The blue light (1932)

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Movie
Original title the blue light
Country of production Germany
original language German , Italian
Publishing year 1932
length 86 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Leni Riefenstahl ,
Béla Balázs
script Béla Balázs,
Carl Mayer (without naming)
Leni Riefenstahl (design)
production Leni Riefenstahl,
Harry R. Sokal
music Giuseppe Becce
camera Hans Schneeberger ,
Walter Riml (also still photographer)
Heinz von Jaworsky
cut Leni Riefenstahl,
Arnold Fanck
occupation

The blue light is a mystical-romantic mountain film from 1932. Leni Riefenstahl directed this film together with Béla Balázs and also played the leading role.

action

A mysterious, blue light shines from the top of Monte Cristallo on nights of the full moon, which has seduced many young men to climb up at night and tore them to their deaths. The superstitious villagers blame the mountain girl Junta and fear her as a witch. Junta is the only one who knows the way to the blue light that emanates from a crystal grotto that shimmers in the moonlight. One day the painter Vigo secretly follows her into the mountains. He reveals Junta's secret and causes a disaster by starting to mine the crystals from the grotto. Junta's "treasure" no longer exists. Full of disappointment, she is careless on the descent and crashes. The next morning the painter Vigo finds her dead.

production

The blue light was Leni Riefenstahl's directorial debut, who had become known as an actress in Arnold Fanck's mountain films . It was shot even though the film is set on Monte Cristallo near Cortina d'Ampezzo , in Ticino , in the Brenta Group and in the Sarntal .

Since Riefenstahl reported on the making of the film differently over the years - depending on the circumstances - Hanno Loewy's study The Image of Man of the Fanatical Fatalist or: Leni Riefenstahl, Béla Balázs and Das Blaue Licht is a more reliable source than Riefenstahl himself.

Gustav Renker's novel Bergkristall probably served as a literary model, since Arnold Fanck and Riefenstahl had already filmed his novel Heilige Berge as The Holy Mountain in 1926 . Riefenstahl himself named dances, dreams, fairy tales and other inspirations.

The Hungarian screenwriter and film theorist Béla Balázs wrote the screenplay, which was based on a draft by Riefenstahl, with the help of the very successful screenwriter Carl Mayer, who was not mentioned in this film. Riefenstahl also took over the production and convinced "her old admirer, the producer Harry Sokal" to invest 50,000 marks. Balázs came to the Alps to help direct, especially when Riefenstahl was in front of the camera. She also experimented behind the camera: on Balázss's advice, she had acquired a new infrared-sensitive film from Agfa which, combined with green and red filters in front of the camera lens, made the sky appear black during the day, so that night scenes were filmed without headlights during the day could become.

Back in Berlin, Arnold Fanck began to cut the film, but Riefenstahl was very dissatisfied with the first cut, with the second, which she also worked on, then she took the material away from Fanck until she left after two nervous attacks, and “Fanck as a friend “Had to take over the work again until there was an argument between him and Carl Mayer.

“Leni Riefenstahl will later tell the story of the editing of 'her' film in her memoirs differently. Fanck completely re-edited the film in one night without asking her. 'What I saw was a mutilation. What had Fanck done with my film! I never found out if this was an act of revenge or if he was just unrelated to the subject. ' She herself, she now claims, saved her film, re-cut it from a thousand small rolls until 'a real film' emerged from it. "

The reception in the press was largely good, even Carl Mayer was mentioned, but Arnold Fanck had already disappeared from the opening credits. After the seizure of power by the National Socialists and the Jew Bela Balazs and the Half-Jew Harry Sokal from the intro disappeared worse it went Balázs: Riefenstahl paid him his fee not for the participation in the film, and began instead to vulgar anti-Semitic Julius Streicher , editor of the striker on him:

“There is no information on whether and when Balázs began to take legal action against his claims. In any case, in December 1933 it seemed advisable to Leni Riefenstahl to secure journalistic support against Balázs. On December 11th she wrote a power of attorney - on stationery at the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin, a traditional meeting point of the NSDAP leadership -: 'I give Gauleiter Julius Streicher from Nuremberg - publisher of' Stürmer '- power of attorney in matters of the demands of the Jew Belá Balacs [sic] to me. Leni Riefenstahl'"

The negative of the film had been confiscated by the French after the end of the war, but she was able to reconstruct the film in 1950 from leftovers that the Americans gave her. This time she claimed directing, script and editing for herself, Béla Balázs, who died in Budapest on May 17, 1949, was named for his work on the script. Carl Mayer's contributions to the script, Arnold Fanck, who was almost certainly responsible for the editing, and the producer Harry Sokal were not mentioned.

The version from 1950 is 80 (or in another version 73) minutes shorter than the 86-minute original version because the modern framework has not been restored.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Hanno Loewy: The image of man by the fanatical fatalist Or: Leni Riefenstahl, Béla Balázs and Das Blaue Licht , 1999. PDF on the Institutional Repository of the University of Konstanz. Retrieved November 14, 2018
  2. ^ David B. Hinton: The Films of Leni Riefenstahl. Scarecrow Press, Lanham 2000, p. 11.