The Reader (film)

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Movie
German title The Reader
Original title The Reader
Der-Vorleser-Logo.svg
Country of production USA , Germany
original language English
Publishing year 2008
length 124 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Stephen Daldry
script David Hare
production Anthony Minghella
Sydney Pollack
Donna Gigliotti
Redmond Morris
music Nico Muhly
camera Chris Menges
Roger Deakins
cut Claire Simpson
occupation
synchronization

The Reader is a German - American movie from 2008. It is based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Bernhard Schlink and is about the 15-year-old student Michael Berg ( David Kross , older Ralph Fiennes ), who in 1958 had a love affair 20 years her senior Hanna Schmitz ( Kate Winslet ). In 1966 it turns out that she was a concentration camp guard.

The script was written by the playwright David Hare with the help of the author. The film was shot almost exclusively in Germany under the direction of Stephen Daldry . It opened in US cinemas on December 10, 2008 and in Germany on February 26, 2009.

action

The framework of the film takes place in 1995. The lawyer Michael Berg meets with his daughter Julia and takes her to the grave of his first love, Hanna Schmitz. Julia is the only person he can open up to; For the first time he tells her the whole story about Hanna and himself.

The first flashback is in Neustadt in 1958. Fifteen-year-old Michael Berg throws up on the way home. A strange woman, the 36-year-old tram conductor Hanna Schmitz, helps him to get back on his feet. Three months later, after Michael had recovered from scarlet fever , he went to the stranger to thank her with a bouquet of flowers. On the very first day, a love affair develops between the two, in which Hanna, who often calls him “boy”, keeps him at a distance. The ritual develops that Michael Hanna - who tries to hide her illiteracy from him in this way - reads from books before sex. Over time, the relationship cools down a bit, Michael is more with his schoolmates again, among other things an attractive classmate is interested in him. One day Hanna suddenly disappeared - for reasons that are only revealed to the viewer.

In 1966, as part of his law degree, Michael, accompanied by Professor Rohl, was an eyewitness to a trial against six former concentration camp guards, including Hanna Schmitz. She makes incomprehensible statements. She gives banal reasons for the barbaric treatment of the concentration camp inmates. For example, with naive seriousness, she justifies the selection of prisoners for later gassing by saying that there was too little space in the camp to accommodate all the prisoners. She explains the death of 300 Jewish prisoners in a locked, burning church by saying that the guards, had they unlocked the gates, would not have been able to cope with the resulting chaos. Towards the end of the trial, the other guards accuse Hanna Schmitz of having been primarily responsible for the death of the 300 prisoners. This is to be proven by a handwriting sample from Schmitz, which is to be carried out directly in order to be able to compare it with the files of the concentration camp guards about the church fire. Instead of overcoming her shame and admitting that she cannot read or write, she confirms the allegations.

Michael only now realizes Hanna's secret and he realizes that this is the key to many of her actions, including her entry into the SS , the fact that she let concentration camp inmates read to her from books, like Michael before, her sudden disappearance 1959 and her fatal assumption of main responsibility in the process. He struggles to draw the court's attention to this important fact, but fails to do so. He justifies his non-action with the argument that Hanna did not want him to expose her weakness. The trial ends with Hanna's sentencing to life imprisonment ; the other female guards are each given a four-year and three-month prison term.

In 1976 Michael, whose marriage had just broken up, made contact with the imprisoned Hanna by sending her tape cassettes , on which he read again for her from works of world literature . With the help of these recordings, Hanna teaches herself to read and write and begins to write short letters to Michael. In 1988, the prison administration asked Michael Berg to take care of Hanna Schmitz, who was about to be released, because after 20 years in prison she had neither relatives nor acquaintances. Berg hesitates at first, but then accepts it. Finally, he visits the very aged Hanna shortly before she is released from prison. Michael is relatively cool and tells her that he has found her an apartment and a job and will pick her up in a week. But before she is released, she takes her own life. In her will , she instructs Michael to hand over the money she saved from a tin tea caddy and 7,000 DM from her account to one of the two survivors, the "daughter", as she calls her, of the church fire.

