The Other (1913)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The other
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1913
length original length: 1,765 meters, at 17 fps around 90 minutes, the
traditional version: 77 minutes
Rod
Director Max Mack
script Paul Lindau
production Jules Greenbaum for Vitascope GmbH, Berlin
camera Hermann Boettger
occupation

The Other is a German feature film by Max Mack from 1913.

action

At an evening meeting in the upper class, medical councilor Dr. Feldermann, Public Prosecutor Haller and Judge Arnoldy on personality splits. (As far as we know today, dissociative personality disorders are meant.) Feldermann is referring to the corresponding work by Hippolyte Taine . Public prosecutor Hallers laughingly rejects the existence of such conditions.

A little later, Hallers fell from his horse and was repeatedly haunted by compulsive sleep attacks, from which he woke up as "the other". In this state he does not know who he really is. He frequented the Berlin underworld and visited the dump "Zur lahme Ente", where he finally agreed to meet the criminal Dickert for a break-in. The place of fact is Hallers' own villa, of all places. Hallers again falls asleep compulsively in his study. The perpetrators are caught red-handed by the police. “The Other” wakes up again as Hallers. He cannot remember how it was related to the crime. After several entanglements and clues, Hallers is shocked to recognize the amnesia , his split personality and complicity.

He is cured of the disease through a lengthy cure in the country, rest and solitude, and finally through the love of a woman whom he eventually marries.

background

Following the example of the French Film d'Art , film producers in Germany also tried to win over well-known authors, theater actors and directors for the film and thus increase its reputation. Paul Lindau , a well-known author around 1900 and former director of the Berlin German Theater, wrote the screenplay for The Other, based on his play of the same name from 1893. In 1913, Lindau worked for two other films: Max Mack's The Last Day and Paul von Woringen's Die Country road . Albert Bassermann's appearance in Der Andere was also considered a sensation, as the actor and wearer of the Iffland-Ring had previously refused to even be photographed for a long time. As a result, this film was much discussed in the critics and was considered one of the first German silent films to be artistically appealing. The contemporary cinema audience, however, showed less response, especially loving comedies with Asta Nielsen , Henny Porten , Max Linder and others.

After a press screening on January 21, 1913, the film shot in Berlin for the Vitascope company had its premiere on January 31, 1913 in the Mozart Hall on Berlin's Nollendorfplatz.

The story is a variation on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fabric by Robert Louis Stevenson . The topic of the (dissociative) personality split was part of the psychiatric and partly also philosophical discussion at the end of the 19th century ( Jean Martin Charcot , Pierre Janet , Adrien Proust and others). It was often used in various variations in the German silent film after Der Andere .

The film has only survived in the form of a 16 mm copy that Gerhard Lamprecht had made from the original negative in the Reichsfilmarchiv in 1940 . Even then, the film was only a fragment with no subtitles and around a quarter shorter than the length of 1,765 meters given for the original version. The first release of the film on DVD took place in 2017 as part of the Edition Filmmuseum series on the compilation "Kafka goes to the cinema".

criticism

From a formal point of view, Der Andere is not very original, as the camera remains static and Bassermann's play is disturbing due to its mimic exaggerations.

literature

  • Michael Hanisch: The other one. In: Günther Dahlke, Günter Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginning to 1933. A film guide. 2nd Edition. Henschel-Verlag, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-89487-009-5 , p. 14 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Michael Hanisch: The other. In: Günther Dahlke, Günter Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginnings to 1933. 2nd edition. 1993, p. 14 f.
  2. Article on the press screening on filmportal.de
  3. Michael Hanisch: The other. In: Günther Dahlke, Günter Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginnings to 1933. 2nd edition. 1993, p. 14.
  4. Mention of the premiere in: Gerald Bär: The motif of the doppelganger as a split fantasy in literature and in German silent film (= international research on general and comparative literary studies. Vol. 84). Rodopi, Amsterdam et al. 2005, ISBN 90-420-1874-7 , p. 545 .
  5. from the booklet accompanying Edition Filmmuseum 95 - Kafka goes to the cinema , p. 18
  6. Michael Hanisch in German Feature Films from the Beginnings to 1933 , p. 14 f.