The Marriage of Mr Mississippi (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The marriage of Mr. Mississippi |
| Country of production | Germany Switzerland |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1961 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Kurt Hoffmann |
| script | Friedrich Dürrenmatt based on his play of the same name |
| production |
Artur Brauner for CCC, Berlin Lazar Wechsler for Praesens, Zurich |
| music | Hans-Martin Majewski |
| camera | Sven Nykvist |
| cut | Hermann Haller |
| occupation | |
| |
The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi is a German-Swiss feature film from 1961 by Kurt Hoffmann . OE Hasse , Johanna von Koczian and Martin Held play the leading roles .
action
The story is based on Dürrenmatt's multi-layered, satirical tragic comedy, greatly coarsened, simplified and, unlike in the original, chronologically.
One signpost, two directions: one points to Oxford, the other to Moscow. This is how the film begins. Two men shake hands and go in different directions. During one of the Christian faithful Mr. Mississippi, the Bible draws under his arm to the west, the other, Frédéric René Saint-Claude, has Capital of Karl Marx there. From the off you can hear: "Two friends decided to change the world. One through the law of Moses, the other through the world revolution." Now one is dead and the other has poisoned his wife. But both deaths are inextricably linked.
From now on, attorney general Florestan Mississippi and Saint-Claude's widow Anastasia are at the center of the ongoing process. She confesses to Mississippi that she recently killed her husband. The public prosecutor then made a confession, namely that he had also poisoned his spouse, wife Madeleine. The reason for this was her affair with Anastasia's husband. As atonement for both murderous acts, Mr. Mississippi offers Anastasia to marry her so that both of them who are now chained together can be forever reminded of their crimes. But Anastasia refuses.
The situation becomes more complicated when Attorney General Sir Thomas Jones (in the play: Diego) comes into play. The Prime Minister orders him to suggest that Mississippi resign from the post of prosecutor. Then he wants to send him to a madhouse. Anastasia, not only literally “murdering men”, immediately begins an affair with the powerful man. Another player in the confusing events is Count Bodo von Überlohe-Zabernsee, a childhood sweetheart of Anastasia. Because of him she had once killed her unfaithful husband in the hope of being able to marry him afterwards. Bodo gets in touch with Mr. Mississippi. Soon all the storylines converge at the culmination point.
Production notes
Filming of Mr. Mississippi's Marriage began on January 16, 1961 and ended in March of that year. The film was shot both in the CCC studios in Berlin-Spandau and in Zurich . The premiere was on June 26, 1961 at the IFF in Berlin. The mass start in German cinemas was on July 5, 1961. The marriage of Mr Mississippi was first shown on television on August 24, 1967 on ARD .
The married couple Otto Pischinger and Herta Hareiter created the film structures, Charlotte Flemming created the costumes. Eberhard Schroeder was Hoffmann's assistant director.
For the almost 69-year-old Arthur Schröder , this was the last movie.
In order to make this “consciously and lustfully confused piece”, as the star critic Friedrich Luft once called the Dürrenmatt model, filmable, the writer had to simplify the complex story of Mr Mississippi's marriage in his capacity as a screenwriter . Dürrenmatt, who once described his stage work, which has been modified several times, as a "stylized comedy with several corpses", declared: "I forgot the play and rewrote it ninety percent."
criticism
In Der Spiegel it was said: “Although the Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt simplified his play of the same name, which he himself described as a" stylized comedy with several corpses ", for cinema purposes into an easily understandable popular edition (SPIEGEL 10/1961), director Kurt Hoffmann was the punch line by no means grown. Instead of presenting the confusing accumulation of cynicisms about democracy, the church and Bolshevism absurdly, nimble and irresponsible, he alternated between beer-serious and simple-minded "Spessart" -lamauk. Of the main actors (including OE Hasse, Martin Held, Johanna von Koczian, Hansjörg Felmy), only Charles Regnier finds his way around: he plays - as always - Charles Regnier. "
The Lexicon of International Films wrote: “A film version of Dürrenmatt's play that has been diluted to a farce. The author's original intellectual discomfort with our world is being gambled away in too many little directorial ideas. In addition, the role of the woman consuming and murdering men takes up an excessive amount of space, which falsifies the basic tendencies of the play. Stylistically successful: the introduction. "
The online version of Cinema wrote : “Three fanatical do-gooders fall victim to themselves. Dürrenmatt's template has more bite. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dürrenmatt: "Justice Crisis" in: Der Spiegel from March 1, 1961
- ↑ Der Spiegel, issue 30 of July 19, 1961, p. 58.
- ↑ The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi in the Lexicon of International Cinema , accessed January 11, 2014.
- ↑ The marriage of Mr. Mississippi on cinema.de