The Woman in Gold (2015)
The woman in gold (original title: Woman in Gold ) is an American drama film directed by Simon Curtis with Helen Mirren in the leading role. The film was shot in Vienna , Los Angeles , Beverly Hills and London , among others . It had its premiere on February 9, 2015 at the Berlin International Film Festival 2015 . The film opened in the United Kingdom and the United States on April 10, 2015. The German theatrical release was on June 4, 2015.
action
The feature film tells the story of the return ( restitution ) of some Klimt paintings that the National Socialists had expropriated ( looted art ) with some freedom from the actual events . The dramaturgy primarily highlights the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer ( Adele Bloch-Bauer I , later also referred to as the "Golden Adele" ), which Gustav Klimt painted in 1907. The Viennese industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer had commissioned and paid for the portrait of his wife. After eight years of legal battle against the Republic of Austria, it was returned to the heirs in 2006, represented by Maria Altmann , niece of Adele Bloch-Bauer.
background
The paintings had been confiscated by the Nazi regime and were not returned to the family by the Republic of Austria after 1945 . The film goes back over a hundred years to Gustav Klimt , fades in Maria Altmann's story, especially the days of the invasion of the Wehrmacht in Austria in 1938, but above all depicts Maria Altmann's long-term struggle for five Klimt works around the year 2000 and after and the Inglorious attitude that official Austria took at the time as the beneficiary of the Nazi art theft at the instigation of Education Minister Elisabeth Gehrer towards Maria Altmann and her co-owners. The Austrian Gallery Belvedere is subordinate to the Ministry of Education , in which the "golden Adele" was seen as one of the main attractions for almost sixty years.
In their fight, as the film shows, Altmann was supported by the young and initially naive US lawyer E. Randol Schoenberg , grandson of the Viennese composer Arnold Schönberg . The film tells how his initial interest in a good fee gave way to the fundamental need to redress the injustice that the Bloch-Bauer family had suffered - also based on their own family history. The actually agreed fee was 40 percent of the sales proceeds for the paintings; Although the exact amount has not been made public, there is talk of more than $ 100 million. Schoenberg donated seven million of this to the construction of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust .
As Olga Kronsteiner wrote in the Wiener Standard , the Austrian publicist Hubertus Czernin portrayed in the film by Daniel Brühl had found the documents relevant to Altmann and informed the heirs of their rights. According to Kronsteiner, its actual significance for the case was reduced in the film in favor of the role of lawyer Schoenberg.
The woman in gold was inspired by Stealing Klimt , an 86-minute documentary film made in 2007, as well as by E. Randol Schoenberg, Hubertus Czernin and many others.
Maria Altmann saw the pictures returned in 2006 and died in 2011 at the age of 94.
Deviations from reality
As critics in Austria have noted, the film shows some deviations from reality:
- "Because it was certainly not Maria Altmann's lawyer and grandson of the composer Arnold Schönberg who started the cause," wrote Olga Kronsteiner in the Wiener Standard . “An impression that arises precisely because certain sequences lack factuality. It takes a back seat in favor of the actor, who is allowed to collect sympathy points from the audience. ” Instead, Hubertus Czernin informed the heirs and researched documents.
- The film claims that his father was a member of the NSDAP about Czernin, who “handled the National Socialist art theft as meticulously as no other journalist in Austria”, “got the Bloch-Bauer restitution case in motion” and found Adele Bloch-Bauer 's will was the "initial spark" for his research. In fact, as Stefan Grissemann corrects in the news magazine profil , Czernin only found out about this membership in 2006, long after his research on the art theft. In addition, father Czernin was ultimately accused of high treason by the Nazi regime.
- Thomas Trenkler complained in the Viennese daily Kurier that the film offered “a falsified view of a true story.” The restitution story was “retold in a very tendentious manner”. The film claims that the protagonists had to observe an impending submission deadline; However, there is no such period in Austria. Czernin was cautious, but was portrayed as intrusive in the film. “The previous history - and with it Czernin's achievements - are completely concealed.” Regarding Maria Altmann, Trenkler stated: “The worst thing is probably the flashback to 1938, when she left her sick father in Vienna. In reality she stayed with him - despite the dangers: “I would never have left my father. He died of natural causes in July 1938. "And only then did she and her husband flee."
German version
The German-language dubbed version of Die Frau in Gold was produced by FFS Film- & Fernseh-Synchron GmbH, Munich / Berlin , based on a dialogue book by Antonia Ganz and directed by Antonia Ganz. The voice actors were:
|
|
The audio description produced by the German Hörfilm GGmbH for the DVD release and spoken by Uta Maria Torp was nominated for the German Audio Film Award in 2016 in the cinema category.
reception
The film received mixed reviews. At Rotten Tomatoes , 53% of the reviews are positive, out of a total of 100 reviews; the average rating in the Internet Movie Database is 7.3 / 10. The critical consensus states: " Woman in Gold lives from its talented leading actors, but the strong portrayal of Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds is not enough to offset the disappointing implementation of an exciting and true story."
Web links
- Woman in Gold in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Woman in Gold at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Catalog entry of the Berlinale (146 kB)
- The documentary " Stealing Klimt " - about the fight for Klimt's masterpiece "Woman in Gold"
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for The Woman in Gold . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , June 2015 (PDF; test number: 152 057 K).
- ↑ Age rating for The Woman in Gold . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Film information at www.filmstarts.de , accessed on March 10, 2015.
- ↑ Magdalena Miedl: Raubgold on a large scale. In: Salzburger Nachrichten , Salzburg, February 10, 2015, p. 7.
- ↑ Summary of the case on the website of the Vienna news magazine profil from January 21, 2006
- ↑ Facebook, Twitter, Show more sharing options, Facebook, Twitter: Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust bears witness. October 14, 2010, accessed June 11, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ An unwinnable case becomes a golden ticket. March 25, 2015, Retrieved June 11, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ Alumni Profile: E. Randol Schoenberg '88. June 1, 2011, accessed June 11, 2020 .
- ^ Return of a Treasure. May 13, 2015, accessed June 11, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Olga Kronsteiner: "The woman in gold": Faithfulness to facts is a bad dramaturge. In: Der Standard , Vienna, May 29, 2015, p. 27, and the sheet's website.
- ↑ Klimt Stealing
- ↑ Tom Teodorzcuk: "The Woman in Gold," Christies Article , Christies.com, Apr. 9, 2015
- ^ Stefan Grissemann: Golden Ratio. in: News magazine profil , Vienna, No. 23, June 1, 2015, p. 92 f.
- ↑ Thomas Trenkler: The "Goldene Adele" case, told in a tendentious manner (title on the website) or the heroic epic of a lawyer. Daily newspaper Kurier , Vienna, June 2, 2015, p. 23, and website of the paper.
- ↑ The Woman in Gold. In: synchronkartei.de. Retrieved June 27, 2015 .
- ^ The woman in gold in the Hörfilm database of Hörfilm e. V.
- ^ Woman in Gold (2015). Rotten Tomatoes , accessed April 24, 2015 (English): "Woman in Gold benefits from its talented leads, but strong work from Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds isn't enough to overpower a disappointingly dull treatment of a fascinating true story."