The Sea Wolf (1971)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The sea wolf |
| Country of production | Germany , France , Romania |
| original language | German , Romanian |
| Publishing year | 1971 |
| length |
TV version: 361 minutes. Theatrical versions: FRG : 96 minutes Romania, GDR : 148 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Wolfgang Staudte , Sergiu Nicolaescu |
| script | Walter Ulbrich |
| production | Walter Ulbrich |
| music | Hans Posegga |
| camera | André Zarra |
| cut | Hermann Haller |
| occupation | |
| |
Der Seewolf is an adventure four-parter based on the novel Der Seewolf by the American writer Jack London . It was produced under the direction of producer Walter Ulbrich from Tele Munich and Studio Bucharest on behalf of the German TV station ZDF and the French TV station ORTF .
Raimund Harmstorf (Wolf Larsen, the Sea Wolf ) and Edward Meeks (Humphrey van Weyden) played the leading roles . For Harmstorf, then 31, the multi-part series was the breakthrough in the film business.
action
The writer Humphrey van Weyden went overboard in a shipwreck in the fog in the Bay of San Francisco in 1906 and was rescued by a sealer , the schooner Ghost under the brutal captain Wolf Larsen. Instead of being brought ashore, Van Weyden is forced by Captain Larsen to come with him on a seal hunt, as one more man is needed. For van Weyden, who grew up in a wealthy family, this marks the beginning of a series of inconveniences and rudeness to which the team, and now he, are helplessly exposed. First he is assigned to the coarse Smut Mugridge as a kitchen helper, whose humiliations he now has to endure additionally. Because of an awkwardness in which van Weyden sustained an injury to his knee, as a result of which he hobbled for a long time, he was only called Hump on board .
When Hump is supposed to clean up the captain's cabin , he remembers and recognizes Larsen as a childhood friend. It's the Frisco Kid, who grew up in the slums of San Francisco and never went to school. They got to know each other by chance and were fascinated by each other's world. Frisco Kid was a co-owner of a small ship and a member of a petty criminal group from an early age. However, even then he had expressed efforts to work his way out of his poverty. With the help of the lexicon that Hump now holds in his hands , he therefore ambitiously acquired knowledge himself, which for him represented a key to the way out of his poverty. Larsen, now the owner of a seal protector, has made the way out of poverty, Hump muses. But Hump is not sure whether Larsen recognizes him and does not reveal himself.
Over time, van Weyden not only has to assert himself against the captain, but also against various other adversities. When the helmsman fails, Hump, who has no knowledge of this nautical task, is forcibly promoted to helmsman by Larsen. But Hump developed and thus acquired extensive seafaring skills . With the help of his physical superiority, with which he regularly gains respect, Larsen ruthlessly enforces his goals. But this man also has an intelligent, well-read side. For example, he recites, in a modified form, a passage from the work Paradise Lost , "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." (Original English: "Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."), of the poet and philosopher John Milton : "... is already worth the ambition, even in hell, there would rather be ruler than servant in heaven." Also by Larsen's brutal-materialistic worldview (eat or be eaten), which however does not have intellectual ambition missing, with which Hump deals, Larsen seems increasingly puzzling and ambivalent. Because as much as he admires his intellect, he despises his inhumanity, which culminates in the fact that he does not take two unruly sailors back on board after a failed attempt to escape in an open dinghy and so approves of their deaths.
Shortly before, the Ghost recorded a boat with castaways, including the editor Maud Brewster. She and van Weyden quickly discover that they know each other professionally. Larsen feels ignored and has Mugridge, the Smutje, tied to a rope for a trivial reason and pulled behind the ship. He is mutilated by a shark attack.
During an encounter with the seal steamer Macedonia , Larsen quickly captures its crew and demands their prey for himself. After Larsen tried to rape Brewster and suffered an attack of weakness for no apparent reason, van Weyden and Brewster decide to flee to Japan in an open boat . After several days they reach an island, but on landing on the cliff coast, Maud drowns, and van Weyden is thrown against the wood by the swaying of the ship and passes out. He wakes up in the company of Larsen, who has been overwhelmed and abandoned by the people of the Ghost and Macedonia . Together they set off on foot to the only inhabited place on the island. But after Larsen let him down while injuring his foot, van Weyden struggled alone through the tundra for several days . He is being followed by a wolf. At the end of his tether, he finally reaches the coast and is rescued by the crew of a sealer.