This woman, Ilana Mather, now lives in New York . Michael uses a visit to a congress in Boston. Mather is reserved and rejects Michael's attempts to arouse understanding for Hanna Schmitz. She hardly responds to his report that Schmitz was illiterate. When she is asked to be honest with her, he speaks to someone for the first time about his love affair with Hanna. She refuses the money because, in her eyes, accepting it would amount to absolution . Michael then suggests donating the money in Hanna's name to a Jewish organization that campaigns for literacy , which Ilana Mather agrees to if he takes care of it. She keeps Hanna's old tea caddy for herself, in which Michael brought her the money, because as a child she owned a similar can that she took to the concentration camp and that was stolen from her there not because of its content but because of its appearance. When Michael has left, she puts the can next to the souvenir photo of her murdered family. In the final scene Michael tells his daughter the whole story at Hanna's grave.

production

Kate Winslet , who played Hanna Schmitz, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 2007

The reader was produced on the German side by the Studio Babelsberg subsidiary Neunte Babelsberg Film GmbH and in the USA by The Weinstein Company and Mirage Enterprises with a budget of 32 million US dollars. The film received a subsidy of 500,000 euros from the Filmförderungsanstalt .

Preparations

After the English translation of Bernhard Schlink's novel was published in the summer of 1997 , Miramax acquired the rights to make the film from Diogenes Verlag in April 1998 . The scriptwriter and director was Anthony Minghella , who wanted to develop the project in his Mirage production company , which he ran with Sydney Pollack . After David Hare read the book, he asked the two producers to let him write the script. The project then stayed for almost ten years, despite Hare's efforts, until Stephen Daldry became interested in directing the film in autumn 2006. Since Hare and Daldry had already worked together on the film The Hours , Minghella finally agreed in autumn 2006 to hand over the project to the two.

Kate Winslet was scheduled for the role of Hanna Schmitz, but she turned it down for the time being because she was shooting the film Times of Riot with Leonardo DiCaprio under the direction of her husband Sam Mendes and there would have been scheduling difficulties. Then they decided on Cate Blanchett , but in 2007 she became pregnant and canceled. Next, Nicole Kidman was to take on the female lead, but on January 8, 2008, she announced that she was also expecting a child. The film's producer, Harvey Weinstein , had conversations with Naomi Watts and Marion Cotillard and intended to give Cotillard the role. The choice finally fell on Kate Winslet, who was available again because Daldry insisted. Bernhard Schlink said of the final cast: "Kate Winslet fits wonderfully."

Filming

David Kross , the actor of the young Michael Berg, in February 2009 in Berlin

Shooting began on September 18, 2007 in the German cities of Berlin and Görlitz, as well as in the outside setting of Berliner Straße of the co-producing Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam . In this first phase only scenes were shot without the female lead, as they were still waiting for Nicole Kidman's decision. The cameraman at the time was Roger Deakins . Shooting was stopped after five weeks. The second phase of shooting, now with Chris Menges as cameraman, began in March 2008 and was completed on July 14, 2008 in Cologne (MMC Studios Hürth). The Buschmühle in Kirnitzschtal in Saxon Switzerland served as the historical backdrop for the excursion restaurant . The author of the book, Bernhard Schlink, also had a brief appearance in the film there. The wagon hall of the Kirnitzschtalbahn also served as a backdrop; an appropriately prepared to reproduce the typical flair of the 1950s, moving tram near the outskirts of Bad Schandau was recorded for the film. The small village church, during the trip of the young couple and the cemetery with the grave of Hanna Schmitz, is the hermitage Lady of the Snows in Schönlinde-Schnauhübel ( Krasna Lipa - Sněžná ) in Sluknov tip in Bohemia .

The Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), the German Film Funding Fund (DFFF), the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and the Filmstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen contributed around 4 million euros to the production costs.

The musical concept of the film comes from the pen of the Croatian composer Ozren K. Glaser ; the rest of the compositional work was done by Alberto Iglesias and Nico Muhly .

In one scene a children's choir can be heard and seen in a small village church singing Palestrina's motet Pueri Hebraeorum , performed by the children's choir of the Dresden Philharmonic . On January 14, 2009, Lakeshore Records released the soundtrack for the film.

