The Magic Flute (1975)

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Movie
German title The Magic Flute
Original title Troll flutes
Country of production Sweden
original language Swedish
Publishing year 1975
length 135 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Ingmar Bergman
script Ingmar Bergman
Libretto (original): Emanuel Schikaneder
Libretto (Swedish): Alf Henrikson
production Måns Reuterswärd
music Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Orchestra: Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester
Conductor: Eric Ericson
camera Sven Nykvist
cut Siv Lundgren
occupation

Die Zauberflöte (original title: Trollflöjten ) is Ingmar Bergman's highly acclaimed film version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte from 1975 . It was commissioned on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Swedish Broadcasting Company and first broadcast on Swedish television on New Year's Day in 1975. The film was later shown in cinemas internationally.

background

production

The production costs were between 2.5 and 4 million Swedish kronor (equivalent to around 1.5 to 2.5 million German marks in 1974 ), making The Magic Flute the most expensive Swedish television production up to that point.

According to film historian Peter Cowie, Bergman wanted to revive the performance from 1791 in the Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna as true to the original as possible. He hoped to be able to shoot the film in the historic Drottningholmer Schlosstheater , one of the few baroque theaters that still exist in the world . However, the stage was rated as "too fragile" to accommodate a film staff . While the exterior shots shown at the very beginning of the film were made in Drottningholm, the stage was rebuilt in every detail in the studios of the Swedish Film Institute under the direction of Henny Noremark, complete with side stages, curtains and wind machines .

The sound was not recorded in sync with the film, instead music and vocal pieces were recorded beforehand and sung lip-synchronously by the actors during filming.

Film start

The Magic Flute was shown on Swedish television on January 1, 1975, opened in Swedish cinemas on October 10 of the same year and on September 16, 1976 in Germany .

analysis

Adjustments to the template

Compared to the original, Bergman made some significant changes to the content and the course of action. In his version freed from Masonic symbolism and the Isis and Osiris myths , Sarastro is Pamina's father. He keeps his daughter (for morally and legally impeccable reasons) in his care.

The three boys also introduce themselves and are not introduced to the action by the three women, so that in Bergman's version it is obvious from the first moment that the three boys are not in the service of the Queen of the Night. In this way the well-known internal contradictions of the Schikaneder libretto (with the change of the queen from a “good” to a “bad” figure) are absorbed. Bergman's little idea as a director serves the same purpose, that he had the queen cast a furtive sideways glance at Tamino for a brief moment during her first aria "Zum Leiden bin ich auserkoren", making her performance a calculated, compassionate performance for the audience is unmasked and thus makes their true character recognizable from the outset.

Monostatos does not actually appear as a "black man" (probably with a dark complexion) and, like his helpers, wears a fool's costume, which makes him look more like a caricature of a guard; but when he appears as a sinister, threatening figure, he has taken off the fool's cap.

During Papageno's song “A Girl or a Woman”, Papagena wrestles in the background in a dumb dialogue that can be looked at deliciously from a priest for permission to disguise himself as an ugly woman; Her encounter with Papageno then remains entirely on the uninhibited humorous interpersonal level, in that all dramatic moments (the blackmailed oath of loyalty; Papagena's re-transformation as a magic effect; the theatrical priestly intervention or the strong thunder) are dispensed with.

In Act 2, Bergman changed the order of the appearances drastically, so that some individual scenes separated by Schikaneder's " parallel montage " are combined into coherent sequences of action. The above-mentioned scene with Papageno and Papagena (from two combined into one) is preferred; Only then, introduced by Tamino's flute playing, does the encounter between Pamina and the silent Tamino with Pamina's aria "Oh, I feel ...", followed immediately by the scene with her suicide attempt and the rescue intervention of the three boys. In direct parallel to this, Papageno's prevented suicide attempt immediately follows, with which the complete Papageno-Papagena happy ending is again brought forward, in order to then - as a climax - let the main action happen in one go, in which initially - initiated by the three symbolic chords - Pamina receives the Magic Flute from a priest, then the choir of the priests (which is much earlier in the original opera) sounds and finally (after the "chorale" of the two armored people) Tamino and Pamina pass the fire and water test, Immediately followed by the invasion attempt of the (now martially helmeted) queen and her entourage including their defense and finally the glorious final scene.

Some numbers of the libretto have been deleted entirely; the prelude to act 2 is played without repetitions. The spoken dialogues have all been tightened up and adapted.

Instead of being in German as in the original, the opera is sung and spoken entirely in Swedish (although the content of the texts has also been slightly changed, so that the gods Isis and Osiris, for example, are not invoked).

Theatrical stylistic devices

Bergman constantly reminds the viewer that they are in a theatrical performance. The audience applauds several times.

During the overture , a young girl's face soon fills the picture. As a result, a large number of other faces from the theater audience will be shown, from people of different origins, ages and genders. The girl from the overture is faded in briefly throughout the rest of the film and you can see how she is fascinated and moved by the action on the stage and reacts to the change of mood with her facial expression. Sometimes a change in your facial expressions heralds a change on stage before it is actually shown.

