The Confession (1970)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The confession |
| Original title | L'Aveu |
| Country of production | Italy France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1970 |
| length | 140 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Costa Gavras |
| script |
Jorge Semprún according to reports from Artur London |
| production | Robert Dorfmann , Bertrand Javal |
| music | Giovanni Fusco |
| camera | Raoul Coutard |
| cut | Françoise Bonnot |
| occupation | |
| |
The confession ( French L'Aveu ) is a Franco-Italian film by the director Costa-Gavras with Yves Montand and Simone Signoret in the leading roles.
It is based on the factual report of the Czechoslovak communist Artur London , a defendant in the Slansky trial . Gavras did not intend to make an anti-communist film, but rather a call against totalitarianism , especially Stalinism .
action
The film is about Artur Ludvik, alias Gerard, Vice-Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia . He realizes that he is being watched and followed. One day he is arrested by an organization that calls itself "above the ruling party". He is locked in solitary confinement for months without ever knowing the reasons. Using brainwashing methods, including sleep deprivation and being forced to pace up and down, he is slowly being forced to confess to imaginary crimes, including treason . He has to repeat these confessions in a show trial . Years later he meets his now disgraced tormentor who tries to gloss over his role at the time.
background
Yves Montand had to starve himself more than 15 kilograms for the role. Montand was shaken by the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and later said: “That was a kind of atonement that I did to myself [for this role].” Montand was sympathetic to communism until the Prague Spring was crushed.
reception
In France, the film contributed to the disillusionment of many left-wing intellectuals and artists with the Parti communiste français and the Soviet Union and became a symbol of the lost dream of "socialism with a human face" . In Germany he inspired the songwriter Reinhard Mey to write his song In Tyrannis .
Reviews
“Immediately after the right-wing terror in“ Z ”, the director dealt with the left at the time of Stalinist persecution in the CSSR, fixated on the person of a vice foreign minister. In contrast to the fast-paced "Z" film, especially in the final scenes with a satirical touch, Costa-Gavras tried a more objective, analytical documentary style with "Das Geständnis".
"An oppressive study of the effects of political terror, which makes general statements about individual fates."
“This new film [...] by the Greek director [...] is another pamphlet against political fraud and totalitarian arbitrariness. [...] The film is instructive, uncompromising, sober and - necessary. "
Prices
The film was nominated for the Golden Globe and the British Academy Film Award for best foreign film in 1971 .
Web links
- The confession in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- The confession in the German dubbing file
Individual evidence
- ↑ L'Aveu. In: La Cinémathèque française. cinema.encyclopedie.films.bifi.fr, accessed February 12, 2016 .
- ^ The Confession. The Criterion Collection, accessed February 12, 2016 .
- ^ Yves Montand. In: Paris Match . No. 2217, November 21, 1991, p. 63.
- ^ Maud Bracke: Which Socialism, Whose Détente ?: West European Communism and the Czechoslovak Crisis of 1968 . Central European University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-615-5211-26-3 , pp. 275–322 ( Chapter 7 - Paragraph 44 )
- ↑ Jan Feddersen: songwriter Reinhard Mey - "Waldeck was longing" . Taz.de, April 28, 2008.
- ^ The confession in the Lexicon of International Films
- ↑ Evangelical Press Association, Munich, Review No. 524/1970.
- ↑ L'aveu. KG productions, accessed on February 12, 2016 .
- ^ Film in 1971 - Nominees. awards.bafta.org, 1971, accessed February 12, 2016 .