The big leap

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Movie
Original title The big leap
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1927
length 2,931 meters, corresponds to 97 minutes at 22 frames per second
Rod
Director Arnold Fanck
script Arnold Fanck
production Serious warrior
music Werner Richard Heymann ,
Neil Brand (new recording)
camera Sepp Allgeier ,
Hans Schneeberger ,
Albert Benitz ,
Richard Angst ,
Kurt Neubert ,
Charles Métain
cut Arnold Fanck
occupation

The big jump is a cheerful ski and sports film that Arnold Fanck made for UFA in 1927 based on his own script . Erich Czerwonski created the production design and the buildings . The photography was in the hands of Sepp Allgeier , Hans Schneeberger , Albert Benitz , Richard Angst , Kurt Neubert and Charles Métain . Among the actors are Leni Riefenstahl , Luis Trenker and the Berlin cabaret artist Paul Graetz . The Tyrolean cameraman and ski artist Hans Schneeberger played the main role of Michael Treuherz.

action

Gita tends the goats in a mountain village in the Dolomites on the border between Austria and Italy. She takes care of her younger siblings just as touchingly as she does her favorite goat Pippa. Gita is a self-confident young woman, and when her admirers become a nuisance, she escapes into the mountains on bare feet. She has long been friends with the shepherd Toni, her mountain companion who can climb almost as well as she does.

Rich Michel Treuherz comes from the big city in search of relaxation in the mountains. When he meets Gita, he immediately falls in love with her. Toni doesn't like that at all, because he too has grown fond of Gita. However, while Michel has all the advantages of a gentleman who impresses Gita with his sophisticated demeanor, the rather modest hillbilly Toni threatens to fall behind.

In order to fully win Gita's heart, Michel would first have to win the annual farmers' ski race. But Michel has never stood on boards. So he learns to ski, first from Toni and then from Gita, who has given herself first prize. His smart servant Paule can help him with some inventive ideas such as an inflatable ski suit to protect against fall injuries. With this, Michel finally succeeds in winning both the race and Gita's heart.

background

The shooting took place from May 1927 to November 1927 in the Dolomites. The winter and ski scenes were recorded in the Arlberg area near Stuben and Zürs . The production line had Ernst Krieger . The Berlin Film Inspectorate was presented with The Great Leap to Censorship on December 20, 1927 and was declared "free of minors" under the test number B.17658. Even after a further test on January 14, 1928 under test number B.17914, this result remained. The film premiered on December 22, 1927 in the UFA-Palast am Zoo in Berlin. It has also been shown in the UFA distribution in England, France, Italy, Portugal, Denmark and Poland.

The music for The Big Jump was composed by Werner Richard Heymann , who, like Paul Graetz, emigrated from Germany as an artist of Jewish origin after the Nazis came to power in 1933. As his scores have been lost, Neil Brand recorded new music for the restoration of the film by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation in 2005. In 2013 the Israeli musician Tal Balshai tried to reconstruct an accompanying music based on Heymann's compositions.

Oskar Kalbus reported in 1934: “In the Holy Mountain , Leni Riefenstahl only had to ski and dance. Fanck trusted her a lot more. One day he gave her a new manuscript to read. It was a movie fun game and was called The Big Jump  (1927). Leni Riefenstahl read it through, twice, three times. The third time she was determined to faintly admit that she was unable to cope with the physical demands of the lead role. Then she caught Fanck by surprise [...] Leni Riefenstahl has become a daring mountaineer. "

reception

In 1928 the Austrian film magazine Mein Film said: “Anyone who loves the mountains and the fairytale beauty of wintry nature will greet this new work by Arnold Fanck with joy [...] The film offers wonderful nature shots, fabulous sporting and thoroughly enjoyable acting performances. “In 1928 an anonymous reviewer wrote enthusiastically in the German newspaper“ Bohemia ”:“ This is no film like any other, it is a hymn to the miracles of body control. Here sport becomes Bacchic dance. This film picks up the rhythm of the panpipe, and a new Greek culture does somersaults after it. But who can say how and what this film is - it does not fall within the competence of the criticism. Fiddling around with him is pointless. Go and see ... "

Many of today's critics emphasize the difference to Fanck former mountain films and strive names like silent comedy , Klamaukkomödie , sports comedy or grotesque to get closer to the subgenre "Fanck satirized with this Klamaukkomödie the themes of his previous films, but without renounce ski and sports acrobatics . But the comedy is not free from a certain strain. "Or:" The sporting amusement game 'The Big Jump' produced for UFA has none of the seriousness of Arnold Fanck's earlier films. On the contrary: The film is an entertaining, colorful grotesque, and Fanck mercilessly satirizes the genre of mountain films that he himself founded. "

What is undisputed, however, is the performance of the photographers, which was both technical and sporty: “Fanck's camera style influenced all of German filmmaking [...] The pioneering cameramen Sepp Allgeier, Hans Schneeberger, Richard Angst and Albert left the 'Freiburg Camera School' Benitz, Kurt Neubert, Walter Riml, Hans Ertl et al. […] Fanck's cinematic oeuvre moved - and that is why we rightly count him among the avant-gardists - always away from the stereotyped and sometimes rutted tracks of the usual film work. ”The work of the cameramen was partly responsible for the success of Fanck's films: “These cameramen […] keep experimenting with new cameras, lenses and different angles and they find numerous new challenges to detach the camera from the tripod and make it 'movable' . "

The appearance of the actor Paul Graetz, known from Berlin's " Cabaret of Comedians ", as Paule's servant was also highlighted . Graetz took part in several cheerful films in small roles, but what he offers in the big leap "in comedy, animates the film in the most delicious way. It is also astonishing how surprisingly funny Hans Schneeberger, who was a full-time cameraman, fulfills his role as a hypochondriac millionaire at Graetz's side; one can assume that the interaction with Graetz is also responsible for this. ”Graetz was hired because the film was a comedy. He did his job so well, “that after Paule's departure all the good Tyroleans in the parlors and surroundings of the Arlberg were splendidly 'Berliners' ... Paule loved Berlin like hardly anyone else and belonged to this city like his colleague Max Adalbert or the great role models of the Berliner Mother jokes, quick-wittedness, chastity and Kodderschnauze, Heinrich Zille or Adolf Glaßbrenner .