A few years later, van Weyden owned a schooner. He sets sail again and is overtaken by the past on a South Sea island . During a stopover, he recognizes the former ship's cook Mugridge in a shrunken head , and he quickly comes to the conclusion that Larsen is alive. He reaches an island where he meets a seedy pearl diver whom he associates with Larsen. When he discovers the wreck of the Ghost on the beach after a few adventures on the island , he goes on board and meets the completely blind Larsen, who dies of his illness after a fall and a brief scuffle with van Weyden. The pearl diver appears on the ship and wants something from Larsen. Van Weyden manages to kill him with one shot. Van Weyden sinks the embalmed body in the sea and in the fade-out his small boat disappears on the huge sea.
Differences to the novel
- The last part of the four-part, and with it the end, deviates significantly from the novel and has nothing to do with the original, except for Larsen's death from a brain tumor.
- In the novel, Maud Brewster survives. After the two are stranded, the Ghost, which is completely abandoned except for Larsen, is also stranded. Larsen is already blind here and at the end of his tether. Out of pity, Van Weyden and Brewster take care of the terminally ill Larsen, who initially resists it, but in the end, almost completely paralyzed, has no choice. After van Weyden succeeded in making the Ghost seaworthy again, Larsen dies in a severe storm.
- Van Weyden's childhood memories do not take place in the novel. In the novel, the two characters have never met before.
- In the film, the Ghost drives through many southern areas, while in the novel it is almost exclusively in northern seal-catching areas.
- Death Larsen, Wolf Larsen's brother, is not mentioned in the film. This and the relentless enmity with his brother run like a red thread through the story in the novel. It is also he who ultimately hires the crew of the Ghost on the open sea and thus leaves Wolf Larsen and his ship to fate.
In contrast to the novel Der Seewolf , the film is also based on motifs from the Jack London novels Die Kreuzfahrt der Dazzler (The Cruise of the Dazzler) , King Alcohol (John Barleycorn) , Adventurer of the Railroad (The Road) , Liebe zum Leben (Love of Life) , South Sea stories (South Sea tales) and A son of the sun (A son of the sun) , which were also processed in the film script.
synchronization
The German synchronization was created in 1971 by the Aventin studio. In addition to this version, there is another German dubbed version that was created in the GDR by the DEFA studio for dubbing and is based on the two-part Romanian version. The dialogues come from Wolfgang Kellner, the dialogues are directed by Wolfgang Thal.
production
The shooting took place over a period of four months in 1969 and 1970. The exterior shots took place mainly in Romania , the ship scenes on the Black Sea and in the port of Constanța , the hobo scenes near Snagov , the scenes in the port district of San Francisco in Brăila ( Wallachia ) and the interior shots and the scene with the police station in Buftea (Ilfov district). The recordings of the scenes on the tundra-like Jackson Island and with Humphrey and Maud in the boat in the third part were previously filmed in Sweden from May 1970 . Sergiu Nicolaescu (mentioned as Serge Nicolaescu in the credits ) directing is limited to the fourth part, in which he also plays.
Edward Meeks was dubbed by Reinhard Glemnitz . Raimund Harmstorf's original voice cannot be heard in the series either; he was dubbed by Kurt E. Ludwig . The narrator of the summaries at the beginning of the individual episodes is Erich Ebert .
The well-known scene in which Raimund Harmstorf crushes a supposedly raw potato with his bare hand is a trick: the potato was lightly pre-cooked.
Publications
ZDF
- Part 1 (December 5, 1971): A Strange Ship (88 min.)
- Part 2 (December 12, 1971): Course to Uma (96 min.)
- Part 3 (December 19, 1971): The Land of Small Branches (88 min.)
