Dr. Robert Schumann, devil romantic
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Dr. Robert Schumann, devil romantic |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1999 |
| length | 80 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Ernst-Günter Seibt Christine Soetbeer |
| script | Christine Soetbeer Hanns-Josef Ortheil |
| production | Kairon-Film Filmproduktion GmbH |
| camera | Horst Zeidler |
| cut | Magdolna Rokob |
| occupation | |
| |
Dr. Robert Schumann, Teufelsromantiker is a German television film by Christine Soetbeer and Ernst-Günter Seibt , which deals with the life of the composer Robert Schumann .
action
A “poor musician” says he is reciting a poem in a market square. The apparently confused old man formulates the fate of Robert Schumann prophetically in his verses, who is listening to his lecture. Schumann decides to study law in Heidelberg .
In addition to his studies, he devotes himself rather carelessly to composing and playing the piano. He prefers to enjoy student life with friends, get drunk and have affairs. When playing the piano, the first “hearing improvement” becomes apparent: a struck note does not want to fade away for Schumann and almost drives him crazy. Schumann renounces drinking and idleness. After a drinking tour, a diabolical second self awaits him in his house, accusing him of his inarticulate life. Schumann would have “never begged for eternity” because he would not sacrifice his life for art. If Schumann really wanted to be creative in genius, he would have to swap his life for art. “Music - life becomes sound”: Schumann agrees to the devil's pact.
Schumann gets to know Clara Wieck , who plays his works in front of Schumann's circle of friends and who fascinates him. At the same time, he is frustrated because he cannot play the piano fast enough. Once again, a struck note in his head does not want to fade away and he feels paralyzed. He knows that only Clara Wieck's love can keep him from going insane. Wieck's father forbids Clara to deal with Schumann and takes legal action against the planned marriage. The judge dismisses the action. In the intoxication of emotions, Schumann wrote his first symphony within four days . However, he realizes that every musical skill still only dissolves into different tones and feels empty. He accompanies Clara to Moscow for a guest performance, but claims in front of a guest that he is not musical himself. During the Dresden May Uprising he stayed in Dresden , but half-madly he had the vision of walking in a white, snowy desert.
A concert in Düsseldorf turns out to be another triumph for Schumann, who appears as a conductor. He is writing his new piece "Manfred", based on the work of Lord Byron , which resembles his own biography. During the performance of "Manfred", in which Schumann conducts again, his diabolical self appears out of nowhere and breaks the conductor's baton. Schumann wakes up in his bed, walks across a market square with jugglers and throws himself from a bridge into the Rhine . He struggles with his diabolical self - both try to drown the other, but Schumann is saved from the water by two men. A last shot shows him listless in the sanatorium at Endeich .
production
The film was set in Hamburg and Wuppertal . The TV premiere of the film, which is also available under the alternative title Musica - Dr. Robert Schumann, the devil romantic , took place on June 16, 1999 on the Arte station . It was the last feature film that actor Will Quadflieg worked on .
criticism
The Lexicon of International Films rated the film as a “documentary portrait enriched with game scenes” of Schumann, in which “the life adventure of the musician is fanned out using motifs from his romantic cosmos”. Schumann's work is "closely linked to his constant journey into madness". The film is a "scenic paraphrase of [Schumann's] biography" which tries to combine the "interweaving of his real biography with the fantastic, unreal story of his work and suffering".
Brigitte Ehrich sees the film as an "expressive, unusual portrayal of a life story", which also stands out due to its cast; the list reads like a "who's who of the Hamburg theater scene - and beyond".
In the features section of the FAZ, Ellen Kohlhaas describes the filmmakers' implementation of Schumann's play of forms with the words: “This film is wonderfully entwined between dream sequences and their distorted images in philistine reality. He is linguistic not only in the ingeniously exalted tone of romantic exuberance, but also in the narrative energy with which he equates language with music and images. The images dance like papillons, by which Schumann did not mean butterflies, but - deliberately ambiguous - the larvae in the final chapter of Jean Paul's "Flail Years". The images play with particles from Schumann's life and work, as the composer puzzled letters in tones and made them dance. The film plays, often ironically, with itself and its visual conventions, as Schumann created a dream fantasy from the play of forms in a synaesthetic fusion of the arts. "
Kohlhaas writes about the participating artists: “The old bard Will Quadflieg creates further ironic distance in this vortex of art of living. In all its transience, he persistently recites great literature as if it were eternal. As Robert Schumann, Michael Maertens surprisingly changes from the adolescent hothead, for whom the spirit of wine is part of the genial spirit, to the apathetic, almost mute early spirit, who anticipates his own dawning in the Asylum of Endenich by telling the story of Byron's hero Manfred. Bettina Kurt remains more one-dimensional than Clara Wieck: she is always the self-confident child prodigy who, entirely father's product, vigorously asserts herself. Wolf-Dietrich Sprenger does not portray the old Wieck unsympathetically as a music practitioner who, with so much knowledge of the mechanics of fingers and keys, does not even begin to soar: He is a pragmatic counter-figure to all the deceptive air kisses that emerge from Schumann's brain. "
In the conclusion of the FAZ article, Kohlhaas sums up the work of art in film: “The friction between appearance and reality, art and reality illuminate the film at times in a Jean-Paul style, at times even like a crazy invention by ETA Hoffmann's fictional character Johannes Kreisler, which Schumann liked so much. From fragments of life, sounds, dreams, words (from the pen of Christine Soetbeer and Hanns-Josef Ortheil) a fantasy is put together, which in its opposition and reluctance also suggests the essence and magic of romanticism. "
The world author Thomas Delekat, otherwise known for his motorcycle columns, criticized the film at the time as a documentary film that "hardly learned anything about Schumann, but a lot about [director] Seipt (sic!)" would: "In the film, Schumann drowns and sinks and dies in the flood of images and sayings ... Schumann and his Clara (eight children and an oppressive family life are not hinted at in one word) - they talk incessantly in quotable, turned poetic sentences." the "important pianist" Clara Wieck "look up at Seipt as Hasimausi to the titanic, dazzling-looking genius" and biographical facts are reinterpreted in favor of a more positive portrayal of Schumann.
Web links
- Dr. Robert Schumann, Devil romantics in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ KIM (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 1, A-G. Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 2002, p. 655.
- ↑ Review on theaterkanal.de ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Brigitte Ehrich: Genius and madness. Hamburger Abendblatt, 1999, accessed on July 29, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c Ellen Kohlhaas, Robert Schumann and the consequences. Art of living vortex: A portrait of the "devil romantic" (Arte) , in: Tagebuch, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), June 16, 1999.
- ↑ WORLD: Thomas Delekat . In: THE WORLD . November 6, 2014 ( welt.de [accessed September 17, 2018]).
- ↑ Thomas Delekat: Robert Schumann, drowned in the flood of images . In: Die Zeit, June 16, 1999.
