Exactly that Münchhausen
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Exactly that Münchhausen |
| Original title | Тот самый Мюнхгаузен Tot samyj Münchhausen |
| Country of production | USSR |
| original language | Russian |
| Publishing year | 1979 |
| length | 142 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mark Sakharov |
| script | Grigory Gorin |
| production | Mosfilm |
| music | Alexei Rybnikov |
| camera | Vladimir Nachabzew |
| cut | Irma Tsekavaya |
| occupation | |
| |
Exactly that Münchhausen ( Russian Тот самый Мюнхгаузен , Tot samyj Münchhausen ) is a Soviet two-part television film from 1979. The film strip of the romantic tragicomedy genre produced by Mosfilm is one of the greatest successes of film and theater director Mark Sakharov . Grigori Gorin's script is only vaguely based on the lies of Baron Münchhausen . In the film, the baron is portrayed as a non-conformist and uncompromising romantic hero who wants to cheer up dull, boring and monotonous life with inexhaustible imagination, unconventional behavior and a sharp tongue. In doing so, he encounters incomprehension and rejection on the part of conservative society, which tries to reprimand and ultimately destroy him. The film is interpreted in many respects as an allegorical satire of late Soviet society.
The role of the baron is one of Oleg Yankovsky's star roles . With him, as well as Inna Tschurikowa as Baroness Jacobine von Münchhausen, Alexander Abdulov as the lawyer Rammkopf, and Leonid Bronewoi as Elector of Hanover, the company of Sakharov's Lenkom Theater formed the core of the film crew.
action
1st episode
The action takes place in the Electorate of Hanover , in 1779 according to the chronology of the film subject. Baron Münchhausen is perceived by his surroundings as a fabulous who lives in a fantasy world. However, strangely enough, his fantasies always turn out to be reality. The hunters at the campfire laughing at his hunting story, where he allegedly shot a deer with a cherry pit, suddenly see a noble animal from the forest with a cherry tree instead of antlers. The baron insists that he did not become famous for his exploits, but for the fact that he never lies. Indeed, he finds it abhorrent to lie out of selfishness or propriety.
Münchhausen lives in his castle with his young, enchanting lover Martha. The baron's family circumstances stand in the way of her wedding plans. In his youth he was forcibly married to Jacobine von Dunten according to his parents' wishes. The baroness has been living apart from him for two years with her adult son, Theophil. Münchhausen's petition for divorce can only be approved by the elector, but Jacobine and her lover, the lawyer Heinrich Rammkopf, try to prevent it by all means. They want to get the baron recognized as insane and thus incapable of doing business in order to be able to dispose of his property. For this Rammkopf steals a sheet from Münchhausen's diary, where u. a. “The expulsion of the clouds” in the morning, “a heroic deed” in the morning and finally a declaration of war against England for four in the afternoon on the same day are planned. Munchausen claims to have set a war ultimatum to England with the demand that the independence of the North American colonies be recognized by this point in time. The elector has the baron arrested and then released again when the fresh newspaper edition reports on the just announced recognition of the independence of the United States by England.
Munchausen turned to several priests, but they all refused to marry him and Martha. But one day the elector, angry after a quarrel with his wife, left all requests for divorce with the words “Freedom! All to freedom! ”Signed. Martha is happy and worried at the same time that her lover will not pull off another number at the court hearing in the divorce proceedings.
And so it happens. When signing the divorce papers, Münchhausen writes May 32 as the date. According to his calculations, there is no need to correct the calendar, and there should be an additional day this year. So he would like to give Martha and everyone else another day of spring. But the baron's ideas and astronomical observations are perceived only as another challenge to society, insulting the court and endangering public order.
It comes to a scandal. The court refuses to give a divorce. A written confession is required of Baron: he must explain all his stories to be mere fantasies. His friends, his servant Thomas, Martha, all persuade the baron to agree. Finally Martha gives him an ultimatum: either his stories or her. Münchhausen gives in: he signs the renunciation of himself, burns all his manuscripts and leaves the room with a pistol. You can hear a shot.
2nd episode
Three years passed after the officially announced death of the baron. The living troublemaker Munchausen became a dead celebrity. Jacobine publishes his complete works, with the baron's memories being coiffed and decorated. Munchausen is celebrated as “a great personality who was not understood by contemporaries”, and on May 32, the third anniversary of his death, a memorial to the baron is to be inaugurated on the town's main square. Rammkopf takes tourist tours through the baron's castle and scientifically justifies the possibility of lifting yourself by the hair. Theophil tries unsuccessfully to repeat the heroic deeds of the father, u. a. lifting yourself by the hair and shooting ducks down the chimney.
The former servant and unconditional supporter of Münchhausen, Thomas, wants to buy flowers for the baron's grave and recognizes his former master in the florist. The suicide and the subsequent funeral were only faked. The baron left his fortune to the official heirs and became a gardener miller. So he could marry Martha and live with her. But ordinary life has changed him greatly: the joker and visionary became a grumpy and calculating cynic (my funeral alone brought me more money than my whole life before) . Ultimately, Martha couldn't take him anymore and left him.
Münchhausen wants to get Martha and his old life back: He wants to “be resurrected”. For the city, however, it became a symbol, a legend. Nobody needs him alive except Martha and Thomas. When he told the initiated about his intention, the mayor, formerly his close friend, declared him to be a con man and had him arrested “to establish his identity”. The trial runs like a well-organized spectacle. All of the baron's former friends and relatives do not recognize him. Only Martha decides at the last moment to appear as a witness, which is why the hearing is interrupted. The accused is now to be subjected to a decisive test: as proof of his person, he is supposed to repeat a heroic deed by Münchhausen, namely to fly to the moon on a cannonball.
