Homunculus (film)

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Movie
Original title Homunculus
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1916
length approx. 360 minutes
Rod
Director Otto Rippert
script Robert Reinert
production German Bioscop GmbH
music Siegbert Goldschmidt
camera Carl Hoffmann
occupation

Homunculus is a six-part German feature film by Otto Rippert from 1916 about an artificially created human being. Olaf Fönss took over the title role .

action

Part 1: The Birth of the Homunculus

Scientist Professor Ortmann has long dreamed of creating an “artificial human”. He had to watch with envy that his student Dr. Hansen achieved the breakthrough in this experiment. He created the " Homunculus ", the perfect art being. Nevertheless, the being has a central flaw: it is not capable of love, but it is certainly capable of other feelings. When the Homunculus turns 25 years old, it begins to research its origin and discovers the secret of its origin. This realization arouses in him irrepressible hatred towards his father Hansen and his daughter. She loves the homunculus, even though she knows that he is incapable of love himself, but instinctively longs for this feeling. The homunculus drives the young woman to her death and swears a cruel oath of vengeance in which he announces to humanity that he will spread fear and horror over them.

Part 2: The Mysterious Book

In his search for love, the homunculus embarks on an adventure journey through the world. In the Orient he comes to the court of the paralyzed Prince Dalasagea, where he is warmly received. With his superhuman abilities, the homunculus succeeds in healing the prince. But soon you find out who you have in front of you. So he is expelled and prosecuted. Eleonore, the prince's attractive daughter, his dog and Edgar Rodin, an assistant to his creator Hansen, follow him. Finally, the homunculus hands Eleanor, who is in danger, to her bridegroom and moves on with Edgar.

Part 3: The Homunculus Love Tragedy

The Homunculus and Edgar make an invention that would enable the frenzied Homunculus to destroy the world. But first he wants to fathom love. When he sees young Anna being rejected by her parents, he takes care of her and asks her parents for forgiveness, but to no avail. He brings her to her seducer, who also rejects the girl. Homunculus then takes revenge by ruining the man financially and throwing Anna at her feet. But she continues to love the seducer and asks the homunculus for mercy. The homunculus cannot understand this feeling of love. So he wants to try it out on himself. He puts a young woman, Luise, who loves him, to the most difficult test. She does everything for him, sacrificing her fiancé and her parents for his sake. Only when he reveals himself to her and his artificiality emerges does Luise leave him. This experience confirms the Homunculus in his intention to destroy humanity.

Part 4: The revenge of the Homunculus

As Richard Ortmann, Homunculus has meanwhile become the chairman of a successful company. His freezing business practices and intransigence soon led to great dissatisfaction among the workforce. But the Homunculus plays a double game: While he calls on his employer colleagues to merciless harshness, disguised as a worker he stirs up the people's hatred of the authorities. Sven Fredland, a member of the company that preaches love and understanding, is imprisoned in a rock cave by the homunculus. One day Ortmann / Homunculus meets the worker Margot. She feels drawn to him, although she could read in his diary entry that behind Richard Ortmann is Homunculus. She is loyal to him, and he takes Margot, who seems to love him first, even though he is Homunculus, to his home and showered her with riches. But the young woman is quickly repelled by the callousness of the homunculus. She manages to free Fredland. The homunculus is eventually imprisoned, but is able to flee spectacularly. And once again the bitterly disappointed man swears cruel revenge.

Part 5: The Annihilation of Humanity

The homunculus has to hide from its pursuers for a long time. Yet again he succeeds in sowing discord and quarrel between people. One day when he met an orphaned girl, he took her to the parents of the shepherd Rudolf. He wants to couple her and Rudolf together in order to breed a new human race. Therefore, he kidnaps the couple to a lonely island. But the plan fails because Rudolf tries to kill the Homunculus after he learns of his true identity. In revenge, the homunculus destroys the entire island including the young couple. His hitherto loyal companion Edgar Rodin is so appalled by this act that he renounces the homunculus and threatens him with death.

Part 6: The End of the Homunculus

Edgar Rodin and Dr. Hansen, the creators of Homunculus, have decided to finally put an end to the madness. You want to destroy the hateful, frenzied art creature to save the earth. They want to achieve this by creating a second homunculus. Fire should be fought with fire. They raise him in seclusion and teach him how to handle weapons. When the second homunculus turned twelve years old, the original homunculus discovers his hiding place and wants to kill him immediately. At the last second, Rodin manages to escape with the boy. Ten years later, Homunculus junior will finally destroy the original Homunculus. In a mountain range there is a final showdown between the two artificial beings. In the process, the original homunculus defeats its epigone, but dies with him when falling boulders bury the two under them.

Production notes

Hungarian movie poster for part 6 by Nándor Honti

The shooting for this six-part series began in May 1916 in the Bioscop studio in Neubabelsberg . It was only then that the film star Olaf Fönss , who was extremely popular in Denmark, was won over for the title role. According to the Lichtbild-Bühne edition of May 6, 1916, his fee was said to have been the highest that had ever been paid in German film. Originally, the producing Bioscop had planned to engage Olaf's brother Johannes, who is said to have shown no interest in the fantastic material.

