The salvation hunters
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The salvation hunters |
| Original title | The Salvation Hunters |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1925 |
| length | 65 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Josef von Sternberg |
| script | Josef von Sternberg |
| production | Josef von Sternberg, George K. Arthur for World Film Company and United Artists |
| camera | Edward Gheller |
| cut | Josef von Sternberg |
| occupation | |
| |
Die Heilsjäger (original title: The Salvation Hunters ) is an American silent film drama from 1925, with which Josef von Sternberg made his directorial debut.
action
A young man who lives near a port has given up all hope of a better life. He is unemployed and homeless. According to the young man, the world is divided into two types of people, the unsuccessful and impoverished "children of the mud" and the happy and wealthy "children of the sun". Together with his cynical lover, the young woman, he more or less successfully collects leftover food in order to at least not go hungry. When a “brutal man” also wants to court the girl, the young couple goes to the big city - the young man shies away from open confrontations with his rival. The couple takes an orphan boy into town who lost his parents in a car accident and was also tortured by the "brutal man".
The three of them are initially disoriented when they are discovered by a man who offers them free accommodation in his house. Secretly, however, the landlord hopes that the young man will not find a job and that the girl - a beauty - will then be forced to prostitute herself because of the financial hardship. The young man does not actually find a job, but the girl refuses to accept the landlord's advances. Ultimately, the landlord takes the young couple out to the country, where he approaches the girl. But that's where the young man finds his courage and can beat up the landlord. The young man has found his hope and now believes that he belongs to the children of the sun: "It's not the conditions, it's not the environment either - our trust controls our lives!"
The young man, the young woman and the child walk together towards the sunrise.
Production history
After he had already gained some experience in film in a film repair workshop and as an assistant director, The Salvation Hunters marked the directorial debut for the 31-year-old Josef von Sternberg. His name was still so unknown to the film world that he only received a budget of $ 5,000 from the small, independent production company World Film Company. His goal was to pave the way to Hollywood with this film . The Salvation Hunters is often referred to as the "first American independent film " because of its independent production under a low budget . A large part of the film was also financed by the main actor George K. Arthur , the most famous actor in the film, who had wanted to try his hand at being a film producer for a long time and took his chance here.
The film was shot in San Pedro and Los Angeles , among others . With his dark, provocative, socially critical drama, Sternberg turned away from conventional Hollywood films as much as possible. In 1948, Sternberg stated that Salvation Hunters was the only true work of art of all his films that proclaimed his artistic credo.
reception
The Salvation Hunters has received increasing attention in recent years . The visual impression of the film is particularly praised, which is created among other things by a skillful handling of light and shadow. Arte wrote about the German television premiere of The Salvation Hunters on November 17, 2015: “The visually impressive film is a parable of the American dream and tells the story of three young people in search of happiness. He is less interested in telling an emotionally disturbing story than in showing conditions: conditions of strangeness in an inhospitable country, of waiting and fatalism. Only when they [the characters] take their fate into their own hands do they develop into individual characters. Salvation from the old ego of indifference and submissiveness, that is the salvation of the 'seekers of salvation' ”The lexicon of international films noted that Salvation Hunters was the only film besides Anatahan from 1953 that Sternberg could make with complete artistic freedom.
Criticism of the film when it was released was divided. Bruce Guerin (born January 18, 1919; † June 27, 2012), who played the orphan, was more than eighty years after the film's release, was amused that Salvation Hunters is receiving a positive reception today: “Some critics wrote at the time that it might be that worst movie ever! ”, Guerin recalled. Nevertheless, Sternberg's debut film - for a cheaply produced independent work - developed into a relative surprise success and earned it the hoped-for attention.
United Artists founders Charlie Chaplin , Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford were particularly pleasantly surprised by the film, which was distributed in American cinemas through their production company United Artist. The three film greats were so impressed that they signed Sternberg with United Artists. For Charlie Chaplin as a producer, Sternberg directed the film drama A Woman of the Sea in 1926 . This film was supposed to help up the struggling career of Chaplin's former leading lady and friend Edna Purviance . Apparently the finished film product was so uncommercial that Chaplin never released A Woman of the Sea in theaters. The film is now considered lost. Nevertheless, Josef von Sternberg made the leap to becoming a famous director at the end of the 1920s with films like Underworld and His Last Command .
Chaplin also spotted the lead actress for his next film while watching Salvation Hunters in the still unknown Georgia Hale: today's classic Gold Rush .
The DVD release by the Austrian Film Museum was supplemented by a video essay by film historian Janet Bergstrom, Josef von Sternberg, Salvation Hunter .
Dubbing
On behalf of arte and ZDF , the American jazz pianist Brad Mehldau set the film to new music in 2015. The Austrian Film Museum brought in 2016 in the Edition Filmmuseum The Salvation Hunters with a new music of the award-winning Austrian composer Siegfried Friedrich out.
literature
- Janet Bergstrom, Capturing a Thought: Josef von Sternberg's 'The Salvation Hunters' , DVD booklet, Edition Filmmuseum No. 105, 2016
Web links
- The Salvation Hunters in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ "The Salvation Hunters" at Konzerthaus
- ↑ Biography at the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Josef von Sternberg at Prisma
- ↑ "The Salvation Hunters" at Arte ( Memento of the original from November 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Salvation Hunters. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 11, 2017 .
- ↑ Bruce Guerin at the Internet Movie Database
- ↑ Obituary for Bruce Guerin in the 2012 Independent
- ↑ "The Salvation Hunters" at Arte ( Memento of the original from November 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ engl. Wikipedia article on "A Woman of the Sea"
- ^ IMDB Josef von Sternberg, Salvation Hunter
- ^ DVD The Salvation Hunters , Austrian Film Museum
