The pedestrian

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Movie
Original title The pedestrian
Country of production Germany ,
Switzerland
original language German
Publishing year 1973
length 98 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Maximilian Schell
script Maximilian Schell,
Dagmar Hirtz ,
Franz Seitz junior
production Maximilian Schell,
Zev Braun ,
Franz Seitz junior,
for Seitz Film Munich,
ALFA Film SA Glarus,
MFG Film Munich
music Manos Hadjidakis
camera Wolfgang Treu ,
Klaus König
cut Dagmar Hirtz
occupation

The Pedestrian is a German-Swiss film by Maximilian Schell from 1973.

content

A major tabloid researches the life of the industrialist and state parliament member Heinz Alfred Giese. This had only recently caused a car accident in which his son Andreas was killed. A case of negligent homicide was discontinued because Andreas had torn his father's steering wheel while driving and thus caused the accident, but Giese's driver's license was revoked and he was sentenced to traffic lessons. The tabloid senses a scandal and begins looking for incriminating material in Giese's past.

After a visit to the Museum of Natural History with his grandson, Giese, who is now dependent on a chauffeur or has to be a pedestrian, goes to his lover and then goes to class. He is secretly followed by the newspaper's staff, who take photos of his every step. They also wait in front of his house and even break into Giese's house when Giese is absent, take photos of the rooms and steal a picture from his youth. This is needed because the newspaper suspects that Giese was involved in the liquidation of a village in Greece during the Second World War . However, the soldiers involved are difficult to recognize in photos of the time, so that even an eyewitness to the events cannot see Giese in the incriminating photos. The reporters asked two questions: Did Giese in Greece give the order to liquidate the village and did he personally shoot people? Of particular importance is the shooting of a young boy who was the son of the witness. Further interviews with witnesses only show that Giese was present at the murder of the village population. For the newspaper, this is enough for an article with the headline “Big industrialists involved in massacres?”.

The next day there were riots in front of the Gieses company, in which Giese himself was attacked as a "murderer". A successful injunction for defamation is followed by a television discussion in which Giese is attacked by the newspaper for his silence, which alone has already made him guilty. In addition, the newspaper tries to deduce Andreas' death from a possible argument between the father and the son about Giese's past. Back home, Gieses has a discussion with his son Hubert, a late hippie. He demands to forget the past - he does not want to be seen as the son of a "bad German".

production

Filming for Der Fußgänger began on January 15, 1973 and ended on June 10, 1973. Filming locations included Berlin, Munich, Witten and Jaffa. The film opened in theaters on September 6, 1973.

Peggy Ashcroft , Elisabeth Bergner , Lil Dagover , Käthe Haack , Johanna Hofer and Françoise Rosay can be seen in guest roles . Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 , played by the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Herbert von Karajan , can be heard several times in the film .

criticism

The lexicon of international films wrote that "the artistic potency of the film is particularly convincing in the differentiated processing of the problems, but its summary appears somewhat sketchy due to the rambling, if appealing details."

Awards

The film received a total of 49 national and international awards, including:

In addition, the film was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1974 Academy Awards.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 2. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, p. 1172.