The main actor
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The main actor |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1977 |
| length | 91 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Reinhard Hauff |
| script |
Christel Buschmann Reinhard Hauff |
| production | Eberhard Junkersdorf for Bioskop-Film, Munich; WDR, Cologne |
| music | Klaus Doldinger |
| camera | Frank Bruhne |
| cut | Stefanie Wilke |
| occupation | |
| |
The main actor is a German feature film from 1977 by Reinhard Hauff .
action
The 15-year-old farm boy Pepe lives a monotonous life on the decrepit farm in the middle of the country. Time seems to stand still here, nothing happens. The boredom suddenly comes to an end when one day a film crew approaches. Pepe becomes the main actor in a film production that is shot on location. He temporarily escapes the social misery, can escape the clutches of his primitive and authoritarian father, a pig farmer. Pepe is allowed to briefly dive into a world that is so infinitely alien to him and that promises tension and excitement every day. But one day the shooting is over, and Pepe's life threatens to sink back into the familiar monotony. But Pepe doesn't want to go back to the farm, doesn't want to go to the monosyllabic, dumb father anymore, and so Pepe begins to rebel.
Pepe proves to be extremely devoted to his director Max, who has become something of a fatherly friend to him; he doesn't want to put up with disappearing into insignificance again. But for Max, Pepe was only the leading actor in his last film, and the film is over. The director does not feel more emotional ties or even responsibility for his protégé. When the boy does not receive the hoped-for feedback from Max and he painfully tries to make it clear to him that Pepe's life will not go on as he experienced during the weeks of filming, the boy, in search of attention and understanding for his emergency situation, commits Acts of desperation. He literally stalks Max, sticks to him like a burdock, destroys the windshield of his car, scratches other cars out of frustration and acts as an arsonist: he sets fire to the cinema during the premiere of "his" film.
Production notes
The main actor was Hauff's first feature film and was shot from February 15 to March 28, 1977 in and around Munich . It was completed on June 30, 1977. It premiered on December 28, 1977 in the "Casino" of Bernkastel-Kues . The mass start in the Federal Republic of Germany was delayed until April 1978. The distribution took place through the film publisher of the authors .
The buildings were designed by Winfried Hennig , Karl Baumgartner provided the special effects. Herbert Kerz was in charge of production. Alexander von Eschwege served Hauff as assistant director. Hauff's production received the film rating of "particularly valuable".
The leading actor is often referred to as the further development of the story of the leading actor in Hauff's previous production, Paule Pauländer (1976), and therefore has biographical features. In an interview with the film magazine Cinema in 1978, the director commented on this. When asked whether The Leading Actor was a sequel to Paule Pauländer, Hauff replied:
"No. The main actor is a completely independent film that goes back to memories that I made after the shooting of Paule Pauländer - with the main actor - but it also goes back to experiences in other films. Essentially on the experience with laypeople and especially with young people. "
In the same interview, Hauff commented on how they found the 15-year-old leading actor Michael Schweiger . “After months of searching in schools, leisure centers and youth homes, we“ discovered ”him. However, Michael reported himself based on a newspaper report that was published about our work. (...) He is a boy who understands psychological situations incredibly well and is able to act out them. "
Reviews
"A socially critical, cool and sober film, largely in the style of a documentary film, which describes the inner development of a person in adverse circumstances and asks the question of the right to free personal development."
In an in-depth analysis, Wolfram Schütte clearly criticized Hauff's work in comparison to “Paule Pauländer”. In his essay “Finally arrived with us” about the Federal Republican film production in 1977/78 it says in summary: “That is why PAULE PAULÄNDER, the film that thematically developed from the MAIN ACTOR, is so much stronger because in the portrayal of the father and son, because there is so much more authenticity in the social atmosphere than in the (role) imitations of Vladim Glowna as director and Mario Adorfs as father. What we encounter as “smoothness” in the aesthetics of the MAIN ACTOR is the smooth dramaturgy of a problematic film, which is reduced by the irritations that the “original tone” of the self-experienced would have added to the narrative. "
The Frankfurter Rundschau called Hauff's film debut "a haunting work about the responsibility of film directors who work with young amateurs."
On the occasion of the TV first broadcast on ARD in 1980, Der Spiegel wrote : “In his first movie (1977), the Munich filmmaker Reinhard Hauff processed experiences that he had to make while filming the TV play“ Paule Pauländer ”: The young leading actor ..., a farm boy, felt himself torn from his existence by the break-in of the film people into his dull world. After filming, he developed a father-son relationship with “his” director that alienated the boy from his surroundings and drove the director into moral doubts about the meaning of his work. "The main actor" ... begins where "Paule Pauländer" ended. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. on this Pepe: Follow-up to Paule in Der Spiegel of March 21, 1977, p. 196
- ↑ Cinema, Issue No. 3, March 1978, p. 52
- ↑ ibid.
- ↑ The main actor. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Hans Günther Pflaum (ed.): Jahrbuch Film 78/79. Reports / reviews / data. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich Vienna 1978, p. 37
- ↑ Hauff biography in Frankfurter Rundschau ( memento of the original from December 31, 2014 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.
- ↑ The main actor in Der Spiegel on February 4, 1980
Web links
- The main character in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The main actor at filmportal.de