Two of the film's producers, Minghella and Pollack, died while filming in 2008. Because Harvey Weinstein, as a distribution partner , pushed for an earlier completion during the post-production of the film in order to enable its premiere in November 2008 and thus be able to send the film into the running for the Golden Globes and Oscars , the producer Scott Rudin left the production and waived the mention of his name in the credits.

synchronization

The German dubbing was done at Hermes Synchron in Berlin . The dialogue book was written by Hilke Flickenschildt , who was also the dubbing director . Many German-speaking actors synchronized their roles themselves.

actor German speaker role
Kate Winslet Ulrike Stürzbecher Hanna Schmitz
David Kross David Kross Michael Berg (young)
Ralph Fiennes Tom Vogt Michael Berg
Volker Bruch Volker Bruch Dieter Spenz
Jürgen Tarrach Jürgen Tarrach Gerhard Bade
Alexandra Maria Lara Alexandra Maria Lara Ilana Mather (young)
Hannah Herzsprung Hannah Herzsprung Julia
Linda Bassett Astrid Bless Luise Brenner
Karoline Herfurth Karoline Herfurth Marthe
Bruno Ganz Bruno Ganz Prof. Rohl
Burghart Klaussner Burghart Klaussner Judge
Lena Olin Joseline Gassen Rose Mather / Ilana Mather
Hans Hohlbein Hans Hohlbein secretary
Hendrik Maass Hendrik Maass Michael's assistant in the courthouse

Because of her performance, Ulrike Stürzbecher was the 2010 winner of the German Synchronous Award for “outstanding female dubbing”.

Criticism and controversy

source rating
Rotten tomatoes
critic
audience
Metacritic
critic
audience
IMDb

In the United States

In the run-up to the Oscars, the Jewish journalist Ron Rosenbaum spoke up in the USA . He described the reader as the worst film about the Holocaust that had ever been produced. Furthermore, he takes the opinion: "The essential message of the film is to absolve the Germans of the Nazi era from having known about the final solution ." He also says that the film sympathizes too much with Winslet's role and persuades the audience that it is illiterate more shameful than being involved in mass murder . Mark Weitzman, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in New York City, takes a similar stance : "It is about a woman who is responsible for the death of 300 Jews - and her greatest shame is being illiterate."

In Germany

Among the actors, Kate Winslet received a lot of praise from the German-language criticism . It was admirable, magnificent and rich in nuances, and rightly received an Oscar. There were also approving mentions for David Kross. Ralph Fiennes, on the other hand, was said to be playing underchallenged here, showing a very poor performance and, because of his role as concentration camp commandant on Schindler's list, took some getting used to or was a poor choice.

Cinema magazine found that in the “disturbingly fascinating” film the director did the right thing to focus on the love story instead of moralizing. Hanns-Georg Rodek von der Welt remarked that the pictures were polished as "typical of the Weinstein brothers" and even showed the concentration camp in high gloss. But the interlocking of many time levels succeeds confidently in a "film that asks more intensely about moral standards than any other for a long time." The change in the perspective of the perpetrators is necessary "so long after the end of the war". The subject is the suffering of those born afterwards, which should not be confused with an attitude that emphasizes that the Germans also suffered in the war. The universal issue affects all countries where people have to deal with crimes of previous generations. The film treats it contrary to Hollywood's good / bad schemes with European sensitivity. Jan Schulz-Ojala from Tagesspiegel said similarly that Michael was the manifestation of the moral dilemma of the first German post-war generation in relation to their parents: “You cannot judge and understand at the same time, unless you judge yourself.” Michael does not feel sorry for himself the perpetrator. The only thing that is incredibly forgiving is that the Jewish survivor puts Hanna's tea caddy next to the photo of her murdered family, as if the perpetrator and the victim had a common heritage. The film follows the novel "with high intelligence," and its dialogues reinforced the immorality of the crimes.

