Ursula (film)
Ursula is a German-Swiss literary film adaptation for television by Egon Günther from 1978 . It is based on Gottfried Keller 's story of the same name and caused a scandal due to revealing scenes, among other things. It was Günther's last directorial work in the GDR.
action
The Switzerland in 1523: Mercenaries Jackie Geer returns with other soldiers from Italy in the Swiss Oberland. He fought at the side of the Pope and now has to recognize that a religious upheaval has taken place in his homeland. Huldrych Zwingli's teaching is rampant and Anabaptism prevails in the Oberland . At his farm, Hansli Gyr meets his fiancée Ursula, whom he has brought back from Italy with a ring that he puts on her. Ursula offers herself to him, but he refuses: First they should both marry and get the blessing from Ursula's parents. Confused by the new developments, Hansli Gyr decides to go to Zurich himself and find out about the new conditions on site. In a tavern in Zurich, Hansli Gyr meets Zwingli, who a little later preaches against the papists from the pulpit of the great minster . A little later, the mob plundered Zurich's Großmünster and smashed the pulpit. Hansli joins Zwingli's men.
In the Oberland, Ursula's father Enoch Schnurrenberger propagates that everything belongs to everyone. Orgies begin until soldiers appear and drive out the Anabaptists. Ursula watched the goings-on, as it was taking place on Hansli's meadows when she was sweeping up the hay. A little later, Hansli appears, but Ursula calls him Angel Gabriel. Hansli is appalled by what the parents made of Ursula. He leaves his fiancée. The family is captured a little later with other Anabaptists. Zwingli issues the order to leave the group to God: Either they renounce their faith or they will starve to death. Hansli secretly frees Ursula and the other prisoners.
Zwingli sees the approach of war and Hansli actually reports to him a little later that five Catholic towns had burned Pastor Jakob Kaiser, known as "the locksmith", as a heretic, even though Zwingli had intervened. Hansli and Zwingli and his men went to the field against the five Catholic towns in June 1529, but the war could be prevented by arbitrators and a joint meal with bread and milk . Hansli moves on as a soldier and takes part in the bombing of Musso Castle , whose master Gian Giacomo Medici hastily flees. In an inn, Hansli is almost seduced by a beautiful woman whom he wants to bring to the right faith, but discovers a ring on her finger that reminds him of Ursula. He leaves the woman alone.
A little later the Anabaptists in the Oberland learn that Hansli Gyr is back. Another war with the five Catholic villages will begin and Ursula, who has just treated a figure of Christ, drops the crucifix and sets off for Zurich. She follows the soldiers and finally sees the horror of war on the battlefield. Zwingli falls and is barbarically dismembered and burned by the opponents. Ursula searches for Hansli Gyr among the dead and finally finds him injured by a stream. She disinfects his leg wound by urinating on it, and she drags Hansli back to the Oberland on her back. Hansli's farm has fallen into disrepair, but both want to settle down. When soldiers pass by the court again, Ursula asks them to have mercy and to leave her Hansli. When the soldiers do not go any further, Ursula insults them roughly. The couple are eventually left alone.
production
Ursula was the only collaboration between GDR television and Swiss television. The first discussions about the joint film project were held as early as 1975, when Helga Schütz suggested the subject matter to Peter Jakubeit , the dramaturge of East German television , and wrote a scenario. It was clear from the start that camera technology and film material should be provided by Swiss television SF DRS , while the direction and script should be in the hands of GDR artists. Actors should come from both the GDR and Switzerland.
Helga Schütz completed the first version of the text in March 1977 and submitted the finished script in September 1977. It was released for production in October 1977. In January 1978 the actors in the film were found. The young theater actress Suzanne Stoll took on the role of Ursula Schnurrenberger and thus her very first film role. Bruno Ganz and Christian Kohlund , among others, were up for discussion for the figure of Hansli ; it was occupied by Jörg Reichlin . Helmut Lohner was also suggested for the figure of Zwingli , but in the end Matthias Habich was chosen . The costumes for the film come from Christiane Dorst , the set was created by Georg Kranz .
The shooting of the film began on February 6, 1978. In the GDR, the shooting was done in the Wildpark Potsdam , in Wiesenburg and at Stolpen Castle . Studio scenes were created in the DEFA studios in Potsdam-Babelsberg. The Swiss film locations included the Julier Pass , Lake Lucerne and the Großmünster in Zurich . The shooting was finished on May 29, 1978, the final production was completed at the end of September 1978. The production costs amounted to around 1,750,000 marks and 1,168,800 Swiss francs .
The film had its Swiss television premiere on November 5, 1978 on the Swiss television DRS; the audience participation was around 19 percent. On November 19, 1978, the film was first on DDR 1 in GDR television showed the audience turnout was 47.7 percent.
reception
The film met with some fierce criticism in Switzerland and the GDR. In addition to letters of complaint and phone calls, two legal proceedings “for violating religious feelings” were opened in Switzerland because of the film, but they were unsuccessful. Various aspects and scenes were the reason for the outrage.
In Switzerland, the interpretation of Zwingli and the Anabaptists was particularly criticized. If Zwingli appears friendly and charismatic in the original book, he is presented in the film as cool and humanly tough thanks to the camera position and the use of light. At the same time, Zwingli's sermons, reproduced verbatim, give the impression of authenticity. While Gottfried Keller portrayed the Anabaptists negatively in the novella, Egon Günther presented them as a group that wants to live according to its own social rules in order to evade social power relations. In contrast to Keller, Günther also portrays the Anabaptists as sexually free or unrestrained, which was viewed and criticized as defamation. Central to the interpretation of the conflict between Zwingli and the Anabaptists is seen as the scene in which Zwingli gives the instruction to leave the Anabaptists in prison to themselves or to God and not to give them any nourishment: “Order as a reason for draconian measures against Insubordinate. This remark was probably addressed to the politically responsible in the GDR ”, so the criticism looking back; the film deals with "the clashes of the powerless with the powerful in times of ideological struggle". At the same time, the representation ratio was historically shortened as inadmissible and criticized as being “changed in the Marxist sense”.