When the scenes change, the mechanisms of the theater become clearly visible: When the Queen of the Night appears, day also changes to night and the audience can follow the changes in the stage background from the perspective of the theater audience. Likewise, when Papagena and Papageno finally meet each other in a winter landscape beaming with joy, the backdrop changes from winter to summer to the sound of the carillon, while the two actors take off each other's parts of their winter clothes.

When the three women who advanced into the temple area to Tamino and Papageno are driven out again, the three boys operate a smoke machine to enhance the theatrical effect.

In addition, insights into what is happening behind the stage and behind the curtain during the break are also provided during the performance. In the scene about immediately before Papageno's first appearance, still in the singer's cloakroom, he suddenly jumps up from a nap, startled by the beginning of the prelude to his song, and runs rumbling towards the stage, playing his five whistle tones several times along the way and is hastily supported by an extra in disguise in buckling up his birdcage in order to be on stage just in time for his song.

During the break (as announced in writing in a television broadcast), Sarastro's people gather on the stage to chat; Sarastro himself sits and reads a “ Parsifal ” score while the camera pans to one of Monostatos' cronies (a boy with dark make-up and in a fool's costume) who is reading a comic book. Pamina and Tamino are playing chess in the locker room, and the Queen of the Night and one of her ladies smoke a cigarette right in front of a sign saying "Smoking prohibited by the police!" Finally, before the curtain goes up for the second act, the boy from earlier looks through a peephole in the curtain into the auditorium, followed by Sarastro, who does the same for him at another point in the curtain.

Cinematic stylistic devices

In addition to the emphasis on the theater as a performance location, cinematic possibilities are also repeatedly used. The camera very often moves close-up and close- up to the faces and facial expressions of the actors. As in all Bergman films (in collaboration with Bergman's long-time cameraman Sven Nykvist ), the artistic possibilities of sophisticated lighting design (light - dark; light - shadow) are used extensively.

When Tamino looks at the medallion with Pamina's picture, you not only see it as a rigid image, but as if it were transmitted vividly from a live camera, later a monostatos peeking out over her shoulder with a gloomy expression, which already anticipates future problems.

Using a film trick, the Magic Flute, after it was introduced and introduced at the beginning, lifts itself freely in the air or, in the final scene, can be grasped by Sarastro out of the air, which illustrates its quality as a magic agent.

When Papageno and Pamina want to escape, running towards the camera, Monostatos suddenly appears in front of them and blocks their way - an optical surprise effect that is only possible through the image section in the film.

The scene in the snow, with Pamina, who is determined to commit suicide, and the three boys, which almost looks like an outside shot, is very cinematic with its changes of camera perspective.

In the final scene of the film, theater and cinema are also synonymous with each other: the actions merge seamlessly when the camera, after initially lingering for a long time with Pamina and Tamino, the couple hugging and kissing in the midst of cheering and dancing people, now slowly moved away from the stage toward the auditorium, the way makes for a reduced floating partially transparent link and eventually in the course of Tracking the lovingly heart forming Papageno and Papagena detected, surrounded by a cheerful group of children (obviously the small previously sung small Papagenas and Papagenos). After a quick fade-in , you can see the falling stage curtain as a long shot , with the opera and film ending with applause from the audience.

Often the film viewer is addressed directly by the actors looking directly into the camera (normally frowned upon in the film, but here as a desired consistent stylistic device). " Ad spectatores ", d. H. Sentenzen-like passages aimed at the (film and theater) audience are shown in large letters (in the original Swedish of the film) on boards, and at one point Papageno even waved them over directly. In a similar way, you can see the large inscription at the entrance to the fire and water test, the text of which the two armored men solemnly recite.

Bergman uses special camera positions to repeatedly show individual processes simultaneously from the perspectives of different people, for example Sarastro's “aria” from Pamina and Monostatos as well as the queen and the three women. Tamino's and Pamina's walk through fire and water is not only followed by the audience, but also by the queen and her ladies as well as by Sarastro and the priests. At the end, the attack of the queen and her entourage is framed by a close-up of Pamina's face, frozen in horror, which can be interpreted as her horror or nightmare. - Even during his bird catcher song at the beginning Papageno is viewed with interest from Papagena from behind the stage - long before she actually meets him.

Position in Bergman's work

As early as 1968 Bergman used an excerpt ("O ew'ge Nacht!", 1st act, 15th appearance) from the Magic Flute in one of his films, the drama The Hour of the Wolf . Other works in which Bergman resorted to compositions by Mozart were Durst (1949), An die Freude (1950), The Smile of a Summer Night (1955) and Face to Face (1976).

