Bridge of Spies - The Negotiator
Bridge of Spies - The Negotiator (Original Title: Bridge of Spies ) is an American - German feature film directed by Steven Spielberg from 2015 , which premiered on October 4, 2015 at the 53rd New York Film Festival and on October 16 Released in American cinemas in 2015. The cinema release in Germany was on November 26, 2015.
The name of the film was chosen based on the “agent bridge ”, the Glienicke Bridge . It is located between what was once West Berlin and today's Brandenburg state capital Potsdam , at that time the GDR district capital, and served several times during the Cold War to exchange captured spies and political prisoners between western states and the Eastern Bloc. The first of these exchanges forms the real basis for the film plot.
action
Brooklyn , 1957: The inconspicuous Rudolf Abel lives as a painter in the United States, but secretly works as a spy for the Soviet Union. However, the authorities are aware of his activity. Abel is shadowed, arrested, and charged. The burden of proof is overwhelming. Espionage is a capital crime , but the rule of law provides the defendant Abel with a public defender: James Donovan , an experienced insurance attorney who, however, feels very uncomfortable in his first espionage case.
Donovan takes on the Abels case rather reluctantly, but dutifully and responsibly. After several conversations with Abel, Donovan noticed violations of the law during the arrest. There has never been a search warrant , so any evidence seized from Abel's apartment cannot be used in court. He also argued to Judge Mortimer Byers that Abel was a foreigner (he is officially registered as a British citizen), so he could not be charged with treason . Byers replies that US interests must take precedence over such considerations. Abel is found guilty by the jury and Judge Byers. Before the sentence was pronounced, Donovan was able to convince the judge in a private interview to impose a long prison sentence instead of the death penalty in order to keep Abel in reserve for an exchange should a US citizen be accused of espionage in the USSR . Abel is sentenced to 30 years in prison. After the verdict was announced, tumult broke out among the spectators, who asked for a death sentence. Donovan sets because of the ill-gotten evidence revision one before the Supreme Federal Court. Although he loses just under (4: 5 judges' votes), he sees himself exposed to hostility from the population and in the press because, in addition to his job as public defender, he supports the spy Abel. Unknown perpetrators even shoot at his house and a police officer threatens to beat him.
At the same time, the US Air Force, in close cooperation with the CIA, has spy flights carried out at very high altitudes over the Soviet Union; the planes take off from a US base near Peshawar in Pakistan . On May 1, 1960, the pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down. He no longer manages to activate the self-destruct mechanism of his Lockheed U-2 , nor does he use the deadly poison needle, although this was instructed to do so in the preparation course for the mission. Powers is sentenced as a spy by a Soviet military court: ten years in prison, the first three of them in a prison, then in a labor camp . In prison, he is the victim of sleep deprivation torture in order to reveal technical information about his plane to the Soviet secret services.
Donovan accepts an assignment from the CIA to travel to East Berlin as a negotiator and to negotiate an exchange between Abel and Powers at the Soviet embassy. Immediately before Donovan's arrival, however, the construction of the Berlin Wall began. The American student Frederic Pryor , who has just completed his dissertation in economics on communist economic policy in West Berlin , will witness this . Pryor, who is in the eastern sector at the moment the border is being sealed off, also has a camera and his doctoral thesis with him, is also referred to as a spy and imprisoned.
Donovan and the CIA agent Hoffman who traveled with them only found out about this in Berlin. Hoffman asks Donovan to only stand up for Powers, since his release is of much greater interest to the CIA. Donovan takes the S-Bahn to East Berlin, is received in the Soviet embassy in Unter den Linden by the deputy envoy (who is later identified by Hoffman as the head of the KGB's Eastern Europe department ) and demands the release of both Americans. However, since Pryor is in the custody of the GDR and not the Soviet authorities, the Soviet diplomat declares that he is not responsible. But he names Donovan as a contact person, Wolfgang Vogel , a lawyer who has been authorized to negotiate by the GDR leadership and who enjoys special privileges. He drives a new sports car from the neutral west, a Swedish Volvo P1800 , he is not punished for exceeding the speed limit in East Berlin and is allowed to drive to the west of the city without restrictions. With a lot of persuasion Donovan succeeds in getting the two Americans released. He ignores Vogel's demand that the US government recognize the GDR as a sovereign state; In the Soviet embassy he pointed out that a failure of the negotiations would make future exchanges impossible. But the GDR leadership insists on handing over Pryor directly to the Americans as the ostensibly sovereign state. The three sides finally agree that Pryor should cross the demarcation line at Checkpoint Charlie , while Abel and Powers should be exchanged over the Glienicke Bridge at the same time .
