The mind and the darkness

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Movie
German title The mind and the darkness
Original title The Ghost and the Darkness
Country of production United States , Germany
original language English
Publishing year 1996
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Stephen Hopkins
script William Goldman
production Michael Douglas
Steven Reuther
Gale Anne Hurd
music Jerry Goldsmith
camera Vilmos Zsigmond
cut Roger Bondelli
Robert Brown
Steve Mirkovich
occupation

The Ghost and the Darkness is an American action film from the year 1996 . It is based on the book The Man Eaters of Tsavo by John Henry Patterson . It tells the story of two man-eating lions during the construction of a bridge for the Uganda Railway .

The main characters are Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas , who also produced the film.

action

Tsavo , British East Africa (now Kenya ), in 1898: British engineer John Patterson comes to the steppe with an order to build a bridge over the Tsavo River for a railway line . Construction work is soon disrupted as more and more workers are kidnapped and killed by two man-eating lions. Patterson then goes on the hunt and can actually kill a lion, but it is neither of the two ogre-eaters that locals call "The Ghost" and "The Darkness". However, the workers are relieved and the work goes on.

A little later, however, Patterson's foreman is killed and mangled in front of the camp. The new labor leader Abdullah wants to incite the workers to strike when Charles Remington steps on the scene. The big game hunter, who left his southern home after the American Civil War , comes with befriended Maasai warriors to hunt down the ogres. On the first driven hunt they can actually circle one of the animals, but Patterson's weapon jams at the crucial moment; he had it with his doctor, Dr. Hawthorne swapped and never shot with it.

Remington is now having a new hospital built and wants to use the old one as a trap for the lions; he and Patterson hide there with some cattle and spill blood to attract the animals. However, they sense the trap and instead set up a bloodbath in the new hospital. Numerous patients and Dr. Hawthorne are killed and the surviving workers leave the construction site under Abdullah's leadership.

Patterson, Remington and the local interpreter Samuel go on the hunt again. You literally find the lion's den and discover that out of sheer lust, the two animals have made an unimaginable number of victims, animals as well as humans. They prepare another trap and this time Remington can actually kill one of the ogres. In the evening they celebrate and philosophize about life, but when Patterson wakes up the next morning, the surviving lion kidnapped and killed Remington.

Patterson and Samuel then set the steppe on fire and await the animal for the last duel, which Patterson can narrowly win. He can now continue building his bridge and a little later meets his son, who was born in England , when his wife visits him in Tsavo. As Remington suggested to him the night before his death, he holds him up in the air when he sees him for the first time.

Reviews

“The film adaptation based on a factual novel makes full use of the horror elements of the story, but neglects the dramaturgy and character drawing of the characters. So the film, which is also disappointing in terms of acting, only turns into superficial suspense and ultimately only impresses with its sensational animal training and beautiful landscape panoramas. "

The film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times , Roger Ebert , was, as usual, with a devastating judgment of such productions: The film even lacks the usual charm of B-movies of being so bad that it is funny. He is just bad. He also added that it was an African adventure film that made any Tarzan film seem subtle and realistic. ("Lacked the usual charm of being so bad it's funny. It's just bad." (...) "an African adventure that makes the Tarzan movies look subtle and realistic")

background

Deviations

Preparations from Tsavo Man-Eaters, Field Museum of Natural History , Chicago
  • The character Charles Remington is purely fictional; it was developed for Michael Douglas , who also produced the film. In truth, John Henry Patterson killed both lions. The character of Charles Remington was ultimately based on the Anglo-Indian big game hunter Charles Henry Ryall , a superintendent of the Railway Police.

annotation

The cause of the tragedy was probably that Indian guest workers were used in the Tsavo Delta to reduce construction costs. They had no experience of African wildlife.

The original train, which was then used to build the railway line from Mombasa via the “Nyrobi” (“cold water”) material depot to Uganda, is now in the Nairobi Railway Museum . One of the engineers was dragged out of one of the wagons by one of the two lions and killed.

Reports that up to 135 people have been killed by the lions are likely exaggerated. Studies on nitrogen isotopes show that one of the two lions exhibited in the museum today occasionally ate human flesh, the second mainly. Based on the amount of meat usually eaten by lions, around 35 people are likely to have fallen victim to them.

Awards

literature

  • John Henry Patterson: The Man-Eaters of Tsavo . Lyons Press, Guilford, CT July 2004, ISBN 1-59228-187-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Certificate of Release for The Spirit and the Darkness . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. The spirit and the darkness. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 11, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. The Ghost And The Darkness . Chicago Sun-Times . October 11, 1996. Retrieved May 17, 2011.
  4. a b "People are two-legged sources of protein" Der Spiegel from January 17, 2003
  5. Bruce D. Patterson: The lions of Tsavo: exploring the legacy of Africa's notorious man-eaters . McGraw-Hill Professional, 2004, p. 33.
  6. Man eating lions - not (as) many dead ( Memento of the original from August 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Railway Gazette International, November 27, 2009  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.railwaygazette.com
  7. Justin D. Yeakel, et al .: Cooperation and individuality among man-eating lions . In: PNAS . November 2009. doi : 10.1073 / pnas.0905309106 .
  8. Löwenduo killed fewer people than expected Der Spiegel from November 3, 2009