Reviews

“Mozart's comedic drama about the battle of the forces of light and darkness, about heavenly and earthly love in a congenial film version by Ingmar Bergman. Although conceived as a TV production, the design, which is designed to make a big impact, only comes into its own in the cinema. Bergman was not content with filming a stage performance, but uses the camera as a creative means and as a participant in the action; the story, in which the naive and the mythical mix, was reduced to a human level and made understandable for today's audience. Many motifs from Bergman's earlier work can be heard (the brooding search for true communication between God and human being, man and woman), but here turned into an optimistic and bright light thanks to kindness, tolerance, wisdom and love that triumph over loneliness and hatred. An optical and musical enjoyment of rare balance and beauty. "

- Lexicon of international film


“Music and spirit, game and idea are a unity that Bergman - and unfortunately it can hardly be said less pathetically - realizes the most beautiful legacy of fraternal humanity: the opera as a certified utopia. [...] Bergman takes the day's victory over darkness, the simple, eye-catching symbolism of the work literally. [...] With every detail Bergman makes it clear that the opera offers the most striking and simplest images for the most complex facts that the Enlightenment has posed as a theme. Namely, how humans can find a balance in their threatened apparatus. Bergman shows the 'Magic Flute' as a search for this harmony that has become music and action. "

- Hellmuth Karasek : Der Spiegel, 1976

Awards (selection)

In addition, The Magic Flute was nominated in 1976 for both the César and the Golden Globe Award in the category “Best Foreign Language Film”. Even with the Oscar ceremony in 1976 , he was in the category Best Costume Design nomination, but could not against Barry Lyndon prevail.

DVD release

Die Zauberflöte is available as a US DVD from 2000, the German publication by Kinowelt / Arthaus (2008) is currently out of print.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hauke ​​Lange-Fuchs: Ingmar Bergman: His films - his life, Heyne, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-453-02622-5 , pp. 222-225 and 299-301.
  2. ↑ a b c The Magic Flute. (No longer available online.) In: Ingmar Bergman Foundation . Archived from the original on September 21, 2013 ; accessed on September 10, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ingmarbergman.se
  3. ↑ a b Peter Cowie: The Magic Flute , essay in the Criterion Collection DVD release from 2000, accessed October 10, 2012.
  4. ^ Ingmar Bergman: Bilder, Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1991, ISBN 3-462-02133-8 , p. 372.
  5. ↑ a b The Magic Flute in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .
  6. ↑ in the film from 31:20
  7. ↑ in the film at 25:13
  8. ↑ He is therefore also referred to here as Mohr (Maure) (English subtitle: "Moor"); the text of his aria (German: “… because a black is ugly”) is retained accordingly (subtitle: “… for my skin's a darkish hue”; the YouTube video with English subtitles is unfortunately no longer available).
  9. ↑ for the first time already in the picture of the medallion (in the film from 26:24); then always in the 2nd elevator.
  10. ↑ in the film from 1:27:25
  11. ↑ in the film 1:28:57
  12. ↑ in the film from 1:36:50
  13. ↑ in the film from 1:36:52
  14. ↑ in the film from 1:49:50
  15. ↑ in the film from 1:52:36
  16. ↑ Film from 2:03:56
  17. ↑ Libretto. Retrieved February 10, 2020 .
  18. ↑ namely the warning of the two priests , which is often perceived as misogynous, about “female tricks” (No. 11), but also the trio of the three boys “Be welcome to us for the second time” (No. 16; instead of Tamino in the film, Pamina receives the Magic Flute, see above) and the farewell ceremony “Shall I meet you, dear! no longer see? ”(No. 19).
  19. ↑ in the film from 1:03:44
  20. ↑ in the film from 1:07:14 and 1:49:50
  21. ↑ in the film from 00:59
  22. ↑ in the film e.g. B. 32:52 (and more often)
  23. ↑ in the film from 10:12 pm
  24. ↑ in the film from 1:46:02
  25. ↑ "There was probably never a more sensual, innocent striptease in the cinema or in the theater." ( Hellmuth Karasek , see web links )
  26. ↑ in the film 1:14:55
  27. ↑ in the film from 1:02:25
  28. ↑ in the film from 1:03:45
  29. ↑ in the film e.g. B. from 21:27
  30. ↑ The New York Times praised him on the occasion of his death as a " Master of Light in Films ".
  31. ↑ in the film e.g. B. from 47:04 ("O eternal night ..."); and much more often
  32. ↑ in the film from 18:05
  33. ↑ in the film from 26:24
  34. ↑ in the film at 29:22 and 2:08:18
  35. ↑ film at 53:06
  36. ↑ in the film from 1:37:52
  37. ↑ in the film from 2:08:30
  38. ↑ a b c s. Klemens Hippel, The Art of Perspective
  39. ↑ in the film from 28:14, 37:50, 54:33, 1:40:59, 1:56:54
  40. ↑ in the film at 37:50
  41. ↑ in the film from 1:53:45
  42. ↑ in the film from 1:21:25 or 1:24:08 and 1:24:43
  43. ↑ in the film from 1:59:45
  44. ↑ in the film from 2:03:58
  45. ↑ in the film 15:50 and 15:58
  46. ↑ 1975 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards , accessed July 24, 2012.