Ecstasy (1933)

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Movie
German title Symphony of love
Original title ecstasy
Country of production Czechoslovakia
original language Czech , German
Publishing year 1933
length 95 minutes
Rod
Director Gustav Machatý
script František Horky , Gustav Machatý, František Halas
production Slavia film , Gustav Machatý
music Giuseppe Becce
camera Jan Stallich , Hans Androschin
cut Fernando Tropea
occupation

Ekstase (in Germany: Symphony of Love ) is a Czechoslovakian fictional film from 1933. Gustav Machatý's film achieved international fame for its revealing scenes that not only called the censorship authorities on the scene, but also the gates to Hollywood for the leading actress Hedwig Kiesler opened where she made a career as Hedy Lamarr .

action

[based on the version restored by the Filmarchiv Austria ]

Eva and Emil get married. The wedding night disappoints Eva: Emil is petty and cold. In the long run, the prosperity he offers her cannot outweigh his psychological cruelty. She moves back to her parents' house. Her father doesn't understand her decision, but lets her go. Eva and Emil are divorced.

One day when Eva was riding out and bathing in a pond, her horse ran away with her clothes on. Naked, she now goes looking for her horse and clothing. Adam, an engineer working on a nearby railway line, catches the horse and leads it to her. Eva is impressed by his empathetic willingness to help and the two fall in love.

On the day that Eve and Adam want to travel to avoid “the people”, Emil appears at the father's court to ask Eve back. She rejects him. On the way home he takes Adam with him in the car. From a necklace that Emil is pensive with, Emil realizes that he is driving the man Eva loves. He then seems to want to race to death with the car. At the last second he brakes at the level crossing in front of the approaching train.

Adam accommodates the severely shocked man in the same inn where he is expecting Eva. The two enjoy their love with champagne and dance. Their frenzy ends with Emil's suicide, who breaks under the burden that is his life. Unsuspecting, Adam sticks to the travel plans. He falls asleep on the platform while they wait for the train, and Eva drives away alone.

In the final shots you can see Adam's longing look at the children of a stranger, his ambiguous facial expressions and Eve playing with a toddler.

background

The film caused a sensation whether the nude scenes with Hedy Kiesler or a love scene in which the camera shows her face representing the highest level of sexual arousal in close-up. She became so well known that she was able to go to Hollywood in 1937 and continued her career as Hedy Lamarr , after she had initially bowed to her husband, the armaments industrialist Fritz Mandl , who kept her away from acting after the nude scenes in ecstasy . He even bought successive copies of the film in order to limit its distribution. However, he never got close to the original, which is why the film was reproduced again and again.

A version restored by the Prague film archive Národní filmový archiv with a contribution from the Filmarchiv Austria was shown as part of the pre-opening event at the Venice International Film Festival 2019 . The aim of the restoration was to produce a true-to-the-original version of the film in the Czech language, such as the one shown at the 1934 film festival.

criticism

“This dozen fable became the best-known and most famous pre-war film in Czechoslovakia; famous for the nudes, which were scandalous for the time (....) but also famous for its unusual, sensitive design. "

- Reclam's film guide :

production

The film produced by Prager Slavia-Film was mainly produced as a silent film. The silent film scenes were shot at the beginning of October 1932 in the Schönbrunn studios in Vienna , the few sound film scenes between September 15 and October 3, 1932 in the AB Vinohrady studios in Prague . The outdoor shots were made in August 1932 in Slovakia and what was then the Czechoslovak Carpathian Ukraine .

The sound system used was that of the Tobis sound film . Set designers and film architects were Bohumil Hes and Stephan Kopecky .

Although the film was produced by a Czechoslovak production company, the sound film scenes recorded in Prague were recorded in German. The silent film sequences of the film were recorded in the Schönbrunn studio in Vienna . The film was specially dubbed for the Czechoslovak market and released as an ecstasy . A special version was produced for the French market with a slightly different line-up under the title L'Extase .

For movie rentals were responsible Algi movie rental, Berlin, Movie House Nietsche, Leipzig , OSVO, Oskar Vogt, Hamburg as well as the image and sound GmbH in Dusseldorf and Frankfurt . The film distribution was taken over by Elekta-AB Filmfabriken A.-G. Prague.

Versions and censorship decisions

The film, shot in 1932, premiered on January 20, 1933 in Prague . The Austrian premiere took place on February 18th. In Germany , due to a ban imposed by the film inspection agency, it was only possible to premiere the film in a heavily censored version under the title Symphonie der Liebe on January 8, 1935 in the Ufa theaters in Friedrichstrasse and Kurfürstendamm (both in Berlin) .

In addition to the 95-minute long original version with German speaking scenes, there was also a French version, which was produced under the title L'Extase with a slightly different torsion bar and cast ( version film ). Eva's father was represented by André Nox , Emil by Zvonimir Rogoz and the young man (Adam) by Pierre Nay . The Vienna Studios were not used for the French version. Another deviation was the cut that was now made by Antonín Zelenka .

For Czechoslovakia, the film was dubbed and as ecstasy premiered on January 20, 1933, Prague, where Jirina Stepnicková Eva synchronized, Ladislav Boháč Eva's husband and Bedrich Vrbsky Adam . The translation was done by Frantisek Halas based on the poem Písen práce .

The original version in German was premiered on February 18, 1933 in Vienna . In Germany, the film inspection agency banned the showing of the film with its decision of February 20, 1933. Only in an abridged and censored version was the film under the title Symphonie der Liebe on January 8, 1935 also in Germany, in the Berlin Ufa theaters in Friedrichstrasse and Kurfürstendamm, will be premiered. The film was now only banned for young people, but it was shortened by a total of 380 meters, so that the film was now only 2106 meters long instead of 2,486 meters. The 82-minute German version was also premiered in the United States on December 24, 1940, under the title Ecstasy , after the film had been banned the years before.

The film continued to circulate decades later. There are now versions with different lengths and different titles. The film circulates in the United States as My Ecstasy and Rhapsody of Love . A version from 1986 is 87 minutes long. The 95-minute original version also came into circulation in France.

Awards

literature

  • Ulrich J. Klaus (Hrsg.): Deutsche Tonfilme Film lexicon of full-length German and German-language sound films after their German premieres. Volume 6 / year 1935. Klaus Archive, Berlin / Berchtesgaden 1995. ISBN 3-927352-05-5 .
  • Gollowitsch Karin: The indirect representation of eroticism in the film Ecstasy 1933 . Diploma thesis for obtaining the master’s degree from the Faculty of Basic and Integration Sciences at the University of Vienna. Vienna 1995

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Hedy Lamarr's "Ecstasy" in Venice. July 11, 2019, accessed July 11, 2019 .
  2. ^ Pre-opening event of the 76th Festival on Tuesday 27 August. July 11, 2019, accessed July 11, 2019 .
  3. ^ Reclams Filmführer, 2.A. 1973, ISBN 3-15-010205-7