On February 10, 1962, the exchange took place at 5.30 a.m. there is a delay because Vogel and Pryor arrive late at Checkpoint Charlie. Abel and Donovan meet one last time at the bridge; Abel thanks his lawyer for all his efforts and tells him that he would like to give him a picture that he had painted while in custody. It is a portrait of Donovan. He returns to the USA with Powers. There he is portrayed as a hero in the media.
The film ends with a scene in which Donovan observes young people climbing over a fence, reminding himself of being shot at the Berlin Wall , which he witnessed.
The fade-in in the credits informs that Donovan , commissioned by President Kennedy, acted as negotiator even after the Bay of Pigs invasion and achieved more than 9000 releases instead of the 1100 or so originally planned for the new Cuban leadership under Fidel Castro.
production
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Bridge of Spies is an American-German co-production. The Potsdam- based Studio Babelsberg acted as co-producer and executive producer.
400 employees of the Babelsberg film crew worked for months to bring the 1960s back to life from October to December 2014. 150 scenery makers created decorations in the studios of the film studio in Babelsberg and added motifs outdoors. In addition to streets in Wroclaw and New York, the eponymous original location, the Glienicke Bridge on the Havel , was prepared by the Babelsberg studio and completely closed to car, pedestrian and bicycle traffic for five days. Other locations were Marquardt Palace in Potsdam, the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial and the former Berlin-Tempelhof Airport . The S-Bahn scenes were created in the S-Bahn factory at Erkner station with the support of the Historical S-Bahn Association.
800 extras wanted in the Berlin-Brandenburg area completed the pictures.
On November 28, 2014, Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the film set at the Glienicker Bridge at the invitation of Studio Babelsberg AG. Numerous media reported in public about the meeting between the German head of government and studio boss Carl Woebcken , producer Henning Molfenter , director Steven Spielberg and leading actor Tom Hanks.
German actors such as Sebastian Koch , Michael Schenk , Burghart Klaußner , Maximilian Mauff and others are also involved.
In addition to the German Film Funding Fund (DFFF) , MFG Film Funding and the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg also supported the project.
The film is Spielberg's first in decades where John Williams is not responsible for the score . For health reasons he was not available.
The Studio Babelsberg thanked after the shooting at the Potsdam and Berlin citizens for understanding to unlock the Havel crossing with a large poster on the bridge structure.
synchronization
The German dubbed version was created by FFS Film- & Fernseh-Synchron GmbH from Berlin; the book is by Alexander Löwe , the dialogue was directed by Dietmar Wunder .
| actor | role | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Tom Hanks | James B. Donovan | Joachim Tennstedt |
| Mark Rylance | Rudolf Abel | Frank Röth |
| Amy Ryan | Mary Donovan | Sabine Arnhold |
| Peter McRobbie | Allen Dulles | Kaspar Eichel |
| Burghart Klaussner | Harald Ott | Burghart Klaussner |
| Sebastian Koch | Wolfgang Vogel | Sebastian Koch |
| Dakin Matthews | Judge Mortimer Byers | Frank-Otto Schenk |
| Billy Magnussen | Doug Forrester | Nico Sablik |
| Alan Alda | Thomas Watters Jr. | Bodo Wolf |
| Stephen Kunken | William Tompkins | Peter Flechtner |
reception
Reviews
The film was given the rating of particularly valuable by the German film and media rating . The reasoning states: “In his film Spielberg succeeds in a convincing way in making both the zeitgeist of the Cold War and the look of that time tangible. In this way, the detailed and loving image of a time is created whose political trench warfare, on closer inspection, is not so far removed from the conflicts of our day. ”According to the industry magazine“ Variety ”, some recordings could become“ icons of film history ”. The magazine also refers to the final scene on Glienicke Bridge: It could also come from a modern western film .
