The Wave (1981)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The wave |
| Original title | The Wave |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1981 |
| length | 42 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alex Grasshoff |
| script | Johnny Dawkins |
| production | Fern Field |
| music | John Anderson |
| camera | Hanania Baer |
| occupation | |
| |
The Wave is an American television film based on the script by Johnny Dawkins and directed by Alex Grasshoff . It is based on a short story by history teacher Ron Jones about his experiment The Third Wave . The film is a so-called "one-hour drama" which, with a net playing time of 42 minutes and commercial breaks, is one hour long. In 2008 a remake was released as a German movie.
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The teacher Ron Jones published a short story in 1972 under the title "The Third Wave - Take as Directed", in which he reported on his 1967 experiment. (Published in German in: Ron Jones, Stories Volumes I-IV, Vol. I.) Johnny Dawkins created the script for the television film from it.
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In a series of lessons given by the history teacher Mr. Ross, which deals with National Socialism , in particular with concentration camps , the deeply affected class raises the question of why the German people did not want to have known about these atrocities and, above all, did nothing about it . The teacher cannot answer this, but he has developed an idea for a project for the next lesson.
From now on all students have to sit upright, be absolutely disciplined and stand up before they can speak. Mr. Ross makes it clear to his students that it is not the individual that counts, but the community . The students have a lot of fun with the new style of teaching, the other outsider Robert even feels “reborn” and belongs to the group.
In the following lesson the symbol of the "wave" is introduced, a white flag with a blue wave symbol in a circle. Mr. Ross coined the buzzwords power through discipline, power through community, power through action . He also distributes ID cards to his students, with some even becoming watchdogs who are supposed to ensure that the teacher's rather strict rules are followed. Almost the entire class blindly follows these guidelines, but the student Laurie is slowly beginning to doubt. Since she is unable to change the mind of her friend David, she writes articles in the school newspaper that deal critically with the wave and its accompanying phenomena.
Guardian David and a few other guardians then try to dissuade Laurie from writing more articles. David gets really rough with Laurie, and just before he almost slaps her, he realizes that she might be right after all. Together they visit Mr. Ross and ask him to end the project. He gives in, but he wants to end it his own way.
The next day the teacher announced that there would be a meeting in the auditorium on the future of the wave, to which only members would be allowed. He claims the wave is not just an intra-class project, but a national one. Perhaps the wave will spread everywhere. David wants to protest, but is asked to sit down. Then Laurie gets up, describes Mr. Ross as a liar and tries to get her classmates to stop believing him. The teacher has both of them lead out of the classroom by mothers.
Shortly before the meeting, Laurie and David plan to get into the meeting, preventing anyone in the audience from believing Mr. Ross, but the building is well guarded. But they succeed, and they mingle with the crowd.
Mr. Ross announces the wave's national leader will speak to the students over television. After only image noise can be seen on two televisions, the students get restless. A schoolboy asks where the leader is, and Mr. Ross runs an excerpt from a Hitler speech on the screen. Then he explains to the students that they all became good Nazis, as blind as they followed his instructions. This would answer the question originally raised in class. The pupils are shocked to realize what has happened to them. The auditorium empties, and Laurie and David are relieved that the teacher has ended the wave. Only Robert, whose purpose in life was the “wave”, remains desperate and seeks support and comfort from Mr. Ross.
The book for the film by Morton Rhue
The story was best known through the book about the film by Morton Rhue . Rhue largely took over the dramaturgical structure of Dawkins' script, but added scenes and characters because the script as the basis for a 42-minute film was too short for an entire novel. Contrary to popular belief, the novel is based on the film and not the other way around.