Death Watch - The bought death

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Movie
German title Death Watch - The bought death
Original title La mort en direct
Country of production France , Germany
original language English , French , German
Publishing year 1980
length 128 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Bertrand Tavernier
script David Rayfiel , Bertrand Tavernier
production Elie Kfouri
music Antoine Duhamel
camera Pierre-William Glenn
cut Michael Ellis , Armand Psenny
occupation

Death Watch , also known by the reference title The Bought Death , is a 1980 science fiction crime thriller starring Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel .

action

The film is set in an uncertain future, viewed from the end of the 1970s. At the beginning of the action, a big city is shown (Glasgow in Scotland) that, like the people, is full of life and yet slowly dies. Diseases are simply operated on away. Television rules everyday life. The most popular entertainment show is Death Watch . Since people rarely come into contact with death, the television broadcasts the last weeks of a doomed person live as a hit. Katherine Mortenhoe (a successful writer) is one of the few people who are young and still have an incurable disease. Doctors reveal to her that she only has a few weeks to live. The Death Watch production team takes advantage of this. Katherine is pressured to make her death public. At first she refuses. As the pressure mounts, she finally signs a deal with Death Watch . When she realizes what this means for her, she goes on the run.

She meets Roddy in a homeless shelter. They come closer. Katherine doesn't know Roddy works for Death Watch. He had a small camera operated on his brain. The images are captured through his eyes, and so Death Watch receives everything Roddy sees, including images of the doomed Katherine. Katherine and Roddy go through extreme situations together. Roddy begins to like the sensitive woman and becomes aware of what he is doing. He can no longer bear his betrayal towards Katherine and decides to take his eyesight from himself.

Katherine chooses her own way to put an end to the unworthy drama.

background

The model was provided by the writer DG Compton , who, like Katherine, saw himself as a misunderstood author. Harvey Keitel is brought in as another artist, who as a cameraman can only perceive beauty in the images that he can also photograph. The film was edited to make the colors as flimsy as possible, and the Glasgow set was meant to be anything but a thought of the future. Therefore, the film was also called minimalist science fiction.

The German dialogues in the script are from Géza von Radványi .

Premieres

  • France January 23, 1980
  • Germany May 9, 1980

Reviews

  • Lexicon of the International Film : «An original, also realistic thriller, which, however, gives away some interesting aspects. Overall, not without in-depth approaches and entertaining qualities, but not a great critical vision. "
  • In the film observer, Manfred Hobsch points out thematic parallels to Network by Sidney Lumet and Millionenspiel by Tom Toelle and Aktion Abendsonne by Diethard Klante . "With a coolness that gives the film a visionary atmosphere overall, the director creates a distance between the protagonists and the audience." This makes access more difficult for some, "but it is definitely worth dealing with the question of how changes in economic and political power will override moral concepts in the future." (after Hahn / Jansen)

Awards

Death Watch - The Bought Death ran in the competition at the Berlinale in 1980 , but did not receive any awards. In France, the film was nominated five times for a César in 1981.

literature

  • Ronald M. Hahn; Volker Jansen: Lexicon of Science Fiction Films. 720 films from 1902 to 1983 . Original edition, Heyne, Munich 1983 (Heyne-Buch; 01/7236), ISBN 3-453-01901-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Scheib: DEATH WATCH. (No longer available online.) In: Moria. September 3, 2008, archived from the original on October 18, 2008 ; Retrieved January 11, 2009 .