims adjuster

at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute, was the very definition of drudgery. Yet he found solace in his writing, which he toiled over almost every night of his life. He also, less frequently, found solace in his writing, which he toiled over almost every night of his life. He also, less frequently, found solace with women. He never married, but had a few very significant relationships, including a fellow writer and free thinker, Malena Jasenska, who lived in Vienna and translated his work.

Malena is played by Liv-Lisa Fries, who also starred in Babylon Berlin. And Franz Kafka is played by Joel Bosman, who plays him as a tightly coiled, repressed loner who speaks softly, but whose words either make you wince or laugh. He's awkward around most women, but around most men, too. He's kind of like Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, only as a writer, not a physicist. In an early meeting between Franz and Malena, while they're walking in the woods, she asks him casually about his father. Their conversation translates like this. Kafka says, I wrote him a gigantic letter two and a half years ago.

She replies, I also write to my father every week. He insists on it. And Kafka says, no, not that kind of letter. Mine was more than a hundred pages. When she asks what his father's response was, Kafka says he didn't read it. A hundred pages, she says incredulously, and he didn't read it. A hundred pages, she says incredulously, and he didn't read it? And Kafka replies, no, but mainly because I never gave it to him. Really made me laugh, and turns out it was true. Franz Kafka died of tuberculosis at age 40. That was a hundred years ago, which gives this centenary production a hook of sorts. But it doesn't need one.

It's directed and co-written by David Schalko, who's been called one of the most important Austrian filmmakers of his generation. I can see why. He and co-writer David Kuhlman, who has an international reputation as a novelist, have brought their own imaginations and artistry to the imaginative artist who wrote such stories as The Castle, The Trial, and The Metamorphosis. And it answers the question, what kind of writer would come up with a story about a man who wakes up to find himself turned into a giant cockroach? And even more important, why? David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University in New Jersey.

He reviewed the drama series Kafka. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Sallet, Phyllis Myers, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Teresa Madden, Thea Chaloner,

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