The morale of Ruth half barrel
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The morale of Ruth half barrel |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1972 |
| length | 89 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Volker Schlöndorff |
| script |
Peter Hamm Volker Schlöndorff |
| production | Volker Schlöndorff for Hallelujah film (Munich) |
| music | Friedrich Meyer |
| camera |
Klaus Müller-Laue Konrad Kotowski |
| cut | Claus from Boro |
| occupation | |
| |
The Morals of Ruth Halbfass is a German feature film from the year 1972. Directed by Volker Schlöndorff play Senta Berger and Helmut Griem the leading roles.
action
In the Federal Republic of Germany at the beginning of the 1970s. Ruth Halbfass, the wife of a successful and wealthy corsetry manufacturer, begins to get bored in her golden cage of luxury and monotony. Her husband, an upright, jovial and somewhat corpulent middle-aged man, is now just routine for her and is much more interested in the business than in his lusty wife. One day, through her daughter Aglaia, Ruth met her handsome, young and dynamic drawing teacher, Franz Vogelsang. Both are quickly attracted to each other and begin a passionate affair, which they prefer to live out in the great outdoors.
Things will soon be out of joint. Franz no longer wants to share his new conquest with the boring Erich Halbfass and plans to have him removed from behind. Without Ruth's knowledge he hires two bad guys to do the dirty work for him and murder Erich. The offer of the rascals to Erich Halbfass to let him live if he should pay 5,000 to 8,000 marks instead of the measly 2,000 marks that Franz was willing to pay for the murder leads Erich to unceremoniously remove the two crooks from his house throws. But then Vogelsang's wife Doris, who was careless at an early age, who has meanwhile become suspicious of her husband, who is all too often outside, appears and shoots Erich. Doris is arrested and finally hangs herself in her prison cell.
Production notes
The Moral of Ruth Halbfass was filmed on 25 days between June 14 and July 19, 1971, and premiered on April 14, 1972. Filming locations were Karlsruhe and the surrounding area, the Odenwald and Munich .
Eberhard Junkersdorf was in charge of production, actress Margarethe von Trotta assisted her husband, the director Schlöndorff. Hans Prescher was the editor for the co-producing Hessischer Rundfunk. Hanna von Axmann-Rezzori took care of the equipment and the costumes. The vocal contribution comes from Joseph Schmidt . The well-known editor Claus von Boro ended his work as a feature film editor after this work.
Reviews
“Volker Schlöndorff is making preparations to dupe his culturally conscious interpreters. According to Musil (“The young Törless”), the new attitude towards life of the twenty-year-olds (“Murder and Manslaughter”), Kleist (“Michael Kohlhaas”), Brecht (“Baal”) and an old peasant chronicle (“The sudden wealth of the poor people from Rombach ”) he opens a magazine or a Soraya sheet and films Minouche, or more precisely: the essence of all trivial millionaire, Minouche and murder scandals of this kind. The reactions to it are like a comment on the German film situation: The commercial branch welcomes the prodigal son of "art film", and the critical professional world turns away with a shake of the head. (…) Schlöndorff cleverly keeps the balance between crime thriller, love story, bourgeois stirring piece and malicious parody. He works with optical punchlines and references, plays irony and sarcasm in the banal dialogues, leaves motifs and contexts in the dark; he permanently unsettles the viewer and lures him on wrong tracks. From one scene to another, a character becomes uncomfortable, questionable, or likeable. Senta Berger, who still wants to stamp a stubborn rumor as a bosom star, succeeds in this limbo state. She adorably plays the lover who speaks of great feelings and the self-liberation of women, as "Quick" and "Jasmin" have put it in advance, and who nevertheless cannot break away from her golden cage. At the same time, she envisions an ironic, almost amused distance from this woman and seems to constantly invite us to laugh heartily at Ruth Halbfass’s oh-so-common and understandable morality. Helmut Griem, on the other hand, can hardly find the right tone and remains surprisingly wooden and undifferentiated. However, the role of the intellectual who is incapable of acting and making decisions, courageously called a self-caricature by co-author Peter Hamm, is not very plausible from the book. "
"The discovery of the trivial in art," recognized director Volker Schlöndorff ("The Young Törless") and his screenwriter Peter Hamm, "is tantamount to discovering the truth." With a motley trivial work, they provide the test of their flash of inspiration. (...) Schlöndorff's clothes, elegantly filmed and feathered with irony, proves to be a bright spot in the cinema: Despite an exaggerated tendency to pun (a Mr. Spengler is appended with the "Fall of the Occident" in the dialogue) and shallow sentences ("Whoever has nothing. Can never perceiving one's possibilities ")" The Moral of Ruth Halbfass "is an acceptable counterpart to the similar banal psychodramas by the French master director Claude Chabrol (" The unfaithful woman "), whom Schlöndorff admires very much. Finally, as far as the "truth" is concerned, the discovery of which Hamm and Schlöndorff boast: In German commercial cinema, which has now secured this film originally made for television by buying it back, the courage of clever filmmakers to be entertainingly trivial is almost a peak achievement in the art of what is currently possible. "
“Technically flawless crime comedy with satirical swipes at the double standard of upscale circles. Volker Schlöndorff tries to transfer the cool precision of Chabrol's society melodram to German conditions. "
“At the beginning of the 1970s, Senta Berger was rediscovered in Germany, two directors of the filmmaker generation (Volker Schlöndorff and Wim Wenders) engaged her for their works" The Moral of Ruth Halbfass "and" The Scarlet Letter "; there were films with which she could prove her potential as a convincing character interpreter. "
“One of the few films for which Schlöndorff (" The Tin Drum ") did not fall back on a literature, for which he was inspired by his colleague Claude Chabrol. Conclusion: between satire and crime comedy. "
The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Morals of Ruth Halbfass. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
Web links
- The Morals of Ruth Halbfass in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The morals of Ruth Halbfass at filmportal.de