The first part of the film was premiered on June 22, 1916 in the Berlin Marble House as part of a special screening . The following four parts started that same year, part 6 in January 1917. Each of the six parts had a length of four acts.

Robert Reinert wrote the script based on his own novel. The extensive film structures were designed by Robert A. Dietrich .

How strongly the film was shaped by the impression of the slaughter of nations in World War I is shown by an intertitle in the fourth part, Die Rache des Homunculus . There it says the earth shall tremble under the rage of the peoples ...

In 1920 the original film was shortened from 9,163 meters to 6,315 meters and shown again as a three-part series. The three parts that had passed film censorship in early September 1920 were titled The Artificial Man , The Annihilation of Mankind and A Battle of Titans .

Reconstruction 2014

By August 2014, only the fourth of the original six parts of the film, Die Rache des Homunculus , appeared to have survived , which, however, only contained 3/4 of the film, as Stefan Drößler found out, since the film was copied to sound film speed of 25 frames / second and for it doubled every second picture. At the 2014 Bonn Silent Film Festival , the 196-minute long working copy of the film reconstruction of all six episodes by Drößler from the Munich Film Museum was shown for the first time in almost 100 years , set live on the piano by silent film pianist Richard Siedhoff. In the meantime, this version has been revised and performed several times in the Filmmuseum Munich, also set live by Richard Siedhoff.

Others

In the same year 1916, the film series was parodied with the films Homunculus (director: Franz Schmelter ) and Homunculus is film diva .

criticism

The following could be read on the Lichtbild-Bühne : “With the help of Otto Rippert, the author Robert Reinert not only provided evidence that a film can be literarily valuable, but also demonstrated in an almost epoch-making way that the much maligned term film brings more life and offers, like the chiseled and perfectly formed word of the poet, can offer more, like any kind of visual art or displays of paintings and sculptures. The material in and of itself may be the highest literature, the higher it is to be valued if the film is able to attract the large, non-familial masses of the people to this area. The only way to make this possible here was that extraordinary events were recorded cinematographically in such a way that they appear comprehensible and understandable even to the poorly read. This included two factors after the author and director had set their goals: a company that was worthy of the project and striving to achieve it by all means, and a performer of the homunculus, who was up to the unexpected, hitherto unknown tasks. "

The BZ am Mittag wrote: “This work stands at the gates of a new era in the art of cinematography; yes, it is perhaps only a bridge to the artistic deepening of the film, but it is full of a strong, specific will, and where this will knocks, a path is certainly opened. The critical standards that were previously placed on cinematographic products, standards that went by the technical yardstick, break; serious considerations of theater criticism set in automatically. The Homunculus tragedy is made subservient to the play of light; after a hundred failed attempts, psychology has conquered the screen. Inadequacies on the drama stage become events, risks become a matter of course; the image conquers the word, thought has a new formulation in the evaluation of situations, the epic-lyric has found a dramatic accent. There is still only a film twilight before an art morning that comes in the twilight with no guarantee of a true sunrise. Poetic will, strength and direction have worked, with the mind, yet without a heart. But already the rhythm of a heartbeat in the film announces itself. Gigantic tensions and stimuli for action of the greatest intensity are multiplied here. [...] Fønss is an actor with extraordinary means of expression, whose captivating temperament overcomes all the cliffs that stand in the way of the logical implementation of his role. "

The film's large lexicon of people recalled the impact this work had on early post-war German films : “Rippert made famous his six-part series“ Homunculus ”, a total of around six hours long, about an omnipotent, destructive, war-rousing artsy Series opus that received the greatest attention at the time and anticipated stylistic elements of film expressionism of the post-war period with its light and dark effects. "

In Black Dream and White Slave it says on the one hand: "[...] the influence of the Nordisk style is unmistakable in the conventional dramaturgy." However, later it can also be read: "The remaining fourth part shows Fönss in actions that have a kind Anticipation of expressionism are; Connections can also be made to the Judex series Feuillades . "

Bucher's encyclopedia of the film wrote: "[...] there is also a strong sadistic component and a great desire for destruction."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ There it says: "As we hear, the famous film actor receives a fee for playing this role that has not yet been reached in Germany."
  2. ↑ a b c Black dream and white slave. German-Danish film relations 1910–1930. Edited by Manfred Behn, Munich 1994.
  3. ^ Gerhard Lamprecht : German silent films 1915-1916. P. 506, Berlin 1969.
  4. ↑ Homunculus reconstruction on rundschau-online.de
  5. ↑ as before
  6. ^ Photo stage. No. 25 of June 24, 1916.
  7. ↑ BZ at noon. quoted from Lichtbild-Bühne. No. 34, dated August 26, 1916.
  8. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 6: N - R. Mary Nolan - Meg Ryan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 546.
  9. ↑ Liz-Anne Bawden (ed.), German edition by Wolfram Tichy: Buchers Enzyklopädie des Films. Lucerne and Frankfurt / M. 1977, p. 353.