The immortal face

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Movie
Original title The immortal face
Country of production Austria
original language German
Publishing year 1947
length 82 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Géza from Cziffra
script Géza from Cziffra
production Géza from Cziffra
music Hanns Elin
camera Berend Lajos Berger
cut Arnfried Heyne
occupation

The Immortal Face is an Austrian feature film from 1947 by Géza von Cziffra with Marianne Schönauer and OW Fischer as the German painter Anselm Feuerbach in the leading roles. The film is based on Cziffra's play of the same name, which premiered on February 16, 1943 in Coburg.

action

Italy, mid-19th century. Anna, called "Nana", Risi, a pretty young Italian, waits in the inn "To the bitter olives". Her husband Tonio Risi moved out on their wedding night and followed General Garibaldi's recruits with patriotic fervor to the war from which he was not to return home. He left his Anna pregnant. Rome, 1860: Several years have passed, and Nana Risi now lives with her son, little Tonio junior, with her mother-in-law and her brother-in-law Giuseppe Risi, who harasses them with amorous intentions. Nana takes care of the housekeeping and serves again in the well-known inn. One evening some cheerful guests came in, including the English painter Campbell, the German engraver Julius Allgeyer and his compatriot, the young painter Anselm Feuerbach. Nana is asked to dance a tarantella , while Feuerbach enthusiastically begins to draw the young woman. When Giuseppe collects money for Nana's performance, Anselm leaves his home address and tells Nana's brother-in-law that he should send her to his studio soon, because he has big plans for her.

Nana sees herself as a decent, married woman and mother and therefore initially refuses. But she likes the German artist, and so she finally accepts his invitation and sits as a model for Feuerbach in his studio. His portraits in the famous paintings "Iphigenie" and "Lucrezia Borgia" show Nana's facial features. Soon more than this kind of relationship develops between the two, and the social circumstances lead to the disapproval of Feuerbach's relationship with Nana and his patrons to stop supporting the painter. Feuerbach's paintings are no longer presented at any exhibition; he is downright boycotted. When Anselm's stepmother Henriette Feuerbach comes to Rome to visit her son, she has an invitation from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in her luggage for Anselm. Here he can really get started artistically. After talking to Anselm's mother, who sees her stepson's career endangered by the affair with the Italian, Nana realizes that Anselm's love of high art will always come first in life.

From this realization Nana only draws one conclusion: she has to leave Rome with her child in order to look for a new happiness for herself and for him and must no longer prevent Anselm from continuing his artistic education. Feuerbach himself takes from a death certificate that Nana's husband Tonio has died. He rushes to her, but has to find out that Nana has already left with Prince Catti. Anselm feels betrayed and sold by his muse and queen of hearts and is more than angry about Nana's allegedly disloyal behavior. Deeply disappointed, he leaves for Vienna, where Feuerbach now devotes himself entirely to his artistic work and accepts a professorship. The modest private happiness with Nana remained only a beautiful but ephemeral episode, he no longer finds private happiness in Vienna. When his ceiling painting "Titan Fall" was presented to the public, Anselm Feuerbach achieved immortal fame, even if he was no longer among the living. His close friend Allgeyer, who gives the memorial speech for him, also mentions his lover Nana, whose face made her immortal in Feuerbach's portrait.

Production notes

The Immortal Face was created in Vienna in the summer of 1947 and was premiered there on October 9, 1947. The German premiere was on September 2, 1949 in Wuppertal. On March 30, 1980, the third program of Bayerischer Rundfunk had a German television premiere.

Carl Hofer took over the production management. Fritz Jüptner-Jonstorff designed the film structures, Gerdago the costumes. Otto Untersalmberger took care of the sound.

criticism

In the lexicon of international films it says: "A superficially romantic film biography that neither does justice to the personality of the artist nor makes clear the color of the time."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The immortal countenance. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 1, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 

Web links