Caspar David Friedrich - Limits of Time

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Movie
Original title Caspar David Friedrich - Limits of Time
Country of production Germany , GDR , France
original language German
Publishing year 1986
length 84 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Peter Schamoni
script Peter Schamoni
Hans A. Ninety
production Peter Schamoni
Heinz Willeg
Mohr from Chamier
DEFA studio for feature films
Argos Films
music Hans Posegga
Franz Schubert (motifs)
camera Gérard Vandenberg
cut Katja Dringenberg
occupation

Caspar David Friedrich - Limits of Time is a documentary feature film by Peter Schamoni from 1986. It was made in co-production between the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic and France.

action

The painter Caspar David Friedrich has died and is buried. His coffin is followed by the doctor and painter Carl Gustav Carus , who treated Friedrich in the last months of his life and had to put up with his misanthropy over and over again.

Flashbacks and flashes show how Friedrich's work is handled. Friedrich is not recognized as a painter during his lifetime, his often gloomy pictures do not meet the taste of the time ( this becomes clear again in the film in the comments of the viewers of his two pictures Tetschen Altar and The Monk by the Sea ). Friedrich's financial situation improved somewhat when Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm bought some of his pictures and the poet Wassili Schukowski also bought several works for the Russian tsarist family, but Friedrich's character was not conducive to his success either. Several times he refuses educational trips abroad, cannot and does not want to subordinate himself to society and prefers lonely days in Saxon Switzerland to society. He rarely goes on hiking tours with Carl Gustav Carus, on which both draw. Carus, in turn, inspired by Friedrich's pictures, drives to northern Germany, visits Rügen and Greifswald, where Friedrich's birthplace is. He sponsored the artist and tried to get him a position as a professor at the Dresden Art Academy . The professors, however, tear up Friedrich's work, which lacks any joy and can always be seen on the human being turned away from the viewer in uniform outline. After Friedrich's death, his household effects are auctioned. The most valuable piece is not his pictures, but an old ship model.

In the great fire in the Munich Glass Palace in 1931, several of Friedrich's main works were burned (see the list of works destroyed in the fire in the Munich Glass Palace ). To date, only half of the painter's entire oeuvre has survived. Friedrich comments from the off that people who cross the boundaries of their time are not recognized by the world around them. He spins himself in his cocoon and leaves it to time what happens to it: a maggot or a butterfly.

production

The shooting of Caspar David Friedrich - The Limits of Time began in November 1985 and ended in the spring of 1986. The locations included West and East Berlin , Greifswald , Neubrandenburg , the Baltic island of Rügen , Dresden , Königstein , Saxon Switzerland and the Giant Mountains . Schamoni obtained the filming permits in the GDR through cooperation with DEFA , which was involved in the production of the film.

For the film, the painter Walter Born and numerous DEFA stage painters reconstructed the works of Friedrich burned by the great fire in the Munich Glass Palace from surviving illustrations in black and white. Friedrich himself cannot be seen in the film, but speaks several times from the off. Wolf Redl lent Friedrich his voice. The costumes come from Christiane Dorst , the film structures were designed by DEFA chief architect Alfred Hirschmeier .

Caspar David Friedrich - The Limits of Time had its cinema premiere in the Federal Republic of Germany on October 23, 1986 and was also shown in GDR cinemas on February 27, 1987. The film was released on video on December 17, 1987 and was shown on television for the first time on December 29, 1989 on Bayern 3 .

criticism

The film-dienst wrote that “the work of the artist, who was not understood at the time [...] in historicizing scenes, with reference to the abundance of landscape paintings by Friedrich [...] is brought closer to the viewer in a very subjective interpretation. A portrait that appeals to the senses and illuminates the historical background. ” Time tore the film apart and called it“ a terrible scavenger hunt through the life and work of Caspar David Friedrich. Art postcards get legs and landscapes freeze into art postcards. "

In retrospect, Cinema called the film an "award-winning game and documentary collage about the legendary landscape painter."

Awards

Caspar David Friedrich - The Limits of Time was awarded the Bavarian Film Prize , Prize for Image Design, in 1986 . In 1987 he received the gold film for best camera at the German Film Prize and was nominated for the film prize in the category of best full-length feature film.

At the Art Festival Monte Carlo, Caspar David Friedrich received first prize in 1988. In the same year, the film also won first prize at the Montreal Art Film Festival.

The film evaluation agency awarded Caspar David Friedrich - Limits of Time the title “Particularly valuable”. In doing so, she praised three aspects in particular: the fact that Caspar David Friedrich did not appear in person, Gerard Vandenberg's camera work and the “director's own demands on his subject”, which is reflected in the first-class cast show. "The result is a fictional film whose documentary background remains strong enough not to let the game become independent, and at the same time a documentary film from which a plot made up of characters from contemporary history keeps everything exaggeratedly theoretical, instructive and interpretative."

literature

  • Caspar David Friedrich - Limits of Time . In: Hilmar Hoffmann (Ed.): Peter Schamoni. Film Pieces . Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart 2003, pp. 30-41.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Caspar David Friedrich - Limits of Time. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. Petra Kipphoff: Making the postcards work . In: Die Zeit , No. 44, October 24, 1986.
  3. See cinema.de
  4. See fbw-filmb Bewertung.com