The examination procedure takes place on May 32, 1783 in a solemn ceremony, again according to a given scenario. The undecided Martha first reads the elector a request to pardon her “lost husband Müller”. But then she reveals the secret to her lover: the cannon was loaded with wet gunpowder so that the bullet would go only a few steps and the baron would fall on the lawn amid the general laughter. This should be interpreted as decisive evidence against the accused. When Thomas, following instructions from the Baron, brings a sack of dry powder to be reloaded, the organizers of the show trial become confused. They just wanted to laugh at Münchhausen but not kill. The elector is immediately convinced to recognize the identity of the baron and to declare his "new trip to the moon" as already done. The previously planned festival for the 3rd anniversary of the Baron's death begins unchanged, only for a different reason, namely as a celebration of his return from the moon. Jacobine says that she has been to the moon twice with her husband and that she plans to publish her memories of these trips.
Münchhausen, however, cannot accept the lie. He rushes from one place to another, sees the same cheerful, overly friendly faces everywhere and the glasses raised for his return. Finally he runs back to the cannon and speaks his final monologue: I understand your problem: You are too serious! A serious expression is not a sign of intelligence, gentlemen. All stupid things on earth are committed with this expression. Smile, gentlemen! Smile!
Baron gives Thomas the instructions for the day of his return and begins to climb the ladder to the mouth of the cannon. The camera angle changes and it turns out that there is no more cannon. The baron climbs the now infinite ladder into heaven. The final melody sounds.
History of origin
The shooting took place in the "authentic" looking Wernigerode , GDR. It was much easier for the Soviet film company to organize the shooting there than in Münchhausen's hometown, Bodenwerder , on West German territory.
In contrast to Sakharov's earlier works (Such as An Ordinary Miracle ), the film passed through Soviet censorship with unexpected ease , although many scenes showed an obvious parody of the then frozen Soviet society. Only one episode had to be cut out, in which the hunters said that they studied all of the Baron's books because they were so clever and useful. It was seen as a parallel to the readings of Brezhnev's books, which were then mandatory .
Later, in the 1990s, a dialogue between the pastor and the baron was cut short. The following phrases were cut out: Pastor: I read your book. What madness they wrote! - Munchausen: I read yours. It ain't better. - Pastor: Which one? - Münchhausen: The Bible .
reception
The fable takes up the characteristic themes of romanticism , such as the conflict between freely creative imagination and the purely rational apprehension of the world, the tearing down of boundaries between dream and reality, the rejection of social conventions and the breaking of the romantic hero against harsh reality. The last is mainly reflected externally in the form of narrow-mindedness and double standards of the nobility and the bourgeoisie. However, one recognizes a brilliant satirical representation of Soviet society by the many allusions in the language and in the actions (such as the finely tuned show trials ).
The film is one of the most popular comedies of the former USSR. The quick-witted dialogues became a source of quotations in Russian culture.
The picture strip won the award for the best director for Mark Sakharov and the award of the press jury at the International Television Film Festival in Prague (1979), otherwise remains largely unknown to the international audience to this day.
Aftermath
Since 2010, documentary and social film festivals “32nd” have been taking place in various locations in Russia and Ukraine. May ”, organized by various human rights and youth organizations. The fictitious date symbolizes the "Day of the Unknown Hero".
Deviations from historical facts
- The true Freiherr von Münchhausen was married to the Baltic nobleman Jacobine von Dunten. They lived together from 1744 until Jacobine's death in 1790. The couple had no children. In 1794 Münchhausen married the 20-year-old Bernhardine Brunsig von Brunn. Shortly after the wedding, there were serious rifts. The 73-year-old baron filed for divorce because of marital infidelity. The marriage ended in a 3 year high-profile, ruinous divorce process. The baron lost almost all of his fortune.
- In the film, England recognized the independence of the United States after the Baron's “ultimatum” in 1779. In fact, it happened on September 3, 1783 .
- Between 1714 and 1837 Great Britain was in the personal union with Hanover , so that Münchhausen could not have declared war on it, but at most committed mutiny. George III , the then King of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, never visited Hanover.
- The elector, who is mainly interested in fashion, tailoring and sewing, uses a sewing machine installed in his work cabinet . Such types of machines did not exist at the end of the 18th century. The first of its kind were made by IM Singer & Co. about half a century later .
- The “gardener miller” tells Thomas that his child weighs 12 kilos. The first metric system of units was not introduced in France until 1793 during the French Revolution .
- Rammkopf informs the court that "the accused maliciously ... even acquired the deceased baron's fingerprints ." In fact, there was no dactyloscopic identification procedure at the time . The hypothesis of the distinctiveness and immutability of the papillary line pattern was not published by William James Herschel until about a century later .
Web links
- Exactly that Münchhausen in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The complete film Tot samyj Münchhausen on the official Mosfilm website (in Russian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Kevin Moss: A Russian Munchausen, Aesopian Translation. In: Andrew Horton (ed.): Inside Soviet Film Satire: Laughter with a Lash. Cambridge 1993, ISBN 0-521-02107-3 , pp. 20-35. (pdf)
- ↑ a b Мария Ческис: Самый честный Мюнхгаузен. In: газета «Наша Версия». May 25, 2009.
- ↑ a b Правозащитный кинофестиваль "32 мая", день всех героев ( memento of the original from March 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Human rights festival "May 32", the day of all heroes, St. Petersburg )
- ↑ Фестиваль социальных юношеских фильмов «32 мая» в Донецке (Social Youth Film Festival “32 May” in Donetsk )
- ↑ Фестиваль социальных юношеских фильмов «32 мая» в Луганске (Social Youth Film Festival "May 32" in Luhansk )
- ↑ 32 мая - День Неизвестного Героя (May 32, Day of the Unknown Hero)
