The white devil
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The white devil |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1930 |
| length | approx. 111 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alexander Wolkoff |
| script | Alexander Wolkoff Michel Linsky based on the novella “ Hadschi Murat ” by Leo Tolstoy |
| production |
Gregor Rabinowitsch Noé Bloch |
| music | Michel Michelet , Willy Schmidt-Gentner , Marc Roland , Michail Glinka |
| camera |
Curt Courant Nikolai Toporkoff Reimar Kuntze |
| occupation | |
| |
The White Devil is a 1929, later, German silent film by Alexander Wolkoff with Iwan Mosjukin in the lead role.
action
At the end of 1851, during the Tsarist era in the southern Russian border area. The mountain peoples of the Caucasus doggedly defend their independence against the troops of Tsar Nikolai I. In Hajji Murat , whom everyone calls the “white devil”, the hopes of the villagers who are holding a festival rest. The attractive dancer Saira has her eye on the handsome Caucasian, much to the displeasure of her uncle Shamil , one of the leaders of the locals. He verbally attacks Haji Murat, but before the two men can fight, the village is attacked by Russian soldiers. Many men and women are kidnapped by the intruders, including Saira. Shamil then calls on his people to stand up to the Russians and fight them wherever they are found. Prince Voronzeff , commander-in-chief of the Russian army, then sends his soldiers to combat Shamil and his people. Hajji Murat and his horsemen surprise their opponents by blowing up a rock and take numerous Russians prisoners. When Murat and his men return to the village, Shamil insults him as a traitor for not immediately killing his Russian prisoners. It comes to a head and the isolated Hajji Murat has to flee, accompanied by only a handful of his closest confidants.
When Murat learns that Shamil has placed his teenage son Jussuff under arrest, the white devil is deeply angry and wonders how he could get revenge on Shamil. He even considers taking the side of the Russians and requests an audience with Tsar Nikolai. He is ready to grant him mercy and not to prosecute him for his "offenses" in the past, should he take part in the military operations against the rebellious Caucasian mountain people. Hadschi Murat now gets to know the splendid life at the Petersburg court and is quartered with the commander of the tsarist palace complex. The man has a young son who reminds the white devil of his own child Yusuf, who is in Shamil's hands. The Caucasian quickly settles in at court. At a dance ball of the imperial ballet school, Hajji Murat in his white tribal dress makes an impression on the highest society in Saint Petersburg. But he is not the only local representative of his village. Murat can't believe his eyes when he discovers a dancer who is performing for Tsar Nicholas: it's Saira!
She is anything but voluntary at the Tsar's court, as Murat knows all too well. Nikolai pursues her penetratingly with his amorous desire. Nelidova, the monarch's secret lover, observes his unsuccessful advances with increasing discomfort. Nelidova then approaches Hajji Murat and claims that Saira is in great danger. But this is only an act of desperation born out of jealousy: Saira really wants to arrange an unexpected encounter between the Tsar and Haji Murat, as the Emperor plans to visit Saira in her chamber to spend the night with her. When there is a knock on Saira's bedroom door, Haji Murat is already with Saira. After the tsar has opened the door, the white devil and Saira use the element of surprise to escape. Nelidova now believes that she has the tsar all to herself again. Meanwhile, the white devil and Saira escape from the environment of the tsar.
Saira and Haji Murat marry at the earliest opportunity. Tsar Nikolai, however, is not ready to be fooled by the Caucasian and this dancer. He has long since instructed his commander-in-chief, Prince Voronzoff, that he should force Hajji Murat to attack Shamil and his people, because Saira has again fallen into the hands of the Russians and has become the tsarist bargaining chip to Hajji Murat in order to make him commit this act of loyalty to the Force crown. But the white devil remains a completely patriotic Caucasian and refuses to launch the attack on his mountain people. Shamil has meanwhile decided to kill Yusuf in the next three days as atonement for his father's alleged betrayal. A friend of Hajjis succeeds in freeing Saira on Easter Vigil, when the Russians have just started the procession. Her husband is also able to escape the Russian knout, pursued by tsarist soldiers. Now he wants to put himself at the head of his own people in the fight against Russian bondage and oppression.