- Part 4 (December 26, 1971): The Search for a Lost Island (89 min.)
In the later evening program, the episodes were also broadcast divided into 16 individual episodes.
GDR television
The GDR television created eight individual episodes from the broadcast material of the ZDF.
- Part 1: a strange ship
- Part 2: A game of cards
- Part 3: Frisco Kid
- Part 4: Course on Uma
- Part 5: Woman on board
- Part 6: Land of Small Branches
- Part 7: Course South Seas
- Part 8: Finding a Lost Island
Theatrical versions
After the four-part series had turned out to be a great success, a version cut to 96 minutes was released in German cinemas in 1972, but it only emphasized the action moments and failed with viewers and critics.
In 1973 DEFA dubbed the two-part Romanian film version for a theatrical release in the GDR. The two parts ran under the titles Der Seewolf (original title: Lupul Mărilor ; length: 78 min., GDR premiere: December 23, 1973) and Die Rache (original title: Răzbunarea , length: 73 min., GDR premiere: 1. February 1974). This version differs considerably from the ZDF version and the West German movie. The language is much harder and Larsen seems much more brutal than in the ZDF version, which is more of a family entertainment. Van Weyden's thoughts, who describe and comment on the plot, are heard much less often. In contrast to the West German theatrical version, less emphasis was placed on the action scenes and the memories of van Weyden's youth were also taken into account, albeit in shortened form. There are also differences in the chronology and also slight differences in the plot. For example, this version contains some additional and some alternative scenes that are missing in the ZDF version. There is a scene in which Larsen talks about his plans to build a house on a quiet island one day. In the scene in which Larsen and van Weyden part ways on the land of small branches, van Weyden draws Larsen's attention to the fact that he already knew him by the name Frisco Kid, which leaves him completely cold. There is also an alternative scene in which Oofty-Oofty is not killed by a shark, but shot by Larsen. At the end, the circumstances that contributed to the Ghost's stranding are discussed in more detail. The famous scene with the potato is missing in the Romanian version. In addition to the original music, the film music also includes other pieces by Hans Posegga and additionally newly written pieces by the Romanian composer Tiberiu Olah .
Sound carrier
- Der Seewolf - Unabridged original version of the soundtrack of the most successful TV series on ZDF , 1 CD, MSC Records MSC 4990 (Germany)
- Adventure classic - original music from the legendary TV four-part series , 2 CDs, BSC Music / Cine Soundz Prudence 398.6619.2 (Germany 2001)
DVD and Blu-ray
- The sea wolf (2 DVDs), Eurovideo 2004
- Der Seewolf (2 DVDs, digitally remastered ), Concorde Home Entertainment 2006
- Der Seewolf (2 Blu-Rays, HD release), Concorde Home Entertainment October 2012
literature
- Oliver Kellner, Ulf Marek: Seewolf & Co. Schwarzkopf and Schwarzkopf, ISBN 3-89602-190-7 (The ZDF four-parter)
Web links
- The Sea Wolf in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- "Wolf Larsen", main character of the novel in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Jack London Films: The Sea Wolf, 1971
- The sea wolf - everything for four
- Seewolf, Der (1971) - Film Fehler dieseher.de, accessed on December 27, 2016
Individual evidence
- ^ The sea wolf in the German dubbing files - spokesman for the ZDF version
- ↑ a b DEFA Foundation: The Sea Wolf (Lupul Marilor)
- ↑ a b DEFA Foundation: Revenge (Razbunarea)
- ^ The sea wolf in the German synchronous index - speaker of the DEFA version
- ^ CineGraph - Lexicon for German-language film - Wolfgang Staudte
- ↑ Broadcast on television in the GDR
- ^ Film version - Der Seewolf (Germany)
- ↑ Applause from the nation . In: Der Spiegel . No. 1 , 1972 ( online ).
- ^ The sea wolf - film with the DEFA synchronization
- ↑ Die Rache - Film with the DEFA synchronization
- ↑ Start of the theatrical version GDR
- ↑ Start of the theatrical version GDR