The spider web (film)

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Movie
Original title The spider web
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1989
length 196 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Bernhard Wicki
script Wolfgang Kirchner ,
Bernhard Wicki
production Jürgen Haase
music Günther Fischer
camera Gérard Vandenberg
cut Tanja Schmidbauer
occupation

The Spider Web is a German feature film from 1989 by Bernhard Wicki . It is the film adaptation of the sequel novel The Spider Web by Joseph Roth . The premiere of the film took place on May 9, 1989 as part of the Cannes International Film Festival .

action

The film begins with the November Revolution of 1918, when mutinous marines in Kiel are supposed to be stopped by soldiers loyal to the emperor. Lieutenant Theodor Lohse (Ulrich Mühe) gives orders to shoot; Before it even happens, Lohse is wounded by a bayonet stab. The revolution of 1918 can no longer be stopped.

Berlin, summer 1923: After the fall of the German Empire, Theodor Lohse had to give up his military career and studied law. He earned the urgently needed money as a private tutor with the Jewish banker Efrussi. In the banker's house, he met Baron von Rastchuk, who took Lohse to a national event. Prince Heinrich, a former commander of Lohse's unit, is also present at this boat christening at Wannsee. Lohse is invited by Prince Heinrich to a gentlemen's evening for two and, under massive sexual harassment, spends the night with the prince out of opportunism and hopes to be sponsored by the Reichswehr the next morning. Instead, Prince Heinrich places him with a right-wing secret organization (comparable to the Consul organization ), whose head is also Baron Rastchuk.

Lohse becomes a spy for the organization, and with unparalleled, relentless opportunism and ruthlessness, he is to scout out and smash a communist group of artists and anarchists around the painter Klaften. Part of this communist group is also Benjamin Lenz (Klaus Maria Brandauer), a Jew who works both as a police informant and earns his money with information to left and right groups. When the communist group wanted to blow up the Berlin Victory Column, it was Lenz who prevented it; the group is arrested by the police. Despite his anti-Semitism, Theodor Lohse has meanwhile started a relationship with the beautiful banker's wife Rahel Efrussi. During a harvest assignment in East Elbe , Lohse made the acquaintance of Else von Schlieffen, who came from an influential family and who would be his future bride.

Lohse brutally suppresses a strike by Polish farm workers and is praised for it exuberantly by the Hugenberg press. As a reward he was sponsored by the Prussian Ministry of the Interior. Before that, he got rid of his old school friend Günter, who knew about his affair with Rahel Efrussi. The pogrom against Jews in Berlin's Scheunenviertel has resulted in uncontrolled acts of violence as well as robbery and looting. Benjamin Lenz blames Lohse for this action and wants to force him to commit suicide by jumping out of the window, but then, out of pity, lets go of the completely collapsed Lohse. Lenz blackmailed Lohse for the murder of Günter and was finally murdered by Lohses' henchmen by throwing Lenz in front of an approaching train.

The film ends in November 1923 when Lohse and Rastschuk found out about the Hitler coup at a conservative and monarchist festival . Lohse, as always quite an opportunist, is already a party member of the NSDAP .

background

Against the background of the inflation year 1923 , the film shows the different worlds in Berlin in a detailed and detailed manner: the upper -class milieu in the house of the banker Efrussi, the petty-bourgeois milieu of the Lohse family, the leftist artist and intellectual milieu, the Jewish Scheunenviertel and the aristocratic East Elbe Large landowner milieu .

The FSK working committee approved the film from the age of 16, while a minority objected with the aim of approval from the age of 18. Bernhard Wicki was personally present for the examination in the main committee on August 4, 1989. The main committee confirmed the release from 16. The examiners made “statements of an extremely impressive art experience and tremendous emotional consternation” on record. It is a "highly moral film, a highlight in the testing practice of the FSK", which is why "in case of doubt, given the artistic level of the test template, the art reservation applies".

In the opinion of the FSK, the term “art reservation” had established itself for cinematic works of art for which other limits of what can be shown should apply.

Awards

Book editions

literature

  • Jürgen Kniep: “No youth approval!”. Film censorship in West Germany 1949-1990 , Wallstein Verlag Göttingen 2010 ISBN 978-3-8353-0638-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Kniep: No youth approval! , P. 333