The prisoner (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The prisoner |
| Original title | The prisoner |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1955 |
| length | 95 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Glenville |
| script | Bridget Boland |
| production | Vivian A. Cox |
| music | Benjamin Frankel |
| camera | Reginald Wyer |
| cut | Frederick Wilson |
| occupation | |
| |
The Prisoner is a film drama largely designed as a two-person dialogue piece, which the stage director Peter Glenville realized in 1954 as his first film director. Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins can be seen as the two opponents . The story about mental torture methods in a totalitarian (communist) system is based on the play The Prisoner by Bridget Boland , who also wrote the script.
action
Somewhere in an unspecified, Eastern European country that has recently come under the knack of communist rulers. A cardinal who is extremely popular and respected among the people and his community is arrested one day by the state and deliberately falsely accused of treason. The man of God is not aware of any wrongdoing and denies any guilt. Nothing changes when a representative of the new regime enters the room and subjects the cardinal to a sharp interrogation. Both men know each other from before, when they fought the ancien régime underground. It was then that they became confidants, friends whose paths only recently parted.
This interrogating political officer , a kind of public prosecutor, tried all the more to wrest his former friend with the confession of the wrongdoing of which he was accused. The state representative carefully approaches the allegations, initially speaking about both childhood experiences in order to build a kind of trusting relationship with his counterpart. Little by little, the state representative increases the pressure. But the cardinal remains steadfast, bypassing every trap of the interrogator, no matter how well disguised, and finally engages in a sharp and intellectually high-ranking battle of words with his communist adversary. It seems that the public prosecutor will emerge victorious, since he makes it clear to the church representative that he once only chose God's path to escape the filth and social misery of his childhood.
Meanwhile, riots and an attempted uprising broke out on the streets, but this was soon put down. In this confusion, the love of a young security guard for a married girl is faded in as a further, short storyline. She confesses to her lover that she and her husband are planning to leave the subjugated country.
Finally, the regime organized a show trial in which the cardinal was to be brought before the public. He is given the opportunity to regain his freedom should he admit coram publico all of his misconduct, all of the “crimes” of which he is charged. The cleric realizes that he was actually absent, even if not in the sense of the state indictment. He now knows that he became a priest for the wrong reasons, that pride and arrogance made him rise in the hierarchy, and so the cardinal confesses to every reproach, however absurd. The regime has achieved exactly what it has always intended: to break the power of the church and to disavow the man of God in front of the congregation that has previously worshiped him. When the cardinal leaves the courtroom a free man, he looks into the silent, dismayed faces of citizens and believers. The man of God and thus also the church he represents has lost credibility as a result of the maneuvers of the new regime, but the state representative does not emerge unscathed from the whole matter: he resignedly asks his superior to leave.
Production notes
The prisoner was made in 1954 in Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath (studio recordings) as well as in Ostend and Bruges (exterior recordings, both Belgium) and started on April 19, 1955 in London. In Germany the film could only be seen from February 20, 1959.
Sydney Box took over the production management. The film structures were designed by John Hawkesworth, Julie Harris designed the costumes.
Political background
The plot was inspired by the events of two church princes in communist dictatorships. Both the Croatian (Yugoslav) Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac and his Hungarian colleague József Mindszenty were subjected to massive persecution by state power in their countries during the late 1940s and 1950s.
Reviews
“The film does not offer primitive anti-communism, but an intelligent study of guilt, atonement and total availability. Correspondingly, the director is reserved, cool and never intent on soulful effects. The origin of the material on the stage is also unmistakable in the film; but that is overplayed. "
The Movie & Video Guide considered the film a “grim tale” and praised the interplay between Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins.
“Glenville's first work, from which you can clearly see the stage origin of its director,“ The Prisoner ”, was a superb, largely limited to two people, social and political study in the chamber play style. Its protagonists are an upright churchman imprisoned by the communist state apparatus (Alec Guinness) and the public prosecutor who interrogates him (Jack Hawkins), who deliver an exciting, intellectual duel and give deep insights into personal guilt, entanglements and people's ability to adapt in extreme situations. "
Halliwell's Film Guide saw the film as a purely two-person dialogue piece that would have been better left in the theater.
"Inspired by the fall of the Hungarian Cardinal Mindszenty and other authentic incidents, a remarkable film has been created that is shockingly believable, especially thanks to the expressiveness of its main actor."
The New York Times called the film a "grim and poignant drama that also works as an insightful film." It concludes with "A film that makes you shiver - and think."
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Prisoner in The Australian's Women Weekly, October 19, 1955
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1039
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 815
- ^ The prisoner in the lexicon of international films
Web links
- The prisoner in the Internet Movie Database (English)