Farewell (1968)

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Movie
Original title farewell
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1968
length 107 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Egon Günther
script Egon Günther,
Günter Kunert
production DEFA , KAG "Babelsberg"
music Paul Dessau
camera Günter Marczinkowsky
cut Rita Hiller
occupation

Farewell is a German film adaptation of DEFA by Egon Günther from 1968 . It is based on the novel of the same name by Johannes R. Becher .

action

The year 1914: the young Hans Gastl packs his things and leaves. Meanwhile, his father, who works as a public prosecutor in Munich , rages against his unwary son, and his mother resigns. The maid Christine fetches an imperial flag and proudly announces that Liège has fallen. Hans says goodbye to his family, friends and his previous life. And he looks back.

Even as a schoolboy it became apparent that he was out of line for his middle class class. He was friends with the worker's son Hartinger and incited him to all sorts of nonsense. He stole money from his grandmother and got Hartinger to skip school with him and spend the money at the fair. In the end, Hartinger was beaten up as a thief and instigator for truancy by the teacher. Even when Hans confessed that he was the instigator and thief, he was not believed because the son of a public prosecutor would not do such a thing. The class-conscious and passionate militarist father went on hiking tours with the boy, on which battle situations were simulated. Occasionally Hans would show his father around and threaten him, ostensibly for fun. During the holidays, the family went away and Hans fell childishly in love with the maid, Miss Klärchen. He gave her flowers and they both read books together. The father made sure that Klärchen was released immediately and suspected that his son had had an affair with the young woman.

A few years pass. Hans is now attending grammar school and is one of the worst students there. He likes to write poems, which his father wants to prevent, and has contact with his even worse classmates, Feck and Freyschlag, whose rough jokes attract and repel Hans. At Feck's request for money, Hans steals from his grandmother again. She reports him to his parents and father Gastl draws the conclusion: Hans is put in the Johannespensionat for difficult-to-educate children of the higher classes, where iron discipline prevails. Hans catches up and begins to discover swimming for himself. He is so good at it that he even wins a German championship and is personally honored by Prince Alfons. Hans is allowed to return home. Under Feck's influence, he discovered women for himself and began an affair with the tobacco seller and former prostitute Fanny Fuß. He stays with her, but a short time later she is murdered by her pimp Kunik. Father Gastl is horrified that his son was in contact with the woman, but does everything to ensure that nothing of the son's interrogation is made public, as this would also endanger his reputation. In general, the interviewing judge has a much greater interest in questioning Hans' relationship with Hartinger. Along with the Jew Löwenstein, he is one of Hans' closest friends, since Hans had to leave school without a high school diploma due to poor performance. He now often spends time in the Megalomania café , where he recites his own poems and is welcomed into their circles by the writer Sack, the singer Magda and the cocaine-addicted Hoch.

One day the café-goers received the news that Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife had been murdered . The war, long thought to be impossible, has suddenly come and the euphoria among most of the young men in the city knows no bounds. Feck and Freyschlag, who like Hans passed the Abitur, received their secondary school diploma and volunteered for the war. Löwenstein, too, was soon a soldier on the train at the front. His mother enforced his military service report so that it would not mean that Jews would avoid military service. Only Hartinger and Hans stay behind, although Hans cannot believe that as Hartinger claims, so many Social Democrats oppose the war. The parents have just returned home from a long vacation. The father believes that Hans volunteered for the war and is proud of him. The mother packs Hans' things, even if she knows that he will not go to war. Hans finally reveals to his father that he will not take part in “your war”.

Hans packs his things and leaves forever. Meanwhile, his father rages against his unwary son, and his mother resigns.

production

Farewell is based on the novel Farewell by Johannes R. Becher. The film was shot from 1967 in Berlin , Dresden , Leipzig , Munich , Potsdam and at the Königstein Fortress . SED politician Alexander Abusch worked in an advisory capacity on the scenario . The soundtrack comes from a Requiem by Paul Dessau. Werner Bergemann created the costumes, Harald Horn designed the production , and Heike Bauersfeld was responsible for the construction .

The film had its film premiere on October 10, 1968 in the Berlin cosmos and was shown in GDR cinemas on October 18, 1968. It was awarded the title “Particularly valuable”, but was soon criticized for its stylistic devices. Egon Günther and Günter Kunert had implemented the novel "as a modern satirical spectacle, anti-bourgeois and pacifist at the same time". At the 9th plenum of the SED Central Committee on October 24, 1968, the film was sharply criticized, while letters to the editor critical of the film were launched in Neues Deutschland . When the film was to be shown as part of a festive event in honor of Johannes R. Bechers, Walter Ulbricht demonstratively left the cinema shortly before the performance began. Farewell was withdrawn from the cinemas after a short time and was later only occasionally shown in individual screenings.

On November 29, 1968, it was shown in Bochum at the Ruhr University . While it was never shown on East German television, ZDF showed it on German television on May 24, 1971. In 2007 the film was released on DVD by Icestorm .

Reviews

The filmdienst called farewell "formal considerable, as allegorical satire on the emancipation of a fossilized authority to interpret" for Cinema , the film was a "little too sought political parable". Other critics also wrote that Günther's formal experiments "occasionally get close to the arts and crafts", while the descriptions from the milieu of the "narrow-minded bourgeoisie [...] are oppressively real". In retrospect, Klaus Wischnewski described the film as a "highly interesting, not entirely successful, sometimes hectically indistinct, but form-conscious and, above all, suggestive in its anti-bourgeoisie and anti-authoritarian energy".

literature

  • F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 14-15 .
  • Farewell . In: Dieter Krusche: Lexicon of the movies. From silent films to today . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1977, pp. 192–193.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 14 .
  2. a b See progress-film.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.progress-film.de  
  3. Farewell. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. See cinema.de
  5. ^ Dieter Krusche: Lexicon of the movies. From silent films to today . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1977, p. 193.
  6. ^ Klaus Wischnewski: Dreamers and Ordinary People 1966 to 1979 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 239.