The lighter (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The lighter
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1959
length 83 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Siegfried Hartmann
script Siegfried Hartmann
Anneliese Kocialek
Fred Rodrian
Hans C. Andersen (novel)
production Anni von Zieten
for DEFA
music Siegfried Bethmann
camera Erich Gusko
cut Hildegard Conrad
occupation

The Lighter is a DEFA fairy tale film from the GDR by Siegfried Hartmann from 1959. The plot is based on the fairy tale The Lighter by Hans Christian Andersen and tells of a young soldier who finds a magical lighter on his return home .

action

A soldier returns home after completing the war. On the way to town, he meets an old witch whose lighter is in a hollow tree, as her grandmother had forgotten the last time she was down in the tree. She tells him that he can now have as much money as he wants. He asks with a smile what he should do for it and the witch replies that he just has to bring up the lighter for her. He agrees, climbed up the trunk and she lets him down the hollow trunk with a rope. When the soldier is down in the hollow tree, he sees three gates, behind each of which there is a dog. Each of these three dogs guards a chest with coins made of gold, silver or copper. The soldier helps himself from everyone and lets the old witch pull him up again. Before he gets to the top, however, the witch snaps at him and tells him to throw the lighter down for her first. He orders it to be pulled all the way out first, but she lets go of the rope. He can still catch himself and makes it out on his own. Then the witch turns into a snake, which the soldier kills with his saber. Then he returns to his homeland.

Once there, he gives the poor children of his wealth and gives a boy an apprenticeship with a poor cobbler. A rich master shoemaker had previously chased the boy away because of his poverty, because he could not pay the tuition. After these good deeds, he treats himself to a good meal and a good room in an inn , the best in town. He's also indulging in his life in other respects and stocking up on new clothes. After he used up his money and lost all the false friends who had had enough to eat at his expense, he had to move to a poor bar and even trade in his new boots. However, the shoemaker has not forgotten him and sends the new apprentice to him every day with food. When the soldier tries to sew his clothes himself in dull daylight and light a candle with a lighter, he discovers the secret of the lighter: it calls the dogs out of the hollow tree, who, if requested, bring them some of the precious metals. So he is solvent again, and the landlord tries to ingratiate himself with him again, just like his false friends.

On the market square, the soldier hears that the king has locked his beautiful daughter in the copper castle, as , according to an old prophecy , he would otherwise lose her to an ordinary soldier. That evening, the soldier lets one of the dogs bring the sleeping princess and enjoys the sight of her. The next morning the princess reports this to the dissolved parents, who on the following nights order the maid to watch over the princess's bed. This promises to be more careful in the future. The next night a dog reappears and takes the princess away in front of the maid's eyes wide with terror. The chambermaid follows them and makes a chalk cross on the soldier's door. However, the soldier notices this through the dog and makes the same sign on all front doors on the street. The victorious chambermaid wants to show the royal couple the marked door the next day, but this embarrasses her.

On one of the following nights the soldier himself entered the princess' room and was immediately arrested. When he is about to be hung on the gallows, he asks to be allowed to smoke one last pipe. He instructs the cobbler boy to get his lighter from the inn. Because all residents have left their houses and the inn is locked, he has to climb over a tree into the soldier's room. However, a police officer discovers the boy and arrests him climbing down. The boy can free himself and finally bring the lighter to the soldier, who then strikes fire three times with the lighter. Immediately the three huge dogs appear, pounce on the guards and all the other hard-hearted people and chase everyone out of the city. The king can no longer oppose the fulfillment of the prophecy and gives the soldier his daughter to wife.

background

The lighter was shot in a forest near Potsdam, among other places. The hollow oak, in which the soldier finds gold and a lighter, was constructed artificially for the film. The city backdrop with half-timbered houses that can be seen in the film was previously used for the filming Zar und Zimmermann .

The film premiered on April 18, 1959 in Berlin and was released in GDR cinemas on April 24, 1959. It was shown in cinemas in West Germany on April 26, 1961 and was shown for the first time on television on January 13, 1973 at the DFF . Progress Film-Verleih took over the licenses and sales . The film was released on video in 1997 and on DVD in 2002. With over 5 million moviegoers in the GDR, Das Feuerzeug is one of DEFA's most successful fairy tale films.

criticism

“Also well-made fairy tale film based on Andersen, the content and presentation worth seeing for children,” said the film service .

The film was also released in West Germany in 1961, although there were reservations about the film. "The film [...] is entertaining and moving, but not playable in Germany," the distributors found. It is "not appropriate to show the rich in the mirror of their hard-heartedness and at the end of the film to show a kind of revolution in which the people chase away the rulers".

The Evangelical Film-Observer also distributes praise and criticism: “At last one can forget the dilettantism in this area. Nevertheless, we are against this film because of the tendentious internal changes in the material. "

literature

  • The lighter . In: DEFA Foundation (ed.): The DEFA fairy tale films . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-00-032589-2 , pp. 54–59.
  • Das Feuerzeug In: Ingelore König, Dieter Wiedemann, Lothar Wolf (Ed.): Between Marx and Muck. DEFA films for children . Henschel, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89487-234-9 , pp. 116-118.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The lighter In: DEFA Foundation (Ed.): The DEFA fairy tale films . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2010, p. 58.
  2. ^ The lighter In: DEFA Foundation (Ed.): The DEFA fairy tale films . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2010, p. 59.
  3. ↑ a b The Lighter in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  4. ↑ See The Lighter on progress-film.de ( Memento from September 8, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  5. ↑ Ralf Schenk: Little Hans is really big today . In: SuperIllu , No. 45, 2006 ( Online ( Memento from February 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )).
  6. ↑ Evangelical Press Association, Munich, Review No. 355/1966