At Marion Löhndorf from the taz , the strip left an ambivalent impression. On the one hand, he is looking for sentimental effects and the “consciously naive emotional feeling”, in which the Holocaust remains a mere backdrop, on the other hand, he makes serious efforts not to dissolve the banality of evil. In search of Hanna's motive for action, he is "in a precarious situation: Is the unspeakable leveled by its supposed comprehensibility, namely the illiteracy of the figure?" The problem is the view of the perpetrator, an attractive, mysterious seductress. Daniel Kothenschulte from the Frankfurter Rundschau felt that the transfer of the novel to the medium of film had not been successful, and that the Oscar nomination for best film was incomprehensible to him. The film is the opposite of a razor-sharp memory, an empty nostalgia : "elegiac, saturated with film music and kept in those warm, sometimes brownish tones with which the cinema often recommends the past." Winslet is above all reproach because her figure is made up and paper. In a second review of the world , Elmar Krekeler found that the perpetrator was portrayed mildly and that in the end she experienced a redemption that was not due to her . Nonetheless, Winslet deserves the Oscar for her courage to be ugly, "despite all her beauty, she gives Hanna a harshness, a coolness, a stubbornness that just barely prevents you from sympathizing with her." Leaning “film. The story has been given a framework plot that interrupts its course several times. That shifts the perspective from a self-tormenting preoccupation with guilt to a "beautiful, darkened contemporary history summer love story, to which moral, legal, philosophical messages are stuck like stickers."

Like other literary film adaptations, these weaknesses of the original are relentlessly revealed, judged Martin Wolf in the Spiegel . This is “not a film about the Holocaust, but rather an embarrassing study of the self-pity of a misguided lover.” Far too late, the film shows “that there were supposedly people who had worse experiences with SS men than with them going to bed". Daldry should have found pictures for the big issue of guilt, but he only repeatedly shows Michael's "suffering expression" and a "tastefully illuminated concentration camp memorial". Star Winslet couldn't be a bad person per se. The canonization of Hannah is obscene. Ulrich Kriest from film-dienst thought the erotic scenes were atmospherically dense , otherwise he panned the production. Even the novel is "precocious, self-pitying and poorly crafted", and Daldry's "poor" film adaptation is even worse. Where the book conveyed the youth's emotional shock in subjective memories, the film wanted to force its audience to pity a Nazi perpetrator who was sometimes treated unfairly by life. The "tastefully draped stirring piece" with a "picturesque" visit to the concentration camp is naive in view of the delicate subject. Kriest found outrageous how the film relates the suffering of victims and perpetrators to one another. The contrast between Hanna's meager cell and the luxurious apartment of the New York Jewess is on the verge of anti-Semitic resentment. The worldwide success of the novel was a mystery to Thomas Assheuer by the time . With the figure of the illiterate, the book separates National Socialism from the intellectual-cultural, "somehow Greek-Christian [n] substance of the Germans", which is held innocent. The film does not deny the existence of serious guilt and barbarism. However, he tries to superimpose the trauma with another complaint, "the complaint about the loss of cultural identity." This complaint becomes obscene if it gives the impression that the Germans are just as victims as the Jews. In the film, the “naturally very rich” Jew said that the Germans should finally stop remembering the concentration camp. “How good that the Jews themselves draw a line, it was high time. In return, one might assume, the Germans forgive the Jews for tormenting them with memories of Auschwitz for so long . "

Review mirror

positive

Mixed

Rather negative

negative

Awards

Despite numerous critical voices about the allegedly trivializing representation of Hanna Schmitz by Kate Winslet, the film lives through the achievements of the British actress. In 2009, Winslet was honored with numerous film prizes for Der Vorleser :

The film also received nominations for the Golden Globe Award in the categories of Best Picture - Drama , Best Director and Best Screenplay .

There were also nominations for the BAFTA Award in the categories of Best Film , Best Director , Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography .

There were also Oscar nominations in the categories of Best Film , Best Director , Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography .

Audio film

In 2009, Bayerischer Rundfunk produced an audio description of the film. It was used on television broadcasts and can be found on the DVD. The image description spoken by Annette Wunsch and Bernd Benecke was awarded the Audience Award of the German Audio Film Award in 2010.

