The Living Corpse (1981)

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Movie
Original title The living corpse
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1981
length 119 minutes
Rod
Director Otto Schenk
production Bodo E. Schwope (Production Manager)
music Rolf Alexander Wilhelm
camera Eckard Kaemmerer
cut Gabi Schambeck
occupation

The living corpse is a German television film made by Bayerischer Rundfunk in 1981 based on the drama of the same name by Lev Tolstoy .

action

Russia in the days of the tsars: Lisa lives separately from her husband Fedja, who drinks too much, wastes his money and hangs out with gypsies. Her mother is pushing for a divorce, especially since her childhood friend Viktor Karenin, a decent and wealthy man, probably loves her and would take her as his wife. Lisa's sister Sascha, however, advises her to keep Fedja. Viktor's mother is also against marriage, since a divorced wife would not be worthy of her honorable son.

Lisa sends Wiktor of all people with a letter to Fedja asking him to come back to her. But Fedja refuses. He wants to do without Lisa because he knows about the love between her and Wiktor and doesn't want to stand in the way of her happiness. In addition, the gypsy girl Masha has fallen in love with Fedja, but her parents are against the connection because he has no more money. Fedja is delaying an official divorce, as this would require an expensive and lengthy ecclesiastical process in which Fedja would have to take sole responsibility for the failure of the marriage.

Fedja wants to kill himself, he has already written a farewell letter to Lisa, but then he can't do it. Mascha has the idea of ​​sending the letter anyway and thus faking Fedja's suizd. They throw his clothes and papers into a river so that one would suspect death by drowning.

Fedja's social decline continues, he sinks more and more into alcohol and self-pity, and his relationship with Mascha has not lasted either. When he is arrested by the police in a bar after a scuffle with another guest, his existence as a "living corpse" is revealed: Wiktor, Lisa and Fedja have to testify before an examining magistrate on charges of bigamy . You don't believe Wiktor and Lisa that when they got married they didn't know that Fedja was still alive. When there is a trial and Fedja learns that even if Lisa's acquittal would be annulled, that is, she would still be bound to him, he shoots himself in front of the courtroom to finally release her.

production

The film was produced in 1981 by Bayerischer Rundfunk and broadcast for the first time on June 26, 1981 on ARD . There have been several previous film adaptations of the drama.

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