The downfall of Emma
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The downfall of Emma |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1974 |
| length | 75 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Helmut Dziuba |
| script | Helmut Dziuba |
| production | DEFA , KAG "Berlin" |
| music | Christian Steyer |
| camera | Günter Heimann |
| cut | Barbara Simon |
| occupation | |
| |
The Downfall of Emma is a German children's film by Helmut Dziuba from 1974. It is based on a film story by Wolfgang Hübner and Hans-Joachim Knorr .
action
After 50 years as the captain of the Emma , ferryman Kluge has to take compulsory retirement. A new pier eliminates the need to cross over by ship. The boys, Mischa and Hartmut, are friends with Kluge and feel that it is unfair that the adults do not recognize the consequences of their actions. The fact that the Emma is now becoming a pioneer ship and is therefore available to all the children in the village is hardly any consolation, as the two boys see that Kluge is now doing badly and that he apparently has to stay in bed sick. You decide to repair the ship's disused engine. If the ship is ready to go again, Kluge can act as captain of the pioneers and work again, so their train of thought.
They steal the necessary spare parts from a plant where the parts are stored for scrapping. Both manage to repair Emma at night . To test whether it really runs, they want to do a little lap on the lake. Not far from the new bridge, however, the engine fails and Emma drives against a bridge pillar, leaks and goes under. While Hartmut managed to save himself by jumping into the water, Mischa was caught by the water police. He does not reveal Hartmut, he is supposed to represent the school at the Mathematics Olympiad in a few days. If his participation in the nightly action came out, he would be forbidden to participate. Hartmut, however, suffers from the lie, refuses to write at the Olympics and leaves the exam after a few minutes without being asked. He is found by a teacher on the country road and driven home. Hartmut admits that he was also involved in Emma's demise .
In the meantime, Misha realizes that Kluge's apparent illness was only an act, and is disappointed. Hartmut points out that the real pain of Kluge is not visible. Teachers know that parents are responsible for the children's misconduct, even if both boys have actually only done what the teachers ask them to do, namely to show compassion for others where even adults have failed in the case of Kluges. At the end, the children, including Mischa and Hartmut, watch as the adults collectively lift Emma . With Kluge in their midst, the children leave.
production
The downfall of Emma was Helmut Dziuba's second children's film after Mohr and the Ravens of London . Originally, the well-known GDR filmmaker Wolfgang Huebner was to act as the director, who wrote the original for the film together with the director of the East Berlin teachers' ensemble, Hans-Joachim Knorr. Due to artistic differences with DEFA, the direction was finally transferred to Dziuba.
The demise of Emma had its premiere on August 2, 1974 in the Babylon cinema in Berlin . On August 12, 1978 it ran for the first time in the first program of the GDR television on the screen.
criticism
The contemporary criticism pitted the film in formal terms, even if the problem was "a serious, important, well-understood" one. The plot, however, seems to be “thrown together”, “the actual story is always lost in secondary scenes, and one problem after another is 'added on' without creating a harmonious and above all understandable whole”. Camera and editing create “no glamorous highlights”, the direction is “ambitious. Neither the selection of the child actors nor the work with them (especially on the linguistic side) was satisfactory. "
Renate Holland-Moritz wrote that in the film "the drama is pure externality and the criticism suffocates in the cliché". Only actor Erwin Geschonneck is convincing as a "strange-lovable ferryman".
For the film service , Der Untergang der Emma was “a humorous and committed children's film about dealing with old people, about tolerance and solidarity. Formally with weaknesses and due to the lack of external actions for smaller children not consistently interesting. "
“A committed children's film about compassion and the coexistence of generations,” said Progress Film Verleih .
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 643-644 .
- The downfall of Emma . In: Ingelore König, Dieter Wiedemann, Lothar Wolf (eds.): Between Marx and Muck. DEFA films for children . Henschel, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-89487-234-9 , pp. 196-198.
Web links
- The sinking of Emma in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The sinking of Emma at filmportal.de
- The sinking of Emma at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b T. Schmidt in: Berliner Zeitung , August 9, 1974.
- ↑ a b The Fall of Emma . In: Ingelore König, Dieter Wiedemann, Lothar Wolf (eds.): Between Marx and Muck. DEFA films for children . Henschel, Berlin 1996, p. 197.
- ↑ Harald Scheffler in: Freiheit , August 27, 1974.
- ^ Renate Holland-Moritz: Children's cinema owl . In: Eulenspiegel , No. 35, 1974.
- ↑ The Fall of Emma. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ See progress-film.de ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
