Friedrich Schiller - The triumph of a genius
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Friedrich Schiller - The triumph of a genius |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1940 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Herbert Maisch |
| script |
CH Diller Walter Wassermann |
| production |
Fritz Klotsch , Gustav Rathje for Tobis film art |
| music | Herbert Windt |
| camera | Fritz Arno Wagner |
| cut | Hans Heinrich |
| occupation | |
| |
Friedrich Schiller - The Triumph of a Genius is a German feature film from 1940. Based on the novel Passion by Norbert Jacques , it deals with the artistic beginnings of the German poet Friedrich Schiller .
action
In the 18th century, Württemberg suffered from the tough regime of the Duke of Württemberg, Karl Eugen . The poet Schubart dares open criticism, but is arrested a little later using a ruse and imprisoned in the Asperg prison.
At the same time, the young Friedrich Schiller developed inner resistance to the military drill at the military academy , where he was studying medicine on the orders of the Duke.
During the parade march on the birthday of Karl Eugen's wife, Countess Franziska von Hohenheim , Schiller causes a stir when he sends his flame Laura Rieger a love poem. Her mother advocates sparing Schiller with the countess.
At the awarding of the diplomas, Schiller told Karl Eugen that he took a philosophical tone in his medical work, because every science, like medicine, reaches its limits and he follows his heart when writing his works. The angry Karl Eugen orders that Schiller have to spend another year at the academy. The efforts of Schiller's father, who works as a gardener for Karl Eugen, are unsuccessful. When Laura campaigns for Schiller with the Countess, she promises help, but it is just as unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, Schiller secretly begins to write his protest piece The Robbers . Even with the additional year at the academy, Schiller does not allow himself to be broken in his will and thus emerges victorious in a dispute with Karl Eugen about whether geniuses are brought up or born.
When Schiller proudly tells Laura that his piece is finished, he learns from her, dismayed, of Schubart's arrest.
During a roll call, the Duke, who had heard of the resistance from Schiller and his fellow students and announced that he would not tolerate any rebellion, suggested a trip to Asperg to Schiller. There, to his horror, Schiller encounters a broken Schubart. Believing that Karl Eugen wanted to have Schiller arrested, General Rieger had Schiller arrested at Asperg, which the Duke immediately withdrew.
In the meantime, Laura has forwarded the manuscript for The Robbers to Court Marshal Silberkalb. Schiller is initially disappointed with this betrayal, but learns from Laura that the manuscript is still with her. Schiller immediately had it printed anonymously. In order not to attract attention, Schiller now devotes himself entirely to medicine in order to be able to take his exam and finally be able to leave the academy. After the exam, Schiller entered the service of General Augé's regiment, who informed the pleased Schiller that he considered the author of the robbers to be a genius.
At the inn, Schiller and his friends, who are celebrating the publication of the robbers , receive a letter from theater director Dalberg in Mannheim and, to their delight, learn that the play is to be performed.
The performance is a success. Duke Karl Eugen gets enraged and calls Schiller over. As Schiller still stands by his attitudes, he has no choice but to leave Württemberg to avoid imprisonment on the Asperg.
Awards
The National Socialist Film Inspectorate awarded the film the ratings of politically valuable , artistically valuable and youthful .
Reviews
The film critics were mainly looking for an explanation of how it was possible that, during the time of the National Socialist dictatorship, Friedrich Schiller was portrayed as a rebel against the authorities of his time. On the one hand, one saw Schiller's appropriation as the predecessor of the "genius" Hitler, on the other hand, one looked for hidden criticism of Nazi rule.
For example, Thomas Kramer stated for Reclam's Lexicon of German Films that it was a carefully staged film about Schiller and his freedom-loving spirit. Like other genius films, it was assigned the function of “stylizing German superman who had rights under Nazi ethics that the rest of the population did not have.” This was intended to evoke parallels to Adolf Hitler. However, this desirable tendency is u. a. by Klöpfer and Caspar, "who drew Schiller as a rebellious hothead", has been repeatedly undermined here.
Heynes Filmlexikon called Friedrich Schiller a strange "mixture of freedom and people pathos" in which high the song of the superman blades, so that the film for the Nazis was national political valuable.
The Catholic Film Service also pointed to the careful direction and important cast, through which the film shows "a strange political ambivalence between the rebellious" in tyrannos "and the genius cult of National Socialist ideology".
Erwin Leiser pointed out that “a superficial viewer [...] might succumb to the temptation” to “see this film as a call for freedom of expression ”. In fact, they fail to recognize that the film does not take sides against the Duke, who as ruler has all rights over his subjects, but who lacks the visionary genius of Schiller, for whom the logic of the film therefore applies different rules would have to. According to the film, the author of the robbers was the forerunner of the author of Mein Kampf . A quote from a contemporary review from the Illustrierte Film-Kurier , in which u. a. When the “ superhuman violence” of the genius voice is mentioned in Schiller, Leiser follows a rhetorical question: “Who is not thinking of the moment when Hitler feels his calling and becomes a politician?”
The German Film Institute sums up:
"The artistically staged film with a star cast still divides film critics today: while some see it as a protest against the oppression of 1940, others find the ideology of the National Socialists reflected in the figure of the great German Friedrich Schiller."
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Reclams Lexikon des Deutschen Films , Stuttgart, 1995, p. 112
- ^ Heyne Filmlexikon, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, 1996, p. 275
- ↑ Friedrich Schiller - The triumph of a genius. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Erwin Leiser: "Germany awake!" - Propaganda in the film of the Third Reich . Rowohlt Taschenbuch, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1968, p. 92.
- ^ German Film Institute