Each for himself and God against all
Movie | |
---|---|
Original title | Each for himself and God against all |
Country of production | Germany |
original language | German |
Publishing year | 1974 |
length | 110 minutes |
Age rating | FSK 12 |
Rod | |
Director | Werner Herzog |
script | Werner Herzog |
production | Werner Herzog |
music | Popol Vuh |
camera | Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein |
cut | Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus |
occupation | |
|
Each for himself and God against all is a German feature film by Werner Herzog from 1974 about the life of Kaspar Hauser .
action
The film tells the story of Kaspar Hauser , who spends his first 18 years in a cramped cellar dungeon, isolated from any human contact except a stranger who brings him his food. One day in 1828 this stranger leads him out of his cell, teaches him to walk and a few sentences, and then leaves him alone in Nuremberg . It is the subject of the general public's curiosity and exhibited in a circus before the teacher Georg Friedrich Daumer rescues it. With his help, Kaspar quickly learns to read and write and develops unorthodox approaches to religion and logic , but music pleases him most.
He attracts the attention of the clergy , academics, and the nobility , but is attacked by an unknown person who leaves him with a bloody head. He recovers, but is again mysteriously stabbed in the chest - possibly by the same man who brought him to Nuremberg. Due to the serious injury, he falls into delirium , in which he describes visions of the nomadic Berber people in the Sahara desert , and dies shortly afterwards.
Adaptation
The film follows the life story of Kaspar Hauser roughly as it has been handed down in the folklore. He uses the wording of real letters found at Hauser's. Many of the details in the opening sequence about his imprisonment and release are deeply rooted in popular belief , but are rejected by historians and medical professionals as an invention.
production
Werner Herzog discovered the main actor Bruno S. in a documentary about street musicians . Fascinated by Bruno, Herzog cast him as the leading role in two of his films, Everyone for himself and God against all and Stroszek , regardless of the fact that he had no experience as an actor.
The historical Kaspar Hauser was 17 when he was discovered in Nuremberg. The film doesn't mention Kaspar's age, but Bruno S. was 41 years old when it was shot.
The film was shot from June to August 1974. The outdoor shots were made in Dinkelsbühl in the Ansbach district , including the nearby Hesselberg , in the western Sahara ( dream sequences ) and in Ireland . The world premiere took place on November 1, 1974 in Dinkelsbühl (Cinemobil).
Reviews
“With impressive stylistic consistency and a radical will to learn, the film describes the process of civilization as a dangerous tightrope walk, and social integration as a loss of identity and imagination. On the one hand an innocent child of nature, on the other hand an apocalyptic visionary who sensitively perceives the contradictions of his surroundings and experiences them painfully, the hero (eminently embodied by the amateur actor Bruno S.) becomes a tragic symbolic figure of modernity in the field of tension between rational thought of utility and cryptic existential fear. "
“Herzog (born 1942), currently one of the most popular filmmakers in the Federal Republic of Germany, challenges the comparison with the Frenchman Truffaut's ' wolf boy ' (film of the month April 1971) with his film about Kaspar Hauser's ordeal . While Truffaut, despite all the restrictions, was optimistic, Herzog did not give the pedagogical belief in progress a chance. With him, upbringing takes place as heartless training that leaves the object destroyed. The (aesthetically beguiling) film provides rich material for discussion. You should not, of course, overlook the objection of some critics who (as in his previous ones) believe they recognize Werner Herzog's traits of voyeuristic compassion in this film too. "
“Filmmaker Werner Herzog is not interested in a mere cinematic processing of history. The external data and facts of the case are only communicated to the extent that an orientation in the history is just possible. Herzog is also not interested in the criminological or time-critical aspect of the mysterious case. He is interested in Kaspar the man, who was locked up in a basement hole all his life, who at the time he is abandoned in the middle of the Franconian city does not know what a house, a tree, what language is, who has no idea of human Culture, has no concept of the world. He is interested in how a person experiences the world, someone who was kept in absolute isolation into adulthood and is devoid of all experience and knowledge. "
“Herzog sees his film as a passion story. [...] Education makes an important contribution to this process. Herzog answered the question about the possibilities of the foundling negatively. Kaspar Hauser has no chance of survival in society. Education not only fails, it also contributes to the foundling becoming a victim. "
Awards
Cannes International Film Festival 1975
Excellent
- Fipresci Prize for Werner Herzog
- Grand prize of the jury for Werner Herzog
- Prize of the Ecumenical Jury for Werner Herzog
Nominated
- Golden Palm for the best film for Werner Herzog
German Film Award 1975
Excellent
- Outstanding individual achievement: editing for Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus (also for In Danger and Greatest Need, the middle way brings death )
- Outstanding individual achievement: production design for Henning von Gierke
- Outstanding services to German film for Werner Herzog (prize money of 150,000 DM)
See also
Web links
- The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Everyone for himself and God against everyone at filmportal.de
- Review by Thomas Groh on filmzentrale.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ See e.g. B. Ivo Striedinger : Hauser Kaspar, the "enigmatic foundling" , in: CVs from Franconia, III. Vol., 1927, pp. 199-215, Karl Leonhard : Kaspar Hauser and the modern knowledge of hospitalism , in Confinia Psychiatrica 13, 1970, pp. 213-229.
- ^ CineGraph - Lexicon for German-language film - Werner Herzog
- ↑ Everyone for himself and God against all. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Cf. gep.de ( Memento of the original from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; PDF file
- ↑ See prisma.de
- ↑ In: Pedagogy No. 6/1995, p. 54.