Carl Mayer (screenwriter)

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Carl Mayer

Carl Mayer (born November 20, 1894 in Graz , † July 1, 1944 in London ) was an Austrian screenwriter .

Life

Star by Carl Mayer on the Boulevard der Stars in Berlin

Carl Mayer was born the son of an unsuccessful businessman. He was orphaned at the age of 16 when his father died of suicide after losing a significant amount of money gambling . To make a living and support his three younger brothers, he took on a number of odd jobs. He worked as a peddler , choir singer , extra and draftsman, later also as an actor on provincial stages.

Shortly after the First World War , Mayer met the former officer and Czech poet Hans Janowitz as a dramaturge at the small Berlin Residenztheater in 1919 . Together they wrote the script for Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari , who quickly established him as a film writer.

After a second expressionist film, Genuine (1920), Carl Mayer turned away from “caligarism” and devoted himself to working on scenarios for chamber drama films , naturalistic dramas in the petty bourgeoisie. In 1924 Mayer wrote the screenplay for The Last Man by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau , which is considered a masterpiece of German silent film. The climax of his long-term collaboration with Murnau was the 1926 script for Sunrise , which was still completed in Germany and which Murnau realized in the USA in 1927 .

Grave of Carl Mayer in Highgate Cemetery , London.

Mayer first went to France in 1932 , then to England in 1935 . He died of a London at the age of 49 years on July 1, 1944 of cancer , where he at Highgate Cemetery in London's Camden was buried.

In September 2010 he was honored with a star on the Boulevard der Stars in Berlin .

Scripts (selection)

Carl Mayer script competition

Since 1989, Mayer's hometown of Graz has been holding the Carl Mayer screenwriting competition every year in order to honor, as the call for proposals says, "film poet Carl Mayer [...] one of the most important screenwriters of the 20 years of the previous century". The Carl Mayer Screenplay Prize is awarded in two categories: the main prize is endowed with 14,500 euros, the promotion prize with 7,200 euros.

literature

  • Wladika:  Mayer Karl. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1972, p. 436.
  • Bernhard Frankfurter (Ed.): Carl Mayer. In the mirror cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The struggle between light and dark. Promedia, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-85371-122-7 .
  • Rolf Hempel: Carl Mayer. An author writes with the camera. Henschelverlag, Berlin / GDR 1968.
  • Manfred Kreckel:  Mayer, Carl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 548 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Michael Omasta, Brigitte Mayr, Christian Cargnelli (eds.): Carl Mayer, Scenar [t] ist. A script by him was already a movie. "A script by Carl Mayer was already a film". Synema, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-901644-10-5 .
  • Eberhard Spiess : Carl Mayer. A film author between expressionism and idyll (= Filmblätter. Vol. 11, ZDB -ID 571575-1 ). Municipal cinema, Frankfurt am Main 1979.
  • Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. P. 340 f., ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carl Mayer Screenplay Award

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Graz
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1944
Place of death London