literature

  • Bernhard Schlink : The reader [novel]. 72nd edition. detebe 22953; Diogenes, Zurich 1997, ISBN 978-3-257-22953-0 .
    • Bettina Greese et al .: Bernhard Schlink, The Reader. With materials for the film. Revision. In the series EinFach Deutsch: teaching model . Schöningh, Paderborn 2010, ISBN 978-3-14-022490-1 .
    • Helmut Flad, Ekkehart Mittelberg: Bernhard Schlink, the reader. Lesson models with templates. Cornelsen, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-464-61634-5 (= LiteraNova ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Zander: The reader star: David Kross and the blushing before the sex scene - Nachrichten Kultur - DIE WELT. Die Welt , February 27, 2009, accessed March 11, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Release certificate for Der Vorleser . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2009 (PDF; test number: 117 041 K).
  3. ↑ Age rating for Der Vorleser . Youth Media Commission .
  4. ↑ Official site
  5. ↑ The reader  ( 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. . filmmag.de; Retrieved March 22, 2009@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.filmmag.de  
  6. ↑ Ed Meza: “Reader” receives German funds . In: variety.com on October 26, 2007; Retrieved March 22, 2009
  7. ↑ Monica Roman: Miramax books “Reader”. In: variety.com on January 8, 2008; Retrieved March 22, 2009
  8. ↑ Hanns-Georg Rodek: As if you were adopting a strange child. In: Welt Online from November 8, 1999; Retrieved March 22, 2009
  9. ^ David Hare: Truth and reconciliation . In: The Guardian, December 13, 2008, accessed March 22, 2009
  10. ↑ Press booklet for the film, p. 9.
  11. ↑ Michael Fleming / Ed Meza: Winslet replaces Kidman in “Reader”. In: Variety, January 8, 2008, accessed March 22, 2009
  12. ↑ a b A. Popovic / F. by Mutius: Kate Winslet replaces pregnant Nicole Kidman. In: Berliner Morgenpost from January 8, 2008, accessed on March 22, 2009
  13. ↑ "The Reader" canceled - Nicole Kidman pregnant. In: ntv.de on January 8, 2008, accessed on March 22, 2009
  14. ↑ viviano.de: "The Reader": Kate Winslet was only the fourth choice. Retrieved March 22, 2009
  15. ↑ film portal: "The Reader". In: filmportal.de , accessed on December 5, 2017
  16. ↑ Participation of the Philharmonic Children's Choir of the Dresden Philharmonic
  17. ↑ Anne Thompson: 'Reader' gig was tricky for Daldry ( Memento of the original from February 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on variety.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.variety.com
  18. ↑ a b c d The reader. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on August 21, 2012 .
  19. ↑ Alex Jacobi Audiovisual Intelligence GmbH: Ulrike Stürzbecher - voice of Jennifer Aniston & Kate Winslet. Retrieved on February 26, 2018 (German).
  20. ↑ a b The Reader at Rotten Tomatoes (English), accessed on January 30, 2014
  21. ↑ a b The Reader at Metacritic (English), accessed on January 30, 2014
  22. ↑ The reader in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  23. ↑ Kate Winslet - The Reader is 'worst Holocaust film ever made' . "[...] the worst Holocaust film ever made [...] This is a film whose essential metaphorical thrust is to exculpate Nazi-era Germans from knowing complicity in the Final Solution. [...] Illiteracy is something more to be ashamed of than participating in mass murder [...] "
  24. ↑ Oscars 2009: Kate Winslet's Holocaust movie The Reader faces renewed Jewish criticism . "Essentially, it takes a woman who serves in, is responsible for, is complicit in, you pick the words, in the deaths of at least 300 Jews - and her big secret shame is that she's illiterate."
  25. ↑ a b Jochen Schütze: The reader. In: Cinema No. 3/2009, p. 40.
  26. ↑ a b c d Hanns-Georg Rodek: In bed with the German past. In: Die Welt , February 6, 2009.
  27. ↑ a b c Daniel Kothenschulte: Guilt and Silence. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , February 26, 2009, p. 33.
  28. ↑ a b Jan Schulz-Ojala: The immorality of love . In: Der Tagesspiegel , February 26, 2009, p. 27.
  29. ↑ a b Elmar Krekeler: In bed with the German past. In: Die Welt , February 26, 2009, p. 25.
  30. ↑ a b Ulrich Kriest: The reader. In: film service. No. 5/200, pp. 28-29.
  31. ↑ a b Martin Wolf: Punishment is a must. In: Der Spiegel , February 21, 2009, p. 145.
  32. ^ Marion Löhndorf: An extremely attractive perpetrator. In: taz , February 6, 2009, p. 27.
  33. ^ Thomas Assheuer: German cleaning . In: Die Zeit , February 26, 2009, p. 42.
  34. ↑ The Reader in the Hörfilm database of Hörfilm e. V.
  35. ↑ 8th German Audio Film Award 2010