The creation of the Confederation
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The creation of the Confederation William Tell - The Birth of Switzerland |
| Country of production | Switzerland |
| original language | Swiss German |
| Publishing year | 1924 |
| length | 180 (Switzerland 1924), 95 (USA 1925) minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Emil Harder |
| script | Emil Harder Gustav Schmid with borrowings from Friedrich Schiller's Wilhelm Tell |
| production | Emil Harder |
| camera | Max Fassbender |
| cut | Emil Harder (Switzerland) Hoey Lawlor (USA) |
| occupation | |
| |
The Origin of the Confederation is a monumental, Swiss-American historical silent film from 1924.
action
"This film traces the founding of the Swiss Confederation by leaning colorfully on historical facts, legends and Schiller's drama".
Central Europe, in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. The citizens of Waldstätten grumbled because they felt patronized, harassed and enslaved by the bailiffs in the service of the Habsburgs . The first signs of a peasant revolt can be felt all over the region. In a very short time, events occur that further aggravate the precarious situation: Arnold von Melchtal, a young citizen of Unterwalden, accidentally injured an imperial soldier and now has to flee to the mountains from the concentrated wrath of the state. Landvogt Landenberg then expropriated him and, as a cruel act of revenge for his escape, orders that Arnold's father be gouged out. Then Landvogt Wolfenschiessen, who tries to offend Baumgarten's wife, is killed by the farmer for this act of violence.
Herrmann Gessler, the Vogt of Uri and Schwyz, in turn publicly humiliates the landowner Stauffacher. From now on, the despot orders, every citizen has to bow in deference to his hat impaled on the central square of Altdorf . Only the courageous Wilhelm Tell refuses this greeting, whereupon Gessler challenges him. There was the famous apple shot on the head of Tell's son Walter, the flight on the boat from the Vogt's henchmen and finally Gessler's murder in Hohlen Gasse on the way to Küssnacht. The foundation stone for a general popular uprising has been laid.
In 1291 the Rütli oath takes place , and as a result the castles of the Habsburg lords are attacked and set on fire. On a private level, representatives of the nobility and the bourgeoisie come together when Heinrich von Hünenberg, a knight from Zug, falls in love with the daughter of the Altdorf blacksmith. As Landvogt Landenberg also has an eye on the fair maiden, he has her kidnapped and brought to Sarnen Castle. Since the people are already in the mood to storm the barricade, this castle is also stormed in January 1308. Ritter Hünenberg chases the Vogt into the snow-covered regions of the Brünig-Haupt mountain . Placed there, Landenberg reveals where the blacksmith's daughter is now being held captive. Things escalate when Albrecht von Habsburg, Duke of Austria, is murdered. His successor Leopold I now orders massive punitive measures against the revolting confederates. In the Battle of Morgarten , however, his army was decisively defeated on November 15, 1315, when the forest sites let boulders and tree trunks roll down on the imperial knights from the heights of the surrounding mountains. The first step towards the formation of one's own nation, the Confederation, has been taken.
Production notes and trivia
The creation of the Confederation is the first large-scale production in the history of film in Switzerland, initiated and financed by Swiss abroad living in the USA who wanted to create a cinematic homage to their old homeland. The shooting took place from January to early September 1924. The locations were Seedorf, Kaltbach, Grossstein, Königsfelden, Schachen an der Aare, Aegerisee, Mesocco Castle, Sargans and Bellinzona.
The creation of the Swiss Confederation was an extremely ambitious project by Emil Harder , an absolute film amateur who had emigrated to the USA and who wanted to fulfill a lifelong dream and whose only film was to remain this. The film had its world premiere on September 13, 1924 in the Zurich Tonhalle. From November 4, 1924, The Origin of the Confederation could also be seen in Bern. In Geneva, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, the film ran on November 14, 1924 in the Palais Electoral. The Americans, officially co-producers, first saw the film on May 17, 1925, when The Making of the Confederation was screened in New York's Cameo Theater. Given the devastating reviews (see below), it is uncertain whether the film was ever shown outside of these two countries.