When Shamil is about to wall Murat's son alive in a rock wall, his niece Saira rushes over and makes it clear to the brutal leader of the rebels that Hajji has never betrayed him. Hajji Murat, the white devil, dares to throw himself into the fray with the Russians to stop their advance against his home village. In the end only those of his comrades are at his side. In combat he is hit by an enemy rifle volley that seriously injures him. At the last moment, Shamil's fighters rush over and save the dying man. Hajji is put on his white horse by his people and still makes it back to his home village. There he introduces his new mother Saira to Yusuf, who is now at large. Before the white devil dies, Haji Murat and his eternal adversary Shamil are reconciled.
Production notes
The white devil came into being in the transition from silent to sound films. Although this production works in some scenes with sprinkles of sound (e.g. rifle and cannon shots) and musical interludes (singing of the Don Cossack Choir ) and has isolated fragments of speech, it is still largely a silent film. Shooting began on May 25, 1929 and ended on August 10, 1929. The outdoor shots were taken in the southern French Alps, and in Switzerland, in Nice, Grenoble and Leningrad. In this city, today's St. Petersburg, the recordings of the great opera of the palace and the Easter procession were made.
When the first censorship bill was submitted on January 24, 1930, The White Devil was 3,017 meters long, divided into twelve files, and was banned from young people. The second original on January 30, 1930 measured ten files with a length of 3,195 meters. Again a youth ban was issued. A youth-free version with a length of 2890 meters, divided into ten acts, was censored on February 17, 1930 as a silent film. The premiere took place earlier, on January 29, 1930, in Berlin's Ufa-Palast am Zoo .
The rating “artistic” was given for the sound version.
Noé Bloch was in charge of production, and Fritz Rotter provided the lyrics . Among other things, the film features the song by Marc Roland Beats my heart ... Alexander Loschakoff and Wladimir Meinhardt created the film structures, and Boris Bilinski designed the costumes . Fritz Seidel and Walter Rühland , who made his film debut here, were responsible for the few sound effects . The later Hollywood director Anatole Litvak served Wolkoff as assistant director and also took over the production management. It sings the Don Cossacks led by Serge Jaroff . With the exception of Rotter and the two sound engineers, all of the aforementioned were stranded Russians in exile as a result of the October Revolution in Western Europe.
On the person of Haji Murat
The Muslim Hadji Murat (the end of the 1790s - 1852) belonged to the people of the Avars and was during Muri thinking Rieges (1827-1859) next to Imam Shamil , a central leader of the resistance struggle of the North Caucasian peoples of Dagestan and Chechnya against the Russian occupiers.
Foreign language versions and remakes
Of The White Devil , a French-language version under the title was Le diable blanc and an English name The White Devil made.
In 1948 the same material was remade in Italy as Il diavolo bianco and ten years later in an Italian-Yugoslav co-production under the title Hadschi Murad - Under the Knout of the Tsar .
