Romance in minor

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Movie
Original title Romance in minor
Romance in minor Logo 001.svg
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1943
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Helmut Käutner
script Helmut Käutner ,
Willy Clever
production Tobis-Filmkunst , Berlin
( Hermann Grund )
music Lothar Bruhne ,
Werner Eisbrenner
camera Georg Bruckbauer
cut Anneliese Sponholz
occupation

Romance in Moll is a German fiction film from 1943, directed by Helmut Käutner . Foreign distribution titles: Lumiere dans la nuit (France), Romanza en tono menor (Spain), La collana di perle (Italy), Det gåtfulla leendet (Sweden), Romance in a Minor Key (USA).

action

Madeleine took poison. When her husband, a staid accountant, comes home from playing cards in the evening, he initially assumes that she is already asleep. Only after a while does he realize that his wife is dying. He has her taken to the hospital. In order to be able to pay the doctor's bills, he gathers up whatever valuables he can find and takes them to the pawn shop . Among them is a pearl necklace that he previously thought was a cheap imitation. In the pawn shop, however, he has to find out that the chain is real. He can finally locate the jeweler who made the necklace and find out how his wife got the pearls:

The composer Michael had watched Madeleine admiring a valuable pearl necklace in the jeweler's window and immediately fell in love with her peculiar smile. The encounter with the young woman inspired him to write the piece of music "Romance in minor". In gratitude he gave her the necklace and Madeleine became, after initial hesitation, his lover. The woman led a double life for months without her husband knowing anything about it. But the relationship with Michael was not long hidden from those around them. By chance Viktor, her husband's superior, found out about the affair. Since he also wanted Madeleine, he blackmailed and harassed her. She finally gave herself to him, saw no other way out and got poison.

When Michael learns of the blackmail, he challenges Viktor to a duel , in which Viktor is killed. Michael's hand is so badly injured in the duel that he will probably never be able to play the piano again. He wants to face the police, but first seeks Madeleine's husband to confess everything to him. Shortly afterwards, Madeleine's husband collapses over the picture of his wife with the words “Done, done, it doesn't even hurt anymore”.

As a final greeting, Michael finally brings the pearl necklace to Madeleine's deathbed.

background

Screenwriter Willy Clever and Helmut Käutner were inspired to write the script by the Maupassant story “Les bijoux”. The play Mélo , written by Henri Bernstein and filmed by Paul Czinner in 1932 under the title The Dreaming Mouth , may have served as a further source of inspiration . This film also tells of a young woman who gets involved in a relationship with a musician and in the end, in her hopelessness, chooses suicide.

The film was shot from July 1942 in the Jofa studio in Berlin-Johannisthal. The premiere took place on June 25, 1943 in the Gloria-Palast in Berlin .

The film, which Goebbels classified as “destroying marriage and morals” and “ defeatist ”, was initially only used abroad and in a few front cinemas. Contrary to expectations , Romance in minor was enthusiastically received by the soldiers and - after numerous protest letters to the Propaganda Ministry - it was finally released for German cinemas.

Romance in minor finally received the rating "artistically particularly valuable" and was also awarded the Swedish Critics' Prize in 1944.

As in most of his films, Käutner also has a brief appearance here: he can be seen as a poet.

In the opening sequence, the curtain in Madeleine's bedroom should, according to Käutner's ideas, “blow gently as if in the wind”. In order to achieve the desired effect, the director Marianne Hoppe tied a thread around her finger, with the help of which she could set the curtain in motion - invisible to the viewer.

Voices and reviews of the film

  • In formal terms, Käutner was apparently based on the “ poetic realism ” of French pre-war films. He relied on impressive performance, on a pessimistic tone that is sometimes evoked a little too symbolically in gloomy pictures. Light and shadow play a major role here. Their contrast depicts a closed world in which - as with Carné - pure feelings cannot assert themselves against the hostile environment in which the heroine is almost innocently guilty and has to pay for it. - Dieter Krusche: Reclams Filmführer, 11th edition, Stuttgart 2000, pages 575-576
  • This melodrama , staged as a chamber play, derives its atmospheric density from the conscious emphasis on its studio character: the decor and lighting result in perfectly nuanced tableaus, the artificiality of which also defines their intensity. Käutner succeeded in spurring his ensemble on to top performance. Marianne Hoppe implements the conflict between passionate love for Michael and tender respect for her husband in an emotional and believable way; Paul Dahlke made the difficult figure of the pale, obliging husband his most touching film role; Ferdinand Marian gave his typical character of the sensitive composer with sensual charisma great urgency. Few films in the Third Reich defend the right to a self-determined life and the autonomy of the private sphere so clearly against the assertive social claims to subordination. - Thomas Kramer: Lexikon des Deutschen Films, Stuttgart 1995, pages 263-64
  • Käutner was inspired by Maupassant's novellas for this sensitive, melancholy psychological social drama, which French critics ( Georges Sadoul among others) praised as the only important film of the Nazi era. Lexicon of International Films , 1990 edition, page 3151

literature

  • Christa Bandmann and Joe Hembus : Classics of the German sound film (1930–1960). Munich 1980, pages 148-150
  • Wolfgang Jacobsen and Hans Helmut Prinzler : Käutner (Edition Films 8) , Berlin 1992, pp. 74–79 and pp. 187–91
  • Holger Noltze: Romance in a minor key. A Munich discussion about Christian Thielemann's favorite film, in: FAZ No. 58, March 10, 2010, p. 31.

See also

References and comments

  1. ↑ Although it is not explicitly stated in the film that Madeleine died, thanks to his staging Käutner leaves no doubt that she will not survive the suicide attempt at the end: “The beginning tells the end and the end of the film seals nothing but the fulfilled end . Again Madeleine rests on the death bed, her face transfigured by a white panel and then covered by a black draw panel that lowers like a curtain over the long-completed extinction. ”Cf. Karsten Witte: In principle hope. Helmut Käutner's films. In: Wolfgang Jacobsen / Hans Helmut Prinzler (eds.): Käutner (Edition Films, Volume 8) Berlin 1992, page 72. The authors also assume Madeleine's death in other reference works. So z. B. in the Lexikon des Deutschen Films , Stuttgart 1995, page 264: "... she takes her own life" or in Reclam's film guide , Stuttgart 2000, page 575: "... Madeleine takes poison and dies."
  2. ↑ Klaus Völker: "We play ..." Helmut Käutner's life. In: Wolfgang Jacobsen / Hans Helmut Prinzler (eds.): Käutner (Edition Films, Volume 8) Berlin 1992, page 24.
  3. ^ CineGraph - Lexicon for German-language film - Helmut Käutner
  4. ↑ Peter Cornelsen: Helmut Käutner. His films, his life. Munich 1980, page 56
  5. ↑ Peter Cornelsen: Helmut Käutner. His films, his life. Munich 1980, page 56

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