In its original version, the creation of the Swiss Confederation was a bombastic three hours. Since this duration seemed unreasonable for a silent film audience, the film (for the American audience) was radically reduced to 95 minutes.
The buildings, costumes and props were designed by Eugen Probst . Hans Trommer served as assistant director. Heinrich Wettstein and Josef Hackl took over the production management. The historical advisory board included Prof. Dr. Hans Lehmann and Dr. Eduard Achilles Gessler. The production costs amounted to the then proud sum of 95,929 US- $, which corresponds to the Swiss equivalent of over 500,000 francs at the time.
The German cameraman veteran Max Fassbender , the crew's only full film professional, traveled to Switzerland in October 1923 to see the locations in advance for this major project. He stayed in Switzerland for a full year and did not return to Berlin until October 1924. Fassbender was the only one of those involved in this film who emerged unscathed from this "fiasco" (see review).
The historical weapons were made available by the State Museum; the storks seen in the film came from the Basel Zoo.
To those involved
- Of the actors, only Heinrich Gretler and Zarli Carigiet later achieved national fame. Both artists made their film debut here.
- Tell artist Dr. Felix Orelli was a doctor from Zurich.
- Director Emil Harder ( St. Gallen August 4, 1885 - Florida January 12, 1949) was a trained baker.
- Gustav Schmid , co-author of the film and actor of the priest Rösselmann, was once the director of the Altdorf “Tell Games”.
- Karl Schmid-Bloss , the performer of Landvogts Wolfenschiessen, was a baritone and future director of the Zurich Opera House.
- The actors (actually singers) Maria Ulbrich (soprano) and Rudolph Jung (tenor) came from the Stadttheater Zürich .
- The interpreter of the Austrian Duke Albrecht I was the British playwright George Roberts (1845–1930).
- Eugen Probst , employed here as film architect and costume designer, was a renowned architect and restorer of important sites in Swiss history such as Hohle Gasse near Küssnacht and Sarnen Castle, both locations for this film.
- The 19-year-old Hans Trommer at the time of shooting , who was to celebrate an outstanding artistic success in 1941 with his production of Romeo and Juliet in the village , made his debut as assistant director here.
- The majority of the extras (a good 120 men and women) came from the Altdorf “Tell Games”.
Reviews
The reception of the film has been devastating throughout. Hervé Dumont writes:
“Despite stormy premieres in Zurich and Geneva (and in Bern even in the presence of the Federal Council),… despite outrageous adulation by the associations, the criticism remains devastating. (…) The film mountain gives birth to a mouse: the syntax is anticipatory (without large shots), the structure disheveled, the sluggish rhythm is laden with endless subtitles (Schiller's rhymes) and the actors, captivated in pompous tableaux, maintain pathetic poses or even gesticulate to excess. The press ranked the film in the rank of a village theater performance. (…) This heroically comic failure silences those - still too numerous - Swiss who believe that one can rival Berlin or Hollywood simply by having an amateur film 'our beautiful mountains'. ”In view of these reactions, Harder was able to den Do not sell film to Germany or Great Britain.
“The emergence of the Swiss Confederation”, a big man-addicted epic in the uninspired, theatrical passion play style, financed by the US-Swiss, became an artistic and economic fiasco. Only Faßbender's camera work showed a high level of professionalism. "
literature
- Hervé Dumont: History of Swiss Film. Feature films 1896–1965. Lausanne 1987. Film No. 59: The Origin of the Confederation , pp. 85 ff.
Web link
- The emergence of the Confederation in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Hervé Dumont : History of Swiss Film. Feature films 1896–1965. Lausanne 1987, p. 85
- ^ Dumont, p. 87
- ↑ 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 2: C - F. John Paddy Carstairs - Peter Fritz. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 625.
- ↑ Harder on ancestry.com
- ^ Dumont, p. 87