Another point of criticism was the use of language in the film. Suzanne Stoll in particular changes several times in the film from High German to Swiss “ Stadtbaseldeutsch ”, her mother tongue. This was not included in the scenario, but it made it easier for Stoll to portray her figure. These scenes, which were not subtitled, were incomprehensible to viewers in the GDR and therefore remained in the memory. Since Swiss German was only spoken in insignificant scenes related to dialogue, the focus of the GDR audience usually shifted to unimportant scenes. Viewers in Switzerland found the scenes in Swiss German irritating, as the variation of the dialect did not fit into the Zurich area. Another linguistic point of criticism were the coarse, foul-mouthed tirades, which were also peppered with "modern" swear words.
Breaks in the plot and in the game also appeared irritating to the viewer. The present suddenly becomes visible in the historical game, and not just in the use of language. During a sermon, the audience suddenly wears modern clothes. The tracking shot at the end of the film not only shows Hansli's house, but also the nearby electricity pylons. In another scene, one of the Anabaptists swings into the air on a hang glider and falls a little later. The modern scenes do not always seem sensible, so "the attempts to connect the delta sailor with history [...] come to the limit of ridiculousness," the critic found. Breaks in the game also arise when the actors speak directly into the camera; sometimes the narrator (Egon Günther himself wrote the commentary) addresses himself directly to the audience. In Switzerland, however, the “experimental courage of film” also earned recognition; its effect was described as "disturbing in a positive sense".
In both countries, several sexually revealing scenes have been criticized as obscene. In one, a woman in a pub is tying her skirt and it is revealed that she is naked underneath. Then she jumps on a lascivious man who throws her over his shoulders and carries her away. In a second scene, a woman is shown head-on while having sex with a man during an Anabaptist orgy. In a third scene it is indicated that Ursula is satisfied with a Jesus figure on a crucifix. The three scenes were removed from the broadcast copy of the second television broadcast in Switzerland in 1990 and from the export version for the Federal Republic. Two other scenes - a mercenary with diarrhea and the scene in which Ursula urinates on Hansli's leg - were criticized as obscene, but not censored.
Critics highlighted “choreographically composed passages, careful images and a meaningful color scheme” as positive. In addition, the film is characterized by numerous Christian iconographic references, which mainly concern the figure of Ursula. Egon Günther therefore described the film as a religious film and refused to classify the work as a love story.
While the film was still allowed to be shown in Switzerland after the premiere and was also shown in the Federal Republic as a cut version with explanatory parts - the first screening took place on June 10, 1982 on S3 SWF - the film was shown in the GDR after the television premiere kept under lock and key and only shown again after the turn . Ursula was Egon Günther's last film work in the GDR. After Ursula, screenwriter Helga Schütz was only able to work sporadically for film and television in the GDR.
criticism
Although film reviews in the GDR were suppressed after the television premiere, mainly regional newspapers reported on Ursula . Hans-Dieter Tok criticized the Leipziger Volkszeitung for the fact that in the film “too much [...] remains to be deciphered; the key that is provided for it is, however, rather imprecise, inconsistent. ”“ Too often one felt the effort to suppress Keller's narrative in order to appear experimental enough, ”said Freedom again .
For the film-dienst , Ursula was “a lavishly staged mixture of historical reports, Reformation history, colportage and Brechtian alienation elements, shot for television, spread out into a naturalistic sheet of pictures with quite drastic details. Interesting as an update of Gottfried Keller's novella with references to the present. ”“ Opulent, sometimes hearty, drastic picture arc, ”wrote TV Spielfilm .
“Günther interpreted the Reformation as an era of political and sexual confusion; in the war scenes he had a death dressed in white appear chasing Jesus. One of the most beautiful and at the same time most hostile pictures was the one in which Ursula finds her lover seriously wounded on the battlefield, gathers up her skirts and pisses on him to disinfect his wounds, ”wrote Ralf Schenk looking back.
literature
- Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the Chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-937209-93-X .
Web links
- Ursula in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Ursula at filmportal.de
- 55 photos of the shooting in the picture archive of the ETH-Bibliothek (search there with: shooting Ursula)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 9.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 27.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 81.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, pp. 85, 87.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 101.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, pp. 105–106.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, pp. 108–110.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 176.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 119.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 117.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 36.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 19.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 29.
- ^ Quote from Martin Schlappner. Quoted from Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 19.
- ↑ a b quote from Martin Schlappner. Quoted from Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 38.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 41.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, pp. 190–191.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, pp. 45–46.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 34.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 54.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 222.
- ↑ Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 139.
- ^ Hans-Dieter Tok: Unbridled and encrypted . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , November 21, 1978. Quoted from: Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 140.
- ^ R. Bernhardt: Ursula . In: Freiheit , November 21, 1978. cit. based on: Thomas Beutelschmidt, Franziska Widmer: Between the Chairs. The story of the literary adaptation Ursula von Egon Günther - a co-production of the television of the GDR and Switzerland . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, p. 140.
- ↑ Ursula. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ See tvspielfilm.de
- ↑ Ralf Schenk: About the saddle's duty of confidentiality . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 29, 2005.