Reviews
“Hajji Murat's private interweaving of fate is switched into the historical events of the Caucasian struggles, here captured in great pictures: the girl who loves him is captured and kidnapped by the Cossacks. He himself gets into a quarrel with the head of his family, Shamil, and flees with a few loyal followers - to find asylum at the headquarters of the Russians. The white devil, the terror of the enemy, the ardent patriot of his people, must surrender. Circassian wise men, recorded by the Don Cossack choir, wild folk dances give this prelude to the drama a mood-saturated acoustic backdrop. A bomb role for Ivan Mosjukin. The Circassian uniform sits indescribably on his tight body, and it is a complete pleasure when he stretches on his white horse. A folk hero as he is in the book. He has the contours! In the game there are certainly limits to his means: but a better, a more convincing Haji Murat will not be found in the world. (...) Alexander Wolkoff did ... a great directorial work. With these dimensions of the film, he was faced with unusual tasks and solved them, gave the curiosity what the eye is, and demonstrated to the highest degree what is known about him: an excellent taste, a structured overview and a sure sense of style . (...) He has a good instinct for the atmospheric, and especially he knows how to bring the high mountain landscape to an impressive effect. In contrast, the St. Petersburg brochures provided are partly noticeable according to the scenery ... The photography of Curt Courant and Nikolai Torkopoff is masterful and superior to exhibitions. Sound film means were not used ineptly for the success. "
The Österreichische Film-Zeitung reported in its edition of February 1, 1930: “The pictures showing the life, the pictures and the war campaigns of the Caucasians are among the most beautiful and worth seeing that has been shown in the film so far. Thousands of real Circassians make up the extra series of these scenes. "
In Vienna's Neue Freie Presse , Fritz Frankl wrote two days after the Vienna premiere in the edition of February 5, 1930: “Wolkoff… is actually a pure war film in the first part… The second part has big presentations… You can see the splendor of the Tsar’s court, the Splendor of the Winter Palace, a ballet performance in the opera in the presence of the imperial house, finally an Easter celebration, a symphony of the most wonderful pictures. The ending takes place again in the Caucasus (…) These final scenes are a brilliant achievement by Ivan Mosjukin. (...) In Mosjukin's strong performance, not only in the acting but also in the art of riding, that of Fritz Alberti, who gives Tsar Nikolai I less as a tough despot but more as a lecher with characteristic features, is worthy of the line. The beautiful Lil Dagover plays a seductive lady-in-waiting, Betty Amann shows very gracefully the torch and sword dance as well as the toe technique of the Petersburg ballet school. In addition to the director Wolkoff, the cameramen Kurt Courant and Nikolai Toporkoff deserve the greatest praise for creating atmospheric landscapes and wonderful interiors that make the film worth seeing. Of the background music, the songs of the Don Cossacks are the most beautiful, whose deep basses and strikingly high tenor voices come into their own. "
Karlheinz Wendtland wrote that the film was "deliberately designed as a silent [film]", because one wanted to offer "a top performance" once again in this medium. After completion, however, one could “no longer venture onto the big city screen with a silent film”. For example, “Schmidt-Gentner wrote a perfectly fitting, great music”, and Serge Jaroff with his Donkosakten was signed. The result is a "thoroughly Russian film". "The director Wolkoff and main actor Iwan Mosjukin (1889-1939) as well as almost all the players and extras [were] Russians". The films “live” by the way “from Mosjukin's unbroken acting skills”. Wendtland also found the film “a single glorification of the struggle for freedom and heroism, based on a story by Leo Tolstoy. It remains to be seen whether this homage in an almost mystical glorification is to be ascribed to the Russian emigrant scene or to Ufa. Everything made a deep impression on the audience at the time, it shook him. This also applied to the silent film version that was shown in the province. "
Web links
- The white devil at filmportal.de
- The White Devil at the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The white devil at murnau-filmtheater.de
- The White Devil , film clip with the song In der Schmiede , performed by the Don Kosaken Chor Serge Jaroff
- The White Devil Movie Magazine (special issue)
Individual evidence
- ↑ "The White Devil". In: Österreichische Film-Zeitung , February 1, 1930, p. 16 (online at ANNO ).
- ↑ "The White Devil". In: Neue Freie Presse , February 5, 1930, p. 9 (online at ANNO ).
- ^ Karlheinz Wendtland: Beloved Kintopp. All German feature films from 1929–1945 with numerous artist biographies born in 1929 and 1930, Verlag Medium Film Karlheinz Wendtland, Berlin, first edition 1988, second revised edition 1990, pp. 25, 26, film N5 / 1930. ISBN 3-926945-10-9