Curse of the south
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Curse of the south |
| Original title | The Sound and the Fury |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1959 |
| length | 115 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Martin Ritt |
| script |
Irving Ravetch Harriet Frank Jr. |
| production | Jerry Woods |
| music | Alex North |
| camera | Charles G. Clarke |
| cut | Stuart Gilmore |
| occupation | |
| |
Curse of the South is an American drama from 1959 . The literary adaptation is loosely based on the novel Schall und Wahn by William Faulkner .
action
Quentin Compson is a young woman who is unhappy at home. Without parents, she lives with Uncle Ben and Uncle Howard as well as Jason Compson and his mother Caroline Compson on the large family estate. While Ben has stayed behind, Howard has a drinking problem and Caroline is being served imperiously, Jason is the only one who earns money to support the family. Quentin himself regards him as her enemy, because it is he who catches her truancy again and again and who repeatedly imposes rules on her to behave sensibly. Since he doesn't make enough money from his job in the Earl Snopes clothing store, he has to keep siphoning off money that comes from Quentin's mother. He justified it with the fact that she was spared a life like her mother's. Instead, she keeps secretly escaping the property to meet young Charlie Busch.
One day, Caddy Compson appears in town visiting her brother Jason to ask him to finally see her daughter Quentin again. He even turns down an offer of $ 1,000 and ignores her pleading. In the evening he has to hear from Quentin how unhappy she is and that she is thinking of running away. So he takes her into town in the car and slowly drives past the waiting caddy before accelerating again and driving home. The next day, Caddy complains to Jason at work that she wanted to see Quentin for more than a moment. Because of her lifestyle, Caddy didn't deserve to have contact with her daughter, says Jason. Finally he takes Caddy back to his property for a short time, where mother and daughter embrace. Finally Caddy could be there for her again and see her buy clothes and go to parties. But Quentin has completely different problems. In the years of loneliness, she was never angry with her mother, because she always hoped that one day she would return home to help her with Jason. Sometimes she has so many problems with him that she could kill him. Caddy disapproves of her request, after all she is happy to be able to walk through the house again, which has so much history in it. She shows her pride so openly that she becomes cocky and teases Jason. After all, he was once in love with her as a child. But Jason does not like their behavior, after all, nowadays one can no longer live on history and big names, but only from hard work, and it is he who is the only one between poverty and family.
It is also he who is still trying to bring the Compsons' name back to prominence. In society you have to save face, which is why he is friendly to people he really doesn't like and takes part in events in better society. During a tea hour with Mrs. Maud Mansfield, however, he can hear that his name is still good, but that he can only be saved through a good marriage, and Effie Mansfield is also offered as a possible bride. Jason prefers to remain a bachelor though. He later reveals to Quentin in a cafe that he just couldn't find the right woman because of his family responsibilities. For the first time, he speaks so openly about his feelings that Quentin admits that he is not as bad as she always thought. Jason is just too busy trying to restore the family's good name. After all, it was once Caddy's behavior that destroyed him and used up the remaining assets. That's why Jason tries so hard that Quentin doesn't behave like her mother. With Charlie, she already has a young man by her side who, according to Charlie's own statement, is not doing her any good. But because he keeps reassuring her how much he loves her and how important she is to him, Quentin decides one last time to run away with all the money stolen from Jason and Charlie. Jason finds out, however, pursues them both and finally gives Charlie the choice of either taking the money or Quentin. He couldn't do both. It doesn't take Charlie long and decides for the money. Disappointed, Quentin prevents it, takes the money from him again and lets him drive away. Then she says to Jason that she finally wants to be an adult and be treated like that so that she never does such nonsense again. Jason admits that, after all, he took care of her and raised her all his life. But she says he's still not done with it.
criticism
A "fairly accurate description of the talkative film," said Bosley Crowther of the New York Times , if Macbeth were quoted. After all, it is “nothing more than a fable, told by an idiot, full of noise and madness that means nothing.” According to an “informal, vague script”, it is merely a story full of “chatty characters who keep yelling at each other growl ”was staged.
The lexicon of international films said: "Martin Ritt has primarily devoted his directing efforts to character creation: The film is an acting masterpiece."
background
In 1955 Faulkner sold the filming rights to Das Dorf und Schall und Wahn together to 20th Century Fox . As The Long Hot Summer and Curse of the South , both were staged by Martin Ritt based on a script by Ravetch and Frank. Woodward was the only actress to appear in both films, with Curse of the South by Window Without a Curtain and The Long Hot Summer being the third Ritt film in which she starred. However, since he was less socially critical than "absurd", Woodward remarked with astonishment that she did not know "why Marty made this film."
Faulkner co-wrote several film scripts in the 1930s and 1940s. It was known that he was disappointed with the implementation of his work. He never read the script for Curse of the South himself . In the end, even Ritt was not satisfied with the film: “I didn't like it. I made some mistakes on this. I shouldn't do Faulkner again. There is something in the language that is too rich. It's tough with a great writer like him because you have to tell a story in a film, and when the language is the star of the story, it becomes almost untranslatable. "
In Faulkner's novel, Quentin Compson is actually a male student, but this has been changed here. Originally Marilyn Monroe was supposed to play the leading role of Quentin. She decided against it and instead starred in Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot . In addition, were Kirk Douglas in the role of Jason and both Deborah Kerr as Lana Turner provided in the role of caddy.
Only the fourth part of the novel was made into a film, with no flashbacks and the action from 1928 to the 1950s. In addition, the actually bad character of Jason was made into a good-natured one. After an unsuccessful search for suitable locations, the film was shot on a stage in the film studios of 20th Century Fox.
publication
The film had its world premiere when it opened in theaters in New York City on March 27, 1959 . With a budget of an estimated US $ 1.71 million, it was able to reap a little more than US $ 1.7 million at the box office in the US and Canada alone. In Germany it opened in cinemas on April 24, 1959 and has not been released on Video Home System , DVD or Blu-ray Disc since then . Only the soundtrack from North was released as a compact cassette by Colosseum Records in 1993 .
Web links
- Curse of the South in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Curse of the South in the German dubbing index
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bosley Crowther: The Sound and the Fury (1959) on nytimes.com, March 28, 1959 (English), accessed June 5, 2013
- ↑ Curse of the South. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Martin Halliwell: Images of Idiocy: The Idiot Figure in Modern Fiction and Film , Ashgate Pub Ltd. 2004, page 23.
- ^ Carlton Jackson: Picking Up the Tab: The Life and Movies of Martin Ritt , University of Wisconsin Press 1995, p. 58.
- ^ Gene Phillips: Fiction, Film, and Faulkner: The Art of Adaptation , University of Tennessee Press 1988, 157.
- ↑ Gabriel Miller: Martin Ritt: Interviews , Univ. Press of Mississippi 2002, 116.
- ^ Les Harding: They Knew Marilyn Monroe: Famous Persons in the Life of the Hollywood Icon , McFarland 2012, 57.
- ↑ Michelangelo Capua: Deborah Kerr: A Biography , McFarland 2010, p. 109.
- ↑ a b Michelangelo Capua: Yul Brynner: A Biography , Mcfarland & Co Inc 2006, page 79.
- ↑ Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series) . Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press 1989, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1 , page 252.
- ^ "1959: Probable Domestic Take", Variety , Jan. 6, 1960, p. 34.