Bismarck (1914)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Bismarck |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1914 |
| length | approx. 102 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Richard Schott William Wauer Gustav Trautschold |
| script | Richard Schott |
| production | Franz Vogel for Eiko-Film (Berlin) |
| music | Ferdinand Hummel |
| camera | Paul Adler |
| occupation | |
Bismarck is a German silent film history portrait shot in 1913 with Franz Ludwig in the title role.
action
The film traces the life of the convinced Prussian and Reich founder Otto von Bismarck in three central sections .
It begins with his childhood, youth and student years. Initially Otto is still a happy boy, but is then called upon by the strict house teacher and escapes as often as he can from the educators who preach discipline and order. The young Otto finds his first real friend in the old Schäfer Brand. Otto's father tells the boy vividly about the soldier Schill from the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon Bonaparte , how the young Prussian, wounded in battle, was hidden on his parents' estate from the French who were chasing him. At this time, Schill discovered his true love, Germany, for himself, said his father. The adult Otto begins to study in Göttingen and, as a young boy, leads a brisk and liberated life. Incidentally, around 1850, he also turned out to be a prophet: "In twenty years Germany will be united!" Bismarck as a farmer is the next stage in his life on film, followed by a career as a diplomat.
The second part, "Des Reiches Schmied", shows Prince Otto von Bismarck as a mature man and state leader. Under his influence, after the Franco-Prussian War, German unity and the founding of an empire with the Prussian king Wilhelm as the first German emperor of the so-called “Second Reich”, which culminates in the splendid proclamation of the emperor in Versailles, came to a solemn conclusion. In the last part you can see how the “Iron Chancellor” consolidates and expands his work and tries to consolidate and secure Germany's difficult position in the center of Europe through a clever contract policy. The Berlin Congress and the Triple Alliance Treaty are important milestones in this last section. The film ends with Bismarck's dismissal by the young Kaiser Wilhelm II and his retreat to Friedrichsruh , where he spends his old age with close family members.
Production notes
Bismarck was produced in the Eiko-Film-Atelier in Berlin-Marienfelde (studio recordings) and at the Bismarck estates in Schönhausen (Elbe) . The shooting took place in August 1913, in that month the specialist magazines Der Tag (Berlin), Der Kinematograph and the Hamburg tourist paper reported on the shooting. Bismarck passed the censorship test on December 12, 1913. The solemn premiere took place on February 7, 1914 in the Berlin Mozart Hall. The Bismarck Festival followed from February 27 to March 12, 1914. The film had six acts and was 1,853 meters long.
Numerous high-ranking personalities from society and politics attended the premiere. The representatives of the Association for the Establishment of a Bismarck National Monument, the wife of the Reich Chancellor, Frau v. Bethmann Hollweg, various ministers, General v. Bonin, the city commandant of Berlin, Count von Schwerin, the President of the House of Representatives, von Wedel-Piesdorf , the Minister of the Royal House and President of the Manor, President of the Reichstag Johannes Kaempf , the Mayors of Berlin ( Dr. Reicke ), Schöneberg, Wilmersdorf and Neukölln .
Above all, the censors forbade one scene in which Bismarck kisses the hand of the Russian tsar.
reception
The prewar reviews praised this film mainly because of its national-patriotic sentiments:
“For the best of the Bismarck national monument on the Elisenhöhe near Bingerbrück on the Rhine, the 'Bismarck Festival' opened yesterday in the Mozart Lichtspiele on Nollendorfplatz. Prince Otto von Bismarck's life appeared in the film as an adaptation by Richard Schott and made an extraordinarily strong impression, especially since the individual scenes in which court actor Franz Ludwig acts as the main actor were favorably underlined by characteristic accompanying music. [...] When this film was shown, the director did not work with cheap sensations and shallow emotional moments: Effects such as those that arise from the scenes that show the Chancellor at difficult points in life - for example when he B. in the late night after a hard struggle writes his resignation or bids farewell to his lord and king in the crypt of the mausoleum in Charlottenburg - touch the heart and work through the healthy power of the work. From it the warrior Otto von Bismarck rises to whom the national monument on the Rhine is to honor. "
In Austria-Hungary, where the film was released immediately after the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, critics praised Bismarck primarily for its symbolic and highly topical significance for the German-Austrian brotherhood in arms:
"It is the great task of cinematography in the current world-historical moment not only to present the current circumstances of the theaters of war, but also historical events and personalities, whose importance must only now be fully appreciated in the patriotic sense, like the theater. It is a good thing that a great film of this kind is coming out, at the center of which is Prince Bismarck, the creator of the German-Austrian alliance that is now proving its worth in the fire. "
“... it was a happy idea to put Bismarck at the center of a biographical film that depicts his life's work, the establishment of a united Germany and the culmination of this work through the conclusion of the alliance with Austria-Hungary and Italy. [...] The impression is heightened by the excellent mask that the actor Bismarck, the well-known actor Ludwig, made for this difficult task. "
“When the Berlin Eiko-Filmfabrik set about producing the biographical film about the great Chancellor of the German Reich, Prince Bismarck, it probably hadn't thought of how timely this memory of one of the greatest Germans of all time would become. For us Austrians, too, Bismarck appears today in the light of a good friend who was always an advocate of the idea of an alliance between Austria and the newly organized Germany after the defeat of the French in 1870. […] The film is a historical reference work and the The uniformity of its implementation makes it a historical sensation. "
After the First World War , the strip was rated far more critically:
“It has always been dangerous to use doppelgangers to portray the biographies of famous men and especially national heroes in film. The pre-war Bismarck film was not an act. "
literature
- Maja Lobinski-Demedts: Bismarck in the film. The Bismarck films of 1914 and 1925/27. In: Lothar Machtan (ed.): Bismarck and the German national myth. Edition Temmen, Bremen 1994, ISBN 3-86108-244-6 , pp. 157-179.
Web links
- Bismarck at filmportal.de
- Bismarck in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Bismarck at The German Early Cinema Database
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Bismarck (1914) In: Der Tag v. February 28, 1914
- ^ Bismarck (1914) In: Die Neue Freie Presse , Vienna, autumn 1914
- ↑ Bismarck (1914) In: Neues Wiener Journal Herbst 1914
- ↑ Bismarck (1914) In: Kinematographische Rundschau of September 20, 1914. P. 27
- ^ Oskar Kalbus : On the becoming of German film art . 1st part: The silent film . Berlin 1935, p. 55