The Cornet - The Way of Love and Death
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Cornet - The Way of Love and Death The Cornet |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1955 |
| length | 106 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Walter Reisch |
| script | Walter Reisch |
| production | Fama FA Mainz-Film, Hamburg ( Friedrich A. Mainz , Emile J. Lustig ) |
| music | Werner Eisbrenner |
| camera | Göran Strindberg |
| cut | Rudolf Schaad |
| occupation | |
and Rolf Kutschera , Klaus Miedel , Wolfgang Schmidt-Kessler | |
Der Cornet - Die Weise von Liebe und Tod , also known under the short title Der Cornet , is a German historical film drama by the Austrian Hollywood returnees Walter Reisch with Götz von Langheim in the title role. At his side, the Swede Anita Björk played the leading female role. The film was based on the novel The Way of Love and Death of the Cornet Christoph Rilke by Rainer Maria Rilke .
action
Central Europe in 1660. The attack by the Turks on the West, which was still badly marked by the Thirty Years War, continues unabated. The young soldier Christoph von Rilke has been made a cornet and thus becomes the army's standard bearer. Its area of operation is located on the border between Hungary and Styria, insignificantly away from the front. One desperately wants to repel the enemy and thus save Christianity and the fatherland from the infidels of the Orient. In the region to be defended there is also the castle of Countess Zathmar, which is threatened by a major Turkish attack. The commanding general Graf Spork sends three horsemen with an urgent dispatch to the Baron von Pirovano, in which he and his company are asked for help and military relief.
This mission is extremely dangerous as the couriers often get caught in ambushes set up by traitors on the route to be ridden and often do not survive this devil's ride. Rilke is also used this time and, after finding Pirovano dying, manages to reach Zathmar Castle with his companions Rittmeister Reningen and old Spork's nephew, Adjutant Spork. Here he spends a sociable evening with the beautiful countess. But then the unbelievers attack and want to conquer the proud castle of the Christians and murder its inhabitants. The lock is held steadfast. The young cornet finally falls heroically shortly before General Spork arrives and can free and save the castle from the assassinating Turks.
Production notes
Filming of The Cornet began on August 8, 1955 and ended the following month. The makeshift studio was located in the Marienberg Fortress in Würzburg , the exterior shots were taken in Würzburg and the surrounding area.
Wolf Englert was responsible for the film construction, Frank Winterstein was assistant director. Günter Haase worked as a camera assistant to head cameraman Göran Strindberg . Irms Pauli and Alfred Bücken took care of the costumes.
The world premiere was on December 16, 1955 in the location of Würzburg, the Berlin premiere took place on March 30, 1956. The film was shown in Austria under the title Tender Adventure .
Reviews
In terms of the literary source, the film didn't do well. Der Spiegel wrote in its January 4, 1956 issue: “The suicidal attempt to expand Rilke's overrated prose style of love and death into a one and a half hour cinema show… ended, predictably, in a debacle on a par with the Turkish slaughter at the end of the film. Even the Swedish cameraman Göran Strindberg, who was awarded the Federal Film Prize in 1955, was unable to completely paint over the shortcomings in the performance, the carelessness of the director Walter Reisch and the operatically furnished, clumsily arranged crowd scenes with his beguiling Eastman color. "
The lexicon of international film judged: "Rainer Maria Rilke's way of love and death by Cornet Christoph Rilke, based on a family chronicle, was a cult book of intellectual youth at the beginning of our century, in an adaptation that failed despite its optical advantages."
In retrospect, the film received significantly better reviews, including its creation in the Federal Republic of Germany's post-war period: “Rainer Maria Rilke's way of love and death as an autumnal, melancholy film poem about the horrors of war. A visually splendid historical picture, to be seen as a commentary on the then current arms discussion in the FRG. "
Fritz Göttler described Der Cornet as a “film that is nothing like in German cinema at the time.” The Cornet is “no longer a story, just a landscape, a place of dreams, vineyards and forests, fields and meadows, campfires and horses , abandoned farmsteads and castles, maps and cannons that stand lonely in the area. ”In its“ openness and serenity ”, the film is“ at odds with the hopes and expectations of young film critics for the new cinema. ”
Individual evidence
- ^ Alfred Bauer : German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 490
- ↑ Der Spiegel , Issue No. 1/1956
- ↑ The Cornet - The Way of Love and Death. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 1, 2018 .
- ↑ Critique on locarnofestival.ch
- ^ Fritz Göttler: Westdeutscher Nachkriegsfilm , in: Geschichte des Deutschen Films , edited by Wolfgang Jacobsen, Anton Kaes and Helmut Prinzler, Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 2004, p. 194