“Hanks is transforming this suicide mission into an edifying example of sanity and humanity. The film could have had a hard time if it weren't for a few saving factors that make 'Bridge of Spies' great cinema. "
“So Spielberg made another historical and sociological film from which one can learn a great deal about the means and ends of moral narration. That is probably less than he wanted to achieve with this film with regard to the question of how his country can survive in the very different conflicts of the present - but still a lot more than most in his field will ever be able to. "
Awards
- Award for Best Supporting Actor for Mark Rylance
- Nomination in the category of best film for Steven Spielberg , Marc Platt and Kristie Macosko Krieger
- Nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Matt Charman and Ethan and Joel Coen
- Nomination in the Best Production Design category for Adam Stockhausen , Rena DeAngelo and Bernhard Henrich
- Nomination in the category of best film music for Thomas Newman
- Nomination for Best Tone for Andy Nelson , Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin
- Nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Mark Rylance
British Academy Film Awards 2016
- Award for Best Supporting Actor for Mark Rylance
- Nomination in the Best Film category for Kristie Macosko Krieger , Marc Platt and Steven Spielberg
- Nominated for Best Director for Steven Spielberg
- Nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Matt Charman and Ethan and Joel Coen
- Nomination in the Best Cinematography category for Janusz Kamiński
- Nomination in the category Best Production Design for Rena DeAngelo , Bernhard Henrich and Adam Stockhausen
- Nomination in the category of best film music for Thomas Newman
- Nomination in the category Best Editing for Michael Kahn
- Nominated for Best Tone for Richard Hymns , Drew Kunin , Andy Nelson and Gary Rydstrom
Screen Actors Guild Awards 2016
- Nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Mark Rylance
- Award in the Best Thriller category
Hollywood Film Awards 2015
- Award in the Best Camera category for Janusz Kamiński
- Award in the Best Tone category for Gary Rydstrom
New York Film Critics Circle Awards 2015
- Award for Best Supporting Actor for Mark Rylance
Web links
- Bridge of Spies - The negotiator in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Bridge of Spies - The Negotiator Official Website
- Bridge of Spies - The negotiator atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- Bridge of Spies - The negotiator at crew united
- "Bridge of Spies" - film tip - Nina Eichinger CineStar: "STARS - Das Kinomagazin", film report on the shooting at Glienicker Brücke, YouTube on October 29, 2015, accessed on November 12, 2015
- MAZ photo series about the shooting of the Glienicker Bridge , www.maz-online.de, image galleries region
- Photo gallery of the PNN about the shooting of the Glienicke Bridge , www.pnn.de, media library
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Certificate of Approval for Bridge of Spies - The Negotiator . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2015 (PDF; test number: 154 775 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Bridge of Spies - The Negotiator . Youth Media Commission .
- ^ Bridge of Spies. In: 53rd New York Film Festival. Film Society of Lincoln Center, accessed November 25, 2015 : "World Premiere · Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Amy Ryan and Mark Rylance in person at 10/4 screening"
- ↑ a b Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung: Spielberg shoots agent thriller - Chancellor Merkel on the agent bridge www.maz-online.de from December 5, 2014, accessed November 12, 2015
- ↑ a b c d Märkische Allgemeine Zeitung: Shooting for agent thriller in the Mark ended: Steven Spielberg von Babelsberg impressed www.maz-online.de from December 5, 2014, accessed November 12, 2015
- ↑ a b c Potsdamer Latest News: Hollywood is rebuilding the border www.pnn.de from November 19, 2014, accessed November 12, 2015
- ↑ Merkel visiting Spielberg and Hanks on Glienicke Bridge. Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 28, 2014, accessed on August 25, 2020 (dpa-Newskanal).
- ↑ Brent Lang: Spielberg-Hanks Cold War Film Titled 'Bridge of Spies,' John Williams Won't Compose Score. Variety , March 18, 2015, accessed September 15, 2015 .
- ↑ Studio Babelsberg on facebook: Thank you! facebook.de from December 1, 2014, accessed November 12, 2015
- ↑ Bridge of Spies - The Negotiator. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 2, 2017 .
- ^ Bridge of Spies In: fbw-filmbeval.com . German film and media rating. Retrieved December 3, 2015.
- ↑ Potsdam's latest news: Spielberg's "Bridge of Spies" from Potsdam in the Oscar qualification www.pnn.de from October 6, 2015, accessed November 12, 2015
- ^ Andreas Borcholte: Steven Spielberg's "Bridge of Spies". Warm to the heart in the Cold War. Spiegel Online, November 25, 2015, accessed on November 25, 2015 : "Oh, everything would always be as simple as in the cinema."
- ^ Dietmar Dath: Spielberg's latest history double lesson. In: Feuilleton. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 25, 2015, accessed on November 25, 2015 .
- ↑ a b 2015 Honorees. In: Hollywood Film Awards. Dick Clark Productions, 2016, accessed January 13, 2016 .