Re-performances

The German Alpine Association presented on the occasion of the exhibition “Rausch der Bewegungs. Unknown ski impressions by Arnold Fanck “works by the mountain film pioneer, including The Big Jump . The introduction was given by Matthias Fanck, the grandson of the mountain film pioneer and curator of the studio exhibition. The film was accompanied by the renowned jazz pianist and composer Michael Lösch from Merano.

At the 59th Trento Film Festival (April 24 - May 4, 2011) the film was shown again with live accompaniment by the musicians Mario Brunello, Cello and Saverio Tasca, percussion and the Trentino Mountaineering Association Choir , which was conducted by Mauro Pedrotti.

The Jerusalem musician Tal Balshai set the film to music based on Heymann's music for the rerun at the festival “That's only once” on July 21, 2013 in the Babylon cinema in Berlin-Mitte. Elisabeth Trautwein-Heymann, the composer's daughter, introduced the film.

The culture channel Arte showed the film on German television in the night of October 30, 2013 in the restored version.

literature

  • Herbert Birett: Sources on film history 1920–1931. Title list of German silent films. (kinematographie.de)
  • Michael Esser: Glistening Shadows: Camera Pioneers of the Twenties. Henschel Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-89487-216-0 , pp. 123-124, 142.
  • Arnold Fanck: “He directed with glaciers, storms and avalanches”. A film pioneer remembers. Nymphenburger Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-485-01756-6 .
  • Heinrich Fraenkel: Immortal Film. Volume 1: The great chronicle. From the magic lantern to the sound film. Part of the picture by Wilhelm Winckel. Kindler, Munich 1956, DNB 451329279 , p. 425.
  • Elisabeth Huber: The “New Bavarian Homeland Film” in the 21st century: Depicted in the cinematic work of Marcus H. Rosenmüller. GRIN Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-656-10163-5 , pp. 23, 95.
  • Oskar Kalbus: On becoming German film art. 1st part: The silent film. Cigarette picture service Altona-Bahrenfeld, Hamburg 1935.
  • Siegfried Kracauer: From Caligari to Hitler, a psychological history of German film. (= Siegfried Kracauer, writings. Volume 2). Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-518-07243-9 , p. 307.
  • Edda Laux: Leni Riefenstahl and her filmmaking during the Nazi era. GRIN Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-638-86605-7 , pp. 9-10 and Note 24, 37.
  • Helma Türk: "Filmland Tyrol!" A journey through Tyrol's film history. Self-published, Innsbruck / Bad Reichenhall 2007, DNB 1012967948 .
  • Friedrich v. Zglinicki: The way of the film. The history of cinematography and its predecessors. Rembrandt Verlag, Berlin 1956, DNB 455810680 , pp. 448, 602-605.

Web links

Illustrations:

Image document:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interview with Ms. Helma Türk, WaRis-Tiroler Filmarchiv, from May 26, 2014.
  2. ↑ Birett, sources [B17658 Grosse Jump, Der 1927]
  3. ↑ with 2000 seats the largest movie theater in Berlin at the time, cf. Zglinicki p. 441 f.
  4. ↑ "When Paule had to go into exile in London, he remained basically unhappy and lonely in heart despite his stage and film successes there. He also died from this lonely heart in Hollywood ..." (Zglinicki p. 603)
  5. ^ British playwright, composer and companion of silent films, cf. Neil Brand in the English language Wikipedia
  6. ↑ Gunda Bartels: Slapstick on keys. Werner Richard Heymann reworked. In: Der Tagesspiegel - Culture. 18th July 2013.
  7. ^ I. Kalbus, p. 92.
  8. ↑ It should be noted that Riefenstahl often had himself doubled during the shooting, e.g. B. by Paula Wiesinger and Maria Sernetz, both in climbing scenes and skiing, cf. Interview with Ms. Helma Türk, WaRis - Tiroler Filmarchiv, May 26, 2014.
  9. ↑ My film. No. 111. 1928.
  10. ↑ cit. after Arnold Fanck: he directed with glaciers, storms and avalanches. 1982, p. 173; however, the date 3 March 1926 given there cannot be correct and must be 1928.
  11. ↑ cf. stummfilm.at
  12. ↑ Film music magazine . July 31, 2007.
  13. ^ Zglinicki, p. 602.
  14. ↑ Helma Türk: Filmland Tirol - A journey through Tyrol's film history. 2007, p. 18.
  15. ↑ Interview with Ms. Helma Türk, WaRis-Tiroler Filmarchiv, from May 26, 2014.
  16. ^ Zglinicki, p. 603.
  17. ↑ Wochenanzeiger München, January 21, 2010, cf. Advance notice on wochenanzeiger.de
  18. ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives: trentofestival.it )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.trentofestival.it
  19. ^ Gunda Bartels: Slapstick on keys: Werner Richard Heymann reworked. In: Der Tagesspiegel. July 18, 2013. (tagesspiegel.de)
  20. ↑ Silent film with live music accompaniment. ( talbalshai.com ( Memento from February 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ))
  21. ↑ The big leap. arte.tv ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )