The subject (film)

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Movie
Original title The subject
The Subject Logo 001.svg
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1951
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (previously 16)
Rod
Director Wolfgang Staudte
script Wolfgang Staudte,
Fritz Staudte
production DEFA
music Horst Hanns Sieber
camera Robert Baberske
cut Johanna Rosinski
occupation

The subject ; a film poster exhibited in the House of History in Bonn

Der Untertan is a DEFA film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Heinrich Mann from 1951 by director Wolfgang Staudte .

action

Diederich Heßling uses all the clichés of good Prussian subjects . He believes in authority, but learns that it is most pleasant when you also have the appropriate power. He also learns that you have to serve power if you want to make progress in relation to power yourself: hump up and step down. That's why he flatters himself with the district president von Wulckow . Under his protection, he intrigues against competitors and makes deals in the paper mill with the social democrats who are dependent on him and who also work there.

He has reached the height of his power when, adorned with religious orders, he inaugurates an imperial monument in an approaching thunderstorm and is able to speak chauvinistically into a rage. The clear political message of the final scene becomes clear where the fanfare of the NS newsreel turns into the fanfare of the NS newsreel as a fanfare from the rising roar of thunder and howling of the wind .

Production and reception

History of origin

Heinrich Mann transferred the film rights for his 1918 novel to DEFA, but died before the film was shot. Falk Harnack and even Erich von Stroheim were originally discussed as directors. When Wolfgang Staudte took over the project, he wanted to cast the leading role first with his leading actor from The Murderers Are Among Us , Arno Paulsen . However, the decision was made in favor of the younger Werner Peters .

Right from the start, the film was designed as a prestige object for DEFA, and even GDR culture, so that Staudte and his cameraman Robert Baberske could work undisturbed despite the accusation of formalism . Today, the film is regarded as the prototype of a literary film adaptation that is true to the factory, but also independent . Director Staudte wrote the script together with his father Fritz Staudte, who also played a role in the film. Well-known old stars like Eduard von Winterstein played next to him and Peters .

The film was made from March 1 to June 22, 1951 in the Babelsberg studio and its outdoor area. The buildings were created by Erich Zander and Karl Schneider , and Willi Teichmann was responsible for production management. The premiere took place on August 31, 1951 in Berlin in the Babylon cinema and in the DEFA film theater on Kastanienallee.

Staudte said of the message of his film: “I want to show the willingness of certain people around 1900, which led to the collapse of Germany in 1945 over two world wars. It should be a continuation of my indictment against these circles and a warning against these people, as I wanted to express in the film 'The murderers are among us'. "

reception

The conservative West German press accused Staudte of being "in the service of communist cultural policy" and of promoting the "Bolshevization of the world". The film was condemned as evil and humorless, called a "character murder". And the mirror criticized:

“A prime example of East Zonal film politics: You let a political kid like the confused pacifist Staudte make an apparently apolitical film, which is, however, capable of creating a mood against Germany and thus against the armament of the Federal Republic in the western world. The film completely ignores the fact that in the whole of Prussian history there has not been a subject who was so unfree as the people belonging to the people under Stalin's opinion police are all of them. "

However, there was also criticism in the GDR. This is how Hermann Müller criticized the New Germany on September 2nd:

“There is a big weakness in the film that is also the weakness in the novel. The fighting working class, which also achieved significant political successes at the turn of the century, is not shown. "

The film received high acclaim all over the world. In the Federal Republic of Germany it was subject to film censorship and its performance was banned for six years. The film was seen as an attack on the Federal Republic, in which many saw the beginnings of a renewed subject state. The Interministerial Committee for East-West Film Issues, the body primarily responsible for importing films, prohibited publication on the basis of Section 93 of the Criminal Code, which forbade the production of unconstitutional publications. In 1956, however, there was a one-time performance in West Berlin. After a re-examination, the film was released in a version shortened by twelve minutes and a prelude reversing the basic message of the film in November 1956. Nevertheless, it was banned again in January 1957 by the FSK ( Voluntary Self-Control of the Film Industry ). The shortened version was finally released in February 1957. However, the film, which was shortened by twelve minutes, was now preceded by a text that expressly identified the case presented as an individual example. This version was first performed on March 8, 1957 in the Federal Republic.

It was first broadcast on television in the GDR in September 1954, and in the Federal Republic in December 1969 (on Bavarian radio ). An unabridged version was only seen in the FRG in 1971.

Awards

Today Staudte's film is considered a masterpiece. The main actor Peters, who during his further film career was mainly committed to this type of role, and director Staudte were awarded the GDR National Prize for their work , the film was awarded at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1951, and in 1955 and 1956 it received two honorary degrees in Finland.

More reviews

  • “Soviet Zone film adaptation of Heinrich Mann's novel of the same name: A sharp political satire on the old Prussian spirit. Excellent presentation, dazzling camera passages and directing ideas. Could be conscience-building and arousing if it had not been for agitational excesses. ” - 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958. Handbook V of the Catholic film criticism, 3rd edition, Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 454
  • Herbert Ihering wrote in the “Berliner Zeitung” (September 4, 1951): “This Defa film comes at the right moment; politically and artistically. ... The large shots, the alternation of the individual and overall shots, introduced into the film by the ingenious Soviet directors Eisenstein and Pudowkin as a picture-dramaturgical means, are used here independently by Staudte and his cameraman Baberske in the correct, meaningful arrangement. This is the only way to make the many satirical situations and Simplicissimus caricatures possible. "
  • "[Here] one of the clearest and cleanest films is available, which would have to bring a majority of West German film producers into a conflict of conscience with their own film tastes" (Rias, October 12, 1956)
  • The Berlin “Telegraf” emphasized that it is “an avant-garde film, and it cannot be seen why this work, which caricatures a sinister defect of our time, the spirit of the subject, could not also be shown in the West” (October 9th 1956).
  • In May 1957, Waldemar Wilken praised Staudte's subject for the Protestant magazine Kirche und Mann , which at the time had a high circulation : “Anyone who wants to see a good film must not miss the subject. We have rarely discussed a film that was so full of optical ideas and ingenious directing skills (Wolfgang Staudte) ... But: it was made by the wrong people. He comes from the DEFA state film kitchen in the GDR. And then you can really only sigh: They need it! ” (In front of the screen, in: Kirche und Mann 10. 1957, No. 5, p. 6).
  • “Brilliant and biting satire on the spirit of the subject and Prussia misunderstood as national chauvinism - based on the novel of the same name by Heinrich Mann. Staudte's artistically most convincing directorial work with Werner Peters in the title role, who was outstanding under his tight leadership, was a prestigious success for DEFA, also abroad. ” Lexicon of International Films ( fd 2502 ).

literature

  • Heinrich Mann : The subject. Novel. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-596-16976-3 .
  • Christa Bandmann, Joe Hembus : The Subject . In: Christa Bandmann, Joe Hembus: Classics of the German sound film. Goldmann, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-442-10207-3 , pp. 166-168
  • Wolfgang Gersch, in: Film and television art of the GDR . Henschel, Berlin (GDR) 1979, pp. 139–141
  • Michael Grisko: The subject - revisited. Bertz + Fischer, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86505-179-0 .
  • Friedrich Koch : School in the cinema. Authority and education. From the “Blue Angel” to the “Feuerzangenbowle”. Beltz, Weinheim / Basel 1987, ISBN 978-3-407-34009-2 .
  • Dieter Krusche, Jürgen Labenski : Reclam's film guide. 7th edition, Reclam, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-15-010205-7 , pp. 586f.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ Alfred Bauer : German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946–1955 , p. 228 f.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Staudte - actor, director . In: CineGraph - Lexicon for German-Language Films, Lg. 20, F 11
  3. ↑ cit. in: Gersch, p. 139
  4. ↑ Quotes: Bandmann / Hembus, p. 167
  5. ^ Spiegel, December 12, 1951
  6. ^ Lexicon of Film Terms, Interministerial Committee for East / West Film Issues (IMA) , July 15, 2011
  7. ↑ Stefan Buchloh Pervers, endangering young people, subversive. Censorship in the Adenauer era as a mirror of the social climate . Frankfurt 2002, p. 226
  8. ↑ F.-B. Habel: Cut up films. Censorship in the cinema . Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, Leipzig 2003, ISBN 3-378-01069-X , p. 101 f.
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Staudte - actor, director . In: CineGraph - Lexicon for German-Language Films, Lg. 20, F 11