The ruler

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Movie
Original title The ruler
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1937
length 103 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Veit Harlan
script Thea by Harbou
Curt Johannes Braun
production Karl Julius Fritzsche for Tobis-Tonbild-Syndikat
music Wolfgang Zeller
camera Werner Brandes
Günther Anders
cut Martha Dübber
occupation

Der Herrscher is a German film by Veit Harlan from 1937. It was based on the play of the same name by August Christian Riekel , which is based on motifs from Gerhart Hauptmann's play Before Sunset . The artistic direction was Emil Jannings , who plays the leading role alongside Marianne Hoppe .

The FSK has currently given the film the age rating of twelve and over.

Today it is a reserved film from the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation . It is part of the foundation's portfolio, has not been released for distribution and may only be shown with the consent and under the conditions of the foundation.

action

After Privy Councilor Matthias Clausen, the owner of a steel mill, became a widower, he discovered that his directors were unable and greedy. Contrary to his doctor's advice to take a vacation, he decides to keep the management of his factory in his own hands.

At work, he falls in love with his new young secretary Inken Peters and plans to marry her and build a future together with her. His family, consisting of two sons and two daughters as well as the spouses of the eldest daughter and the eldest son, allegedly see the memory of the deceased mother damaged by this, but they truly believe that the family fortune is threatened. You rebel against your father. This throws her out of the house.

Clausen gives up his marriage plans, but his family wants to make sure of their cause and, with the help of attorney Hanefeld, is taking legal action to incapacitate him . Only his youngest son refused to sign the application. The court does not allow the application. There is no reconciliation with his family; Clausen disinherits them and bequeaths his steel factory to the state.

production

Filming began on October 28, 1936 and lasted until February 1937. The production company was Tobis-Magna-Filmproduktion GmbH (Berlin), production group Helmut Schreiber. The film was shot in Oberhausen in the Gutehoffnungshütte , in Pompeii and Paestum . The buildings came from Robert Herlth , the sculptures were created by Walter Schulze-Mittendorf .

The ruler premiered on March 17, 1937 in Berlin's Ufa-Palast am Zoo .

propaganda

In the film, which was partly shot in the Gutehoffnungshütte in Oberhausen , the liberal publisher and mild art collector Clausen turned from Hauptmann's drama into a robust ruler of a steel mill who embodied the leader principle .

Clausen thunders in a scene in front of the board of directors, serving the national socialist economic ideology:

“We are there to provide work and bread for millions and millions. We are there to work for the national community . To serve the national community must be the goal of every business leader who is aware of his responsibility. This will of mine is the supreme law for my work. Everything else has to comply with that, without contradiction, even if I steer the whole company into the abyss. Anyone who does not submit to this supreme law will no longer have room in the Clausen works. "

In contrast to the original, in which Clausen fails because of the conflict between his love for a very young woman on the one hand and the irreconcilability of his children on the other, the ruler Clause renounces his family, disinherits them and bequeaths the Clausen works

“The state, ie the national community. I am certain that from among my workers and employees who have helped me build the work, the man who is called to continue my work will arise. Whether it comes from the blast furnace or from the drawing table, from the laboratory or from the vice, I want to teach him the little that a departing person can teach the future. He who is born to be a leader does not need teachers for his own genius. "

Awards, reception and reviews

Emil Jannings was awarded the prize for the best actor at the Venice Film Festival in 1937 . The film testing agency of the National Socialist Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda gave the film the title “State-politically and artistically particularly valuable”. In addition, Der Herrscher received the National Film Prize in 1937 .

In May 1938, the magazine Die Neue Literatur praised the fact that the apolitical drama had been fulfilled with genuinely political content: “ The ruler is a political film, more than that, it is a political work of art. The film turns the bourgeois publisher into a National Socialist business leader. "

After the end of National Socialist rule, The Ruler was banned by the Allied military censorship because of the Nazi ideology it contained . After the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, it was later classified as a reserve film , the showing of which is only possible to a limited extent. The performance and exploitation rights lie with the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung .

Karsten Witte wrote in Film im National Socialism that the resigned tendency of the literature had been replaced by energy: "Harlan's film, to be read ostensibly as a family melodrama, could also be understood as the industry's contribution to the four-year plan of 1936." The main theme of the original The entrepreneur's bondage to his young lover was rewritten by Thea von Harbou. The entrepreneur is now leading a sympathetic struggle against the egoism and envy of his own family and is finally giving his work to the state and thus to the national community. In today's perception, however, the political happy ending seems artificial.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The ruler at Murnau Foundation
  2. ↑ a b The ruler at filmportal.de
  3. ↑ a b Quoted by Erwin Leiser : “Germany, awake!” Propaganda in the film of the Third Reich . Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1968, p. 42
  4. ^ Quotation from Karsten Witte: Film in National Socialism . In: History of German Films, 2nd edition 2004, p. 132
  5. ↑ Karsten Witte: Film in National Socialism . In: History of German Films, 2nd edition 2004, p. 132