Jons and Erdme
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Jons and Erdme |
| Country of production |
Germany Italy |
| original language |
German Italian English |
| Publishing year | 1959 |
| length | 112 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Victor Vicas |
| script |
Robert A. Stemmle Victor Vicas based on the story by Jons and Erdme from: “Lithuanian Stories” (1917) by Hermann Sudermann |
| production |
Kurt Ulrich Alf Teichs |
| camera | Göran Strindberg |
| cut | Ira Oberberg |
| occupation | |
| |
Jons und Erdme is a German-Italian drama from 1959 directed by Victor Vicas with Giulietta Masina and Carl Raddatz in the title roles. Hollywood importer Richard Basehart played another leading role . The story was based on a novel by Hermann Sudermann .
action
The story, which is rather poor in action and strongly determined by atmospheric, gray-rainy images, takes place in a dreary moor landscape in Lithuanian. Erdme is married to the much older Jons, who is all too fond of the bottle. Together, the couple tried to make a living as farmers with their own farm with a lot of effort. Jons' drudgery and uncontrolled behavior mean that the marriage is doomed to failure à la longue. Her overly spoiled daughter Katrike is also of no great help to Erdme, as she always makes demands.
Erdme finds in the filigree and younger blacksmith Wittkuhn a man who understands her much better than her drinking husband and begins a secret love affair with him. When the irascible Jons gets one of his dreaded outbursts of anger and wants to beat everything around him, Erdme also bears wounds that make her decide to leave her husband for good. Erdme goes to Wittkuhn to start a new future with him. But she soon realizes that Wittkuhn doesn't need her as much as her ultimately helpless husband Jons, and so one day she returns to Jons, despite her better judgment and at the same time ruefully.
Production notes
Jons und Erdme was shot in the film studios in Berlin-Tempelhof and in Poland from mid-April 1959 . The world premiere took place on September 4, 1959.
Producer Kurt Ulrich and Heinz Willeg also took over the production management. Rolf Zehetbauer designed the buildings . Dorothea Sudermann, a direct descendant of the original author Hermann Sudermann, is also involved in this film adaptation.
Giulietta Masina and Richard Basehart had already played together in 1954 with overwhelming success in La Strada - Das Lied der Straße and then also in Die Schwindler .
backgrounds
With this film and the follow- up production by Julien Duvivier also shot in 1959, producer Kurt Ulrich intended to pull out of the waters of shallow mass entertainment, which had previously characterized his production range. After watching The Nights of Cabiria with Giulietta Masina, he really wanted to engage the Italian star actress for these two and a planned third film ("The Threepenny Opera"). He then traveled to Rome and allegedly even beat the competition from Hollywood in the negotiations. However, after the two German Ulrich Masina collaborations flopped at the box office, there was no longer a third collaboration with the Fellini wife. The planned third film, The Threepenny Opera , did not go into production until 1962 and had Hildegard Knef in the Masina role.
Reviews
All in all, the ratings for this film were mixed to bad; The camerawork of Swede Göran Strindberg was particularly praised .
“During his first attempt at walking in the area of the demanding film, the Berlin-based Schnulzen potentate Kurt Ulrich stumbled over an inadequate script (RA Stemmle) and a misrepresentation (Victor Vicas). Although he spared no expense - he spent 2.7 million marks in order to enable "La Strada" Italian Giulietta Masina to spend several weeks in the Polish swampy landscape in front of the camera of the Swedish composer Göran Strindberg - the cinematographic end product could perhaps be a meteorologist, but by no means to captivate a film friend: In persistent bad weather, the filmed "Lithuanian story" of the bearded East Prussian Hermann Sudermann dissolves to an agonizing breadth. "
The new film adaptation knows how to stay away from the “blood and soil” style and the Heimat film genre. But even though names like Tilsit and Heydekrug are mentioned, what is appreciated about Sudermann to this day is not present in the film: the strength of the milieu in his stories, the impressive portrayal of the landscape on the East Prussian border to Lithuania. The actors cannot even hint at the idiom of the language, and the pictures were taken near Warsaw (with the kind support of Poles). Some moviegoers will be disappointed. The atmosphere is still very close at the beginning, thanks to the pictures of the Swedish cameraman Göran Strindberg. The imagery rules over the word and has something compelling and oppressive about it. Films by the idiosyncratic Swedish director Ingmar Bergman begin so epic, mysterious, accompanied by the calls of the toads and the creak of a rickety cart. But it's not a Bergman film, the director's name is Victor Vicas (…) The moor plays a decisive role. But although it has been dramatized by a flood and cinematic shuddering scenes in which people sink into the mud, it is only hinted at tame and pleasantly what the violence of the water and what is mud. (…) The film… does not require any sympathy. The director tries more intensively to trace the depth and scope of the relationship between men and women. In Giulietta Masina (Erdme) and Karl Raddatz (Jons) he has two intelligent actors who draw these characters in strong outlines. "
“Sudermann's oppressive story of the girl Erdme and the moor settler Jons becomes a lot darker in this cinematic representation. Hardly ever that the sun illuminates the picture. Everything is gray and black. Just water, boggy ground, ghostly fog. A brilliant achievement by Göran Strindberg behind the camera; He knows how to capture the dark melancholy of the Lithuanian landscape perfectly. You can feel the disaster in the next scene. Director Victor Vicas (who wrote the screenplay with RA Stemmle) often emphasizes the tragic conflicts too much and in some places slips into tears. Reconciling the good performance. Especially the convincing game of Giulietta Masina. She found excellent partners in Richard Basehart and Carl Raddatz. "
In the lexicon of the international film it says: "The cinematic adaptation of the underlying epic novella turned into a respectable mixture of poetry and effective cinema."
Individual evidence
- ^ Report in Der Spiegel from April 22, 1959
- ↑ Jons and Erdme in Der Spiegel of September 23, 1959
- ↑ Jons and Erdme in Die Zeit of September 11, 1959
- ↑ Jons and Erdme in the Hamburger Abendblatt of October 21, 1959
- ↑ Jons and Erdme. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
Web links
- Jons and Erdma in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Jons and Erdme at filmportal.de