Bartolomé de Las Casas (film)

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Movie
Original title Bartolome de las Casas
Country of production Austria
original language German
Publishing year 1992
length 69 minutes
Rod
Director Michael Kehlmann
script Michael Kehlmann
production Helmut Pascher (production manager), Libor Kratochvil (production)
camera Peter Jasicek, Hans Viktor Keppler, Karl Goger, Andreas Stidl
cut Kurt Zoehrer
occupation

Bartolomé de las Casas is an ORF television play from 1992. It depicts the Valladolid dispute of 1550.

action

After a narrator has introduced the audience to the subject and indicated references to contemporary politics, the actual plot begins: Before the eyes of Emperor Charles V , the Dominican priest Bartolomé de Las Casas and the humanist and theologian Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda discuss the question of to what extent a war between the Spaniards against the Indians in the newly conquered colonies of the New World and the enslavement of the Indians by the Spaniards are justifiable. Sepúlveda takes the position that the Spaniards must above all create order and have the task of the Church to evangelize the Indians (if necessary with force). In addition, the Indios are at a lower level of development and therefore cannot have the same rights as the Spaniards. Since Sepúlveda himself was never in the New World, he calls Captain Vargas, a veteran soldier, as a witness who confirms this position.

Las Casas, on the other hand, who himself lived in the New World for a long time, impressively describes the atrocities committed against the Indians. He asks the king to regard the Indian kings as equals and to give them back their land and their subjects. The Spaniards have no right to enslave the Indians, rather their mission is to “bring” (faith, salvation) and not “take” (gold).

Sepúlveda counters Las Casas' argument about human equality with the fact that Las Casas himself profited from the exploitation of the Indians during his time in the New World and later proposed the import of African slaves in order to alleviate the suffering of the Indians. Las Casas admits this and regrets having taken these positions earlier.

The also present Bishop of Seville is apparently supposed to take on a moderating role, but it becomes clear that he is actually on the side of Sepúlveda. The emperor is merely a listener at this dispute, but you can tell from his face that he is affected by Las Casas' descriptions.

Following the disputation, the emperor and Las Casas talk to each other in private, and the emperor announces that he will enact new laws to forbid the enslavement of the Indians. He installed Las Casas as Bishop of Chiapas so that he could enforce the law in this area.

At the end, the narrator appears again to announce that the new laws failed and could hardly be enforced in the New World. It gives an outlook on the further course of colonial history and makes references to the discrimination of the Indians in the present.

production

The film was produced by ORF and broadcast for the first time on December 5, 1992. The screenplay by Michael Kehlmann based on the novel Las Casas before Charles V of Reinhold Schneider .

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