The Trial (1948)
The Trial (alternative title: In the Name of Humanity ) is an Austrian feature film made in 1947 by GW Pabst with Ernst Deutsch and Ewald Balser in the leading roles.
action
Hungary 1882, based on a true story. One day the underage maid Esther disappears in a farming village without a trace. Nobody knows that she ran away because her employer always treated her badly. The rumor quickly spreads that the Jews in the village were responsible for her disappearance and that the little girl may have been the victim of a ritual murder . Because an eyewitness saw that the runaway Esther stopped at the house of the head of the Jewish community, the temple servant Peczely Scharf, on her way. Since on that day the Sabbath and thus all (believing) Jews were forbidden to do any work, the 'Christian girl' was briefly asked in to take a candlestick from the table. Esther has not been seen since then.
The rumor quickly becomes a certainty for some staunch anti-Semites : Esther was murdered in an act of ritual slaughter! These accusations, born out of prejudices, are reinforced by the testimony of young Moritz Scharf, the son of the temple servant, who is about to break away from the Jewish community. Apparently nobody cares that this statement was forced through harsh interrogation methods. The young and ambitious investigating magistrate Bary, appointed by the anti-Semitic politician Baron Ónódy, now sees sufficient suspicions to investigate the Jews. Although no traces of a bloody act can be found, a pogrom mood soon arises , even when a few days later a drowned girl is fished out of the pond and said to be Esther. The girl drowned herself.
But these facts hardly interest anyone in the heated mood. One even tries to persuade Esther's mother that the dead woman found in the pond could not be her daughter, because one has known for a long time: the Jews murdered her! The mob forms, soon the synagogue is on fire . However, the process that has begun takes a completely unexpected course when the open-minded, Christian-liberal lawyer Dr. Eötvös a new defender comes into play. This proves that massive anti-Semitic interests as well as influencing witnesses who deliberately gave false testimony have so far determined the course of the trial, and ultimately wins the accused's acquittal.
Historical background
The film relates to the Tiszaeszlár affair . On April 1, 1882, the fourteen-year-old Catholic farm girl Eszter Solymosi disappeared without a trace. Rumors that she fell victim to a ritual murder on the occasion of the Jewish festival of Passover were promoted by the anti-Semitic politicians Géza Ónody and Győző Istóczy . At the beginning of May 1882 the mother of the missing girl filed a complaint. Thereupon charges were brought against the Jewish Scharf family based on the allegedly forced statements of the five-year-old and fourteen-year-old son of the Jewish family. In the period that followed, sections of the Christian population, fueled by inflammatory statements by ardent anti-Semites, developed downright anti-Jewish hysteria. The trial against the accused ended on August 3, 1883 with acquittal.
Production notes
The film is based on the literary template "Trial of Life and Death" by Rudolf Brunngraber
The trial had its world premiere on March 5, 1948 in Zurich and its Austrian premiere on March 19, 1948 in Vienna . The German premiere took place with the approval of the Allied military authorities as part of a closed film club event on September 3, 1948 in Hamburg . The official German premiere was on November 22, 1950 in Berlin (West) .
Producer JA Hübler-Kahla , who made the film with his own company, was himself a victim of state anti-Semitism in the Third Reich due to his "half-Jewish" origins and had not been allowed to work in the film business since 1936.
For Ernst Deutsch, The Trial meant the first film role after his return to Europe from exile in the USA. For Gustav Diessl was the process of the final film. The actor, who had played leading roles in numerous Pabst productions since the 1920s and who had had a lifelong friendship with Pabst since their acting debut in 1921 in the Austrian film Im Banne der Kralle , died one day after the Austrian premiere of The Trial .
In his third film role, Josef Meinrad was cast against his usual film type. He played a legal harassment with the examining magistrate.
Werner Schlichting designed the film structures. The extensive painting work, including the Tisza landscape , was done by Hans Zehetner .
Awards
The film received a number of awards. On the IX. At the International Venice Film Festival (August / September 1948), GW Pabst received the gold medal for best director. Ernst Deutsch also received a gold medal for best male actor.
The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia awarded the film the title “artistically superior”.
The trial also ran during the Fifth International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary (July 1950).
Reviews
The Lexicon of International Films wrote: "Except for the excessive caricatures of the wildest Jew-haters, a very impressive film."
The film's large personal lexicon simply called the film a " philosemitic strip".
In Reclam's film guide, The Trial and similar Austrian films from the early post-war period saw “honorable attempts to come to terms with time problems”.
Bucher's Encyclopedia of Film called The Trial a “film that branded anti-Semitism” and, moreover, included it in the “wave of films coming to terms with the past” that Austria had “in faithful epigonism” to German post-war films.
Web links
- The process in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The process at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films Volume 6, p. 3006. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987.
- ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . Volume 6: N - R. Mary Nolan - Meg Ryan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 105.
- ^ Reclam's film guide. By Dieter Krusche, collaboration: Jürgen Labenski. Stuttgart 1973, p. 186
- ↑ Bucher's Encyclopedia of Film, edited by Liz-Anne Bawden. Edition of the German edition by Wolfram Tichy, p. 578, Luzern and Frankfurt / M. 1977
- ↑ ibid. P. 563
- ↑ ibid.