Young Woman from 1914 (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Young woman from 1914
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1970
length 156 minutes
Rod
Director Egon Günther
script Egon Günther
Heinz Kamnitzer
production DEFA
on behalf of the DFF
music Karl-Ernst Sasse
camera Erich Gusko
cut Christa Helwig
occupation

Junge Frau von 1914 is a two-part television film by DEFA by Egon Günther from 1970, based on the novel of the same name by Arnold Zweig from 1931, commissioned by the DFF .

action

Summer 1914. A couple spends their vacation in a farmhouse in the mountains. They are the Potsdam banker's daughter Leonore Wahl and the writer Werner Bertin. The assassination attempt in Sarajevo took place at this beautiful time. The two have to submit to a police check, as the villagers suspect them as spies and only because Leonore is talking to her dog in a fantasy language. You live and love, learn and work. Heated debates revolve around art and the role of the mind in Europe. On an inaugural visit by Werner Bertin to the family of his bride, he encounters cold and negative feelings. A penniless writer, the son of a carpenter, is never acceptable as a son-in-law to the bourgeois family Wahl.

The beginning of the First World War surprised them completely. It pulls almost the entire population into its vortex, and then Bertin suddenly discovers his patriotism. The aesthetic spirit becomes a nationalist. He was drafted in the spring of 1915, had to go to Küstrin for basic military training and was then deployed as a reinforcement soldier, i.e. as a soldier without training on weapons. During Leonore's visit to Küstrin, an incident occurs between him and his long-time lover. Although Bertin is a sensitive, considerate and somewhat unworldly young man, the few weeks in the barracks have brutalized him so much that his girlfriend is raped while the two lovers go for a walk. But it is not this violent sexual assault that leads Lenore to the crisis in her relationship with Bertin, but rather the pregnancy that followed. Since her parents are still against a connection between Lenore and Werner, she sees no other option than to have the child aborted. With the help of her younger brother David, who is still in high school, plays the piano and is aiming to study music, she finds a private clinic in Berlin where the illegal operation is carried out. The financing of the hospital stay is also secured by an advance payment on one of Bertin's pieces that arrives just in time. The actual disagreement between Lenore and Werner only comes after the abortion, when Werner visits his lover in the clinic, but refuses to stay a few more days in order to provide her support. Lenore is going through a strange development over the next few months. She stands up to her parents for her official connection with Werner: First she can get an engagement with him because the Wahls consider it useful to have a family member in the field, as it could postpone David's draft. In addition, a prospective son-in-law in the family would also be good for the banker's business relationship with the Prussian military leadership. When Bertin's unit is finally to be relocated to Verdun, Leonore looks for a way to have him completely exempted from military service, but only receives the information that a wedding guarantees him a vacation. With the help of her liberal grandfather, she gets her parents married to Werner and actively runs the vacation application for her fiancé. After more than a year of military service, Bertin was given four full days of vacation for his wedding, married Leonore in Berlin and spent two honeymoon days with her in the Wahl family's villa in Potsdam. Then he has to go back to duty in Verdun and is seen by Leonore at the train station.

production

Young woman from 1914 was shot on ORWO -Color and had on 17./18. January 1970 premiere in the 2nd program of the DFF . On 23/26 September 1971 was the first broadcast on ARD . On June 11, 1971, cinema screenings in the GDR started in the Kosmos cinema in Berlin .

criticism

The lexicon of international films described the film as "an interestingly designed time image with improvised, modern scenes". The “psychological differentiation of the original” would be “shortened in film, but still effectively captured”. The film is "one of the most important films on GDR television". Katia Stern wrote in Neues Deutschland that Heinz Kamnitzer and director Egon Günther have found artistic design possibilities that correspond to the intentions of the poet and capture the characters of the work from their social position and their relationship to one another.

In the Neue Zeit, Mimosa Künzel commented on Erich Guskos' camerawork: “He took away everything static from her by mainly operating with the hand-held camera, catching up with quick, abrupt image sequences that are communicated to the eye as fleeting perceptions. The color was used to express meaning, arousing emotions: variable sepia tones like a thunderstorm, already ominous yellow; a bare, hard violet in documentary recordings from the events of the First World War: a pale green in the scenes before Verdun and accented color chords and a jubilant, colorful indulgence. "

literature

the literary model

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Young woman from 1914. In: Lexicon of international films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ New Germany of January 22, 1970
  3. ^ New Times of January 22, 1970