Diesel (1942)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | diesel |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1942 |
| length | 109 (1942) 86 (FSK version) minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Gerhard Lamprecht |
| script |
Frank Thieß Gerhard Lamprecht Richard Riedel based on Eugen Diesel's biography Diesel: Der Mensch, Das Werk, Das Schicksal (1937) |
| production | Richard Riedel (Production Group Leader) for UFA , Berlin |
| music | Hans-Otto Borgmann |
| camera | Georg Krause |
| cut | Wolfgang Wehrum |
| occupation | |
as well as a number of minor actors. | |
Diesel is a German film biography from 1942 by Gerhard Lamprecht with Willy Birgel in the title role .
action
1870. The twelve-year-old Rudolf Diesel is sent to Germany by his father, who lives in Paris, because his father Diesel cannot afford a good school education in France. Rudolf's uncle, the teacher Prof. Barnickel, ensures that the bright and technically gifted boy can study at home.
19 years later, the young engineer Diesel wanted to present his recently constructed ammonia engine at the world exhibition , but realized at the last moment that it was a terrible faulty construction. Deeply disappointed by his own inability, Diesel decides to withdraw from research and inventiveness and instead accepts the post of general agent for the ice machine manufacturer Linde. Rudolf's wife Martha and his friend, the Alsatian Lucien Vogel, cannot prevent him from making this decision.
The following years mean for the financially secure Rudolf Diesel and his family - Martha bore him three children - a life of prosperity. The trips through Germany also made it clear to him that the world was waiting for an important invention: the engine that was not powered by open fire and steam. The inventive spirit overwhelmed him, whereupon Diesel quit his secure job and retired to his workshop to tinker with things. His research satisfaction goes hand in hand with considerable restrictions for the family, who now have to part with the spacious apartment and look for much more modest accommodation. Diesel soon had a breakthrough. The inventor found a benevolent supporter in the director of the Augsburg machine works, Heinrich von Buz . But Buz demands that he bring the boss of the Krupp works in Essen on board for a financial contribution.
Krupp is ready to finance the diesel engine, and so begins production of the engines in the Buz factory in Augsburg . After many setbacks, Diesel, with the support of the company owner, who firmly believes in Diesel's invention, is able to present the first serviceable diesel engine after three and a half years. Its inventor became famous overnight, and soon a factory was built in Augsburg that only produced Rudolf Diesel's engines. But the greed for profit of its managing directors soon leads to a significant loss of quality. At the end of this development, the company goes bankrupt. To make matters worse, the engineer Scheuermann also disputes his patent. Diesel then suffers a nervous breakdown, but can win the subsequent lawsuit in the patent court. From then on, his invention triumphed all over the world, and his robust engines were built into vehicles and machines.
Production notes
Filming of Diesel began on February 9, 1942 and did not end until September of the same year. The film was shot in the Hostiwar studios in Prague , in the Carl Froelich sound film studio, Berlin, and in the Ufastadt in Babelsberg . The film passed censorship on October 16, 1942 and was released to the youth. The premiere of Diesel took place on November 13, 1942 in Augsburg. In Berlin, the film did not open until February 9, 1943, in two premiere theaters.
The production costs amounted to 2,349,000 RM . That made Diesel a rather expensive film. By April 1943 the film had grossed 1,941,000 RM.
The film is based on a biography published in 1937 by the writer Eugen Diesel , a son of Rudolf Diesel.
Co-author and production group leader Richard Riedel also took over the production management. By Erich Kettelhut the Filmbauten originate Bruno Suckau took care of the sound.
occupation
The very extensive cast has some special features.
- The twelve-year-old Michael Braun , son of the film director Harald Braun , made his debut here as an actor in front of the camera. He embodied the young Diesel. Braun was never to return to the camera, instead he made a name for himself as a television director in the 1960s.
- For veteran cinema veteran and pioneer Viggo Larsen , Diesel was again the farewell performance.
- Gerhard Lamprecht, who had worked as a silent film director since 1921, enabled a number of silent film actors who had been known to him since his early years and who had once been veritable stars to make small late appearances, including Leo Peukert and Louis Ralph . Like Larsen, both had filmed intensively before the First World War.
classification
The film stands in the tradition of various other large-scale productions of the Third Reich , with which, between 1939 and 1943, larger-than-life personalities of German and Central European history from politics, art and science should be paid homage. These include Robert Koch, the fighter against death , Friedrich Schiller - The Triumph of a Genius , Bismarck , The Great King , Ohm Krüger , Rembrandt , Andreas Schlueter and Paracelsus . The intention behind these, as a rule, very expensive and laboriously produced and top-class film biographies was a political one: the aim was to create an analogy to Adolf Hitler and his "genius" claimed by Nazi propaganda.
Awards
The film received several ratings in 1942:
- State-politically and artistically valuable
- Popularly valuable
- Youth value
Reviews
Boguslaw Drewniak's 'Der deutsche Film 1938–1945', an overview. Düsseldorf 1987, p. 301, wrote: “According to official news, Eugen Diesel worked on the script in a stimulating way. For the client, however, a biographical film was not the “artistic” end goal, because they only wanted to show what was desired. The plot did not extend to the tragic end of the inventor. (…) The subject of the film had a photographic plus compared to the other biographical productions: the technology - with motors, machines, workshops and equipment - was the grateful object of the camera. So the creative process of the great inventor seemed more convincing. The press reported a lot about the work on the film, calling Rudolf Diesel a "man of fanatical tenacity", for some critics Diesel was the "Bismarck of the German machine industry". "
The Swiss film consultant said: “We are putting the new German inventor biography at the top of the cinematic life picture without any concerns. It lacks the ostentatiousness of the Schlueter stripes, but it definitely looks warmer and more immediate. She misses the high-contrast light and shadow effect of the Rembrandt film, but for that she is deeper and more genuine in her sympathetic demeanor and unobtrusiveness. (...) Dignified representational art - especially by Willy Birgel in the leading role, Hilde Weißner as his wife and Paul Wegener as the owner of the machine works Buz - impeccable camera work, well-coordinated sound accompaniment and sensitive game management made a film come into being that is incredibly human- warm tones, unobtrusive but haunting, brings us closer to this fate. "
The lexicon of international films came to the following verdict: "Melodramatically prepared, the star-studded film from the UFA cinema of the war time portrays its hero as an almost superhuman figure who constantly mobilizes new energies in order to realize an idea."
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ulrich J. Klaus: Deutsche Tonfilme, 12th year 1942/43, Berlin 2001, p. 27 f.
- ↑ Der deutsche Film 1938-1945 , p. 385.
- ↑ The film advisor. Lucerne, no.16 from December 1942
- ^ Diesel in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed April 24, 2014.
Web links
- Diesel in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Diesel at filmportal.de