Dreyfus (1930)

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Movie
Original title Dreyfus
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1930
length 115 minutes
Rod
Director Richard Oswald
script Fritz Wendhausen
Heinz Goldberg
production Richard Oswald for the Richard Oswald production
camera Friedl Behn-Grund
cut Hans Oser
occupation

Dreyfus is a German film drama from 1930 about a historical judicial scandal with Fritz Kortner in the title role. Directed by Richard Oswald .

action

In September 1894, the French intelligence service became aware of an espionage case in Paris. Military secrets are said to have been passed on to the German military attaché in Paris, Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen . “In the interests of the army”, it is said, the war minister Auguste Mercier must quickly find someone to blame. On October 15 of the same year, on the basis of frivolously constructed circumstantial evidence, Alfred Dreyfus , a Jewish captain on the General Staff, who was born in Alsace and who was completely innocent, was arrested. Anti - Semitic agitation in the press, the military and politics quickly sparked a bustle against the alleged traitor in Paris in the 1890s.

A plot of high-ranking military officials in Paris finally seals its fate. Dreyfus is sentenced to life in exile for treason, expelled from the army and deported to Devil's Island off the coast of South America. Dreyfus has to live under inhumane conditions for four years on the hot and inhospitable prison island, while his wife and brother Mathieu fight tirelessly in Paris for his rehabilitation . When the new head of the intelligence service, Colonel Picquart , finds evidence of Dreyfus' innocence, the War Department and the General Staff get restless. It is unanimous that these high-ranking gentlemen make a mistake in this delicate matter, which has already caused so much dust, shouldn't be - the self-image and political careers of the generals and politicians arrested in caste thinking depend too much on it. A guilty verdict, once pronounced, must not be questioned, and an anti-Semitic mainstream in the French military does the rest to nip in the bud any interest in the truth.

In fact, Major Walsin-Esterházy turns out to be a true betrayer of national secrets. But the raison d'être outweighs the truth, and so he is acquitted despite overwhelming evidence. One day the writer Émile Zola appears on the scene and causes a great stir with his open letter " J'accuse " to the French President. He provokes a trial against himself in order to prove the innocence of the degraded and dishonorably dismissed Captain Dreyfus.

But even the jury trial against Zola that followed in 1898 did not bring the hoped-for turnaround. The writer and fighter in search of the truth hushed up from above is convicted and then goes into exile in England. It was not until August 30, 1898, when Major Henry confessed to having forged documents that once led to Dreyfus' conviction, that the verdict against Dreyfus was overturned in 1899. But the second trial against him also ended on September 9 of the same year, despite the exonerating material, when he was sentenced to ten years for the fortress.

On the other hand, he was pardoned a full ten days later. Alfred Dreyfus finally achieved his rehabilitation on July 12th, 1906 by the exhausting imprisonment on the Devil's Island and the years of struggle to restore his good reputation and prove his innocence, badly damaged. He was reassigned to the army with the rank of major and was finally knighted in the Legion of Honor .

Production notes

The film was based on a template by Bruno Weil and was awarded the ratings "artistic" and "popular education".

Dreyfus was premiered on August 16, 1930 in Berlin's Gloria Palast .

The film structures were designed by Hermann Warm and Franz Schroedter , Guido Bagier and Hans Grimm provided the sound, the extensive officer costumes were made by HJ Kaufmann Theaterkunst, and Hellmut Schreiber was in charge of the production . André Obrecht acted as the French expert.

Immediately after this film, FW Kraemer and Milton Rosmer also shot a Dreyfus film in England under the same name, based on a play by Hans José Rehfisch and Wilhelm Herzog . Cedric Hardwicke played the Dreyfus in this version .

Reviews

Leo Hirsch praised in the Berliner Tageblatt : “This is a top performance, serious and full of charge, dramatic and without compromise, excellently played and received with heart and mind. This film is such that one cannot imagine any other adaptation. ”Hirsch's summary:“ An epic film, a chronicle, event follows event, as in de Coster's “Ulenspiegel”. Richard Oswald's direction is so excellent here that everything seems natural. And even what appears to be arranged, in the form of a studio, must be so in order to depict the very same backdrops around people and concepts that seem more evil in life than in the cinema. People speak what is necessary without posing. Sometimes they scream, they laugh, they tremble, effects of affect, and it has to be. "

In Der Abend, however, one can read: “The personality of Dreyfus, however, whose fate, his degradation, his martyrdom on Devil's Island, his second trial and his rehabilitation are before us, does not arouse the same passionate interest as the struggle of Zola and his companions. Individual misfortune can shake us, but the public interest, the increase in the struggle for the rights of all, is the real Dreyfus case. Of course, the director Oswald gives a lot of gripping scenes. He is a master of the details, but in all too much he loses the big line and the summarizing effect. The impression of the drama was much more closed and effective. Nevertheless, the film will also play its enlightening and agitational role. "

The Lexikon des Internationale Films writes: "With the actors elite of the Weimar Republic, who are impressively involved here, the film from 1930 pleads for humanity and justice everywhere, beyond the historical judicial scandal."

The Protestant film observer is also full of praise: "A historical film with genuinely human features and high morality that can still be seen today at a profit."

literature

  • Fred Gehler Dreyfus . In Günther Dahlke, Günther Karl (Hrsg.): German feature films from the beginnings to 1933. A film guide. Henschel Verlag, 2nd edition, Berlin 1993, p. 226 f. ISBN 3-89487-009-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Berliner Tageblatt, morning edition, August 17, 1930
  2. like 1
  3. The Evening, late edition of Vorwärts , August 18, 1930
  4. Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films, Volume 2, S. 750. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987
  5. Critique No. 293/1954