The wrong general

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Movie
German title The wrong general
Original title Il generale della Rovere
Country of production Italy France
original language Italian
German
Publishing year 1959
length 133 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Roberto Rossellini
script Piero Zuffi
Sergio Amidei
Diego Fabbri
Indro Montanelli
Roberto Rossellini based
on a story by Indro Montanelli
production Moris Ergas
Alain Poiré
music Renzo Rossellini
camera Carlo Carlini
cut Cesare Cavagna
Anna Maria Montanari
occupation

The False General is an Italian-French film drama from 1959, set during the Second World War. Directed by Roberto Rossellini , Vittorio de Sica plays as the title hero and Hannes Messemer as his German opponent. The film is said to be based on a true story.

action

Genoa , winter 1943. Emanuele Bardone is a typical petty crook of that time who somehow tries to get through the difficult war years. With charm, shrewdness and a certain amount of chutzpah, he manages to keep himself afloat financially with his scams. He does not even stop at the suffering of the relatives of incarcerated Italian partisans and resistance fighters. He coerces money from their relatives, who trustingly hand over everything to him, believing that he would stand up for the prisoners. Despite all the money he earns with the betrayed hope of saving the inmates, Bardone is regularly broke, because his gambling addiction repeatedly brings him to the brink of ruin. His partner, the dancer Valeria, occasionally has to help him out of the self-inflicted malaise. One day, Bardone went overboard with his cleverness. A woman from whom he once again took money because she believed he could do something for her captured husband finds out that the Germans shot him long ago. She then denounced Bardone to the enemy. As a result, it falls into the hands of the Germans. His counterpart, SS-Standartenführer Müller, does not seem to be joking and makes it clear to Bardone that he faces the death penalty if he does not cooperate with his department.

Müller demands of Bardone that he should play Badoglio-General Giovanni Braccioforte della Rovere, a supporter of the resistance, who was mistakenly shot by German soldiers . In this masquerade, Bardone was supposed to be smuggled into resistance fighters in the San Vittore prison in Milan in order to get a key piece of information from the inmates: the real name of the leader of the resistance, who is only known by the code name “Fabrizio”. Nolens volens Bardone slips into this role and soon plays General della Rovere so perfectly that he soon believes in his true calling as the leader of the resistance movement. The lousy crook and rip-off who had previously lived at the expense of the people he cheated on is beginning to become a new person. Bardone is rediscovering lost values ​​from yesteryear as well as his patriotism and decency. Although Müller has promised him freedom if he reveals the true identity of "Fabrizio", Bardone changes sides in view of his inner purification and begins to delay SS Müller. Now even a million lire as Judas wages and Müller's promise to leave Switzerland freely can no longer do anything: Bardone prefers to be shot rather than to become a traitor. And so he and ten other men, including Jews, are executed by German soldiers , not without first shouting “Long live Italy!” With some pathos.

Production notes

The fake general was shot in Italy within six weeks in July and August 1959. It was premiered on August 30, 1959 during the Venice International Film Festival in a rough version, as the final material was still being edited. The official mass start in Italy took place on October 7, 1959. The German premiere took place on April 14, 1960.

The buildings were designed by co-screenwriter Piero Zuffi, and Vera Marzot designed the costumes .

For director Rossellini, after a five-year break from feature films and the ensuing separation from his wife Ingrid Bergman , with whom he had worked regularly until the end of 1954, this production meant a return to entertainment cinema and at the same time to cinematic neorealism.

Awards

The false general has received numerous awards and has been nominated for several other awards:

Reviews

“With the return to the subject of resistance, this film was supposed to bring about the artistic comeback of the director Roberto Rossellini ( Rome, open city ), who recently had to accept multiple failures. The solid basis is a story by Indro Montanelli, which goes back to a real incident: A little Neapolitan crook falls into the clutches of the SS in 1944, whose boss promises him his release if he is smuggled into a partisan prison as a captured Badoglio general, to find out the identity of an important prisoner there. The crook takes on the role, but plays himself into it so much that he does not commit the required betrayal, but rather the cry, 'Long live Italy!' on the lips, with the partisans. In this story and the comedic play Vittorio de Sicas the charm of the film is exhausted - the director is practically absent. "

- Der Spiegel No. 18, from April 27, 1960

In Films 1959/61 the following can be read: "The psychological description was not convincing, the documentary, on the other hand, has an urgent warning force."

The lexicon of international films says: “Rossellini's film suffers from an unbalanced mixture of psychological pathos and documentary simplicity. The lead actor, who is well versed in comedies, pushes the neorealistic style of the time completely into the background. "

"As he did before with Ingrid Bergman, Roberto Rossellini drives his first male star Vittorio De Sica to the end of the night, to the most extreme misery, where failure and victory coincide."

In Rossellini's biography, the film's large personal dictionary wrote: “The series of artistic and commercial flops did not end until 1959, two years after Bergman separated from Rossellini. The Italian remembered his neorealist roots and returned to the world that hehad evoked with such great impactin Rome, open city in 1945. The false general and it was night in Rome once again conjured up the horrors of war and fascism for the individual. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The wrong general on Prisma.de
  2. ^ Films 1959/61. Handbook VI of the Catholic film criticism. P. 45
  3. ↑ The Wrong General. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed November 10, 2015 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ The false general on filmmuseum.at ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2015 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.filmmuseum.at
  5. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 6: N - R. Mary Nolan - Meg Ryan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 641.

Web links