Down with the weapons! (Movie)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Down with the weapons! |
| Original title | Ned med våbnene |
| Country of production | Denmark |
| original language | Danish |
| Publishing year | 1914 |
| length | 75 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Holger-Madsen |
| script |
Carl Theodor Dreyer based on the novel of the same name by Bertha von Suttner |
| production | Ole Olsen for Nordisk-Film , Copenhagen |
| camera | Marius Clausen |
| occupation | |
and in the prologue: Bertha von Suttner | |
Down with the weapons! is a Danish silent film from 1914 by Holger-Madsen . It is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Bertha von Suttner , published in 1889 .
action
The action takes place in 19th century Austria . When a war breaks out, the aristocratic Arno von Dotzky is called to arms and has to move to the front. One day his wife Martha receives news that her husband has fallen. Four years later, Martha von Dotzky met the handsome professional officer Frederik von Tilling and married him. When another war breaks out, Martha tries by all means to prevent her current husband from advancing to the front. However, after a short vacation and the failure of the peace negotiations, her husband returns to the front. But beforehand, Frederik promises his wife as soon as he is able to quit working with the weapon.
Martha remains without news of him for a long time, and so she travels to the front, almost mad with worries, to see his whereabouts. Although she misses her husband, she realizes on the spot, as she has to stalk over a myriad of war invalids piled up on top of each other, the misery and distress of the soldiers. The hitherto rather apolitical woman from a good family becomes a staunch pacifist. Back home, she finds her husband only slightly wounded. Soon the consequences of the war also find their way into the Tilling house: A rampant cholera epidemic kills Martha's beloved sister Rosa, and her father dies of a broken heart as a result of this loss. Martha and Frederik von Tilling decide to work intensively for the preservation of peace between the peoples in the future.
backgrounds
The highly topical film Put your arms down! was filmed in Denmark until mid-July 1914 and, on the eve of the looming First World War, acted like a single warning to the peoples of Europe and a call to preserve the fragile peace. In many warring and even neutral states, the film was shown late or not approved by the censors until 1918. The world premiere was on August 14, 1914 in the USA, and on September 17, 1914 the film was shown at the World Peace Congress in Vienna . The first performance in neutral Denmark took place on September 18, 1915 in Copenhagen's Paladsteatret. In Germany, where the film in 1914 photo-stage and the cinematograph was mentioned, to lower the weapons! published in February 1917 and awarded by the UFA in 1918 . Immediately after the armistice, on November 20, 1918, UFA advertised the film in an announcement with the following words: “The cinema is the people's theater! Lead the masses on the path of knowledge, help raise the spirit of the League of Nations! Down with the weapons! is the call of the world, the call of every nation! The words shine brightly, the flame of freedom blazes brightly after years of murder! Down with the weapons! Is the movie of the time! The film for all theaters! ... We are all about the new times! Our announcement is: Pax Aeterna - Eternal Peace. "
Immediately before her death, Bertha von Suttner gave the producing Nordisk-Film her permission to write a screenplay based on her novel. This task was taken over by the later world-famous director Carl Theodor Dreyer . The "Friedens-Bertha", as she was mocked shortly before, gave, visibly ill, a short introduction to the subject before the film began. In the United States, where the film opened in New York, The Guns Down! Mainly used by convinced isolationists as an (argumentative) weapon.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Black dream and white slave. German-Danish film relations 1910-1930. A CineGraph book, page 140, Munich 1994
- ↑ "Put your arms down!" On silentera.com
- ↑ Black dream and white slave. Page 140
- ↑ cf. Marguerite Engberg: Between Copenhagen and Berlin. In: Black dream and white slave. Page 10
- ↑ Hans J. Wollstein in movies.nytimes.com