Signs of life (film)

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Movie
Original title Signs of life
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1968
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Werner Herzog
script Werner Herzog
production Werner Herzog
music Stavros Xarchakos
camera Thomas Mauch
cut Beate Mainka-Jellinghaus
Maximiliane Mainka
occupation

Signs of Life is Werner Herzog's first feature film , released in 1968 . The basis for the film plot was the romantic story The great Invalide on Fort Ratonneau by Achim von Arnim and a report in the magazine Der Freymüthige about a criminal case in the Seven Years War .

content

During the Second World War , the injured Wehrmacht soldier Stroszek and his comrades Meinhard and Becker were ordered to the Greek island of Kos . After Stroszek's recovery, the men’s only job is to guard a fortress and ammunition depot. Away from the theaters of war, time passes largely uneventfully, so that boredom quickly sets in. Stroszek, who is getting more and more into an imaginary threat, gradually loses his mind until he holed up in the fortress, lit fireworks and announced that he wanted to set the sun on fire. Finally, a narrator reports that Stroszek was finally caught by his own men and "failed as miserably and as shabbily as all his kind".

Background, publication

Werner Herzog's grandfather Rudolf Herzog worked as an archaeologist at the Neratzia fortress , which serves as the setting; his then last surviving employee, Achmed Hafiz, appeared in the film.

The title character played by Bruno S. in Herzog 's 1977 film of the same name also bears the name Stroszek. According to Herzog, that was the name of one of his fellow students who did tasks for him. Instead of payment, he promised him to make his name famous.

The working title of the film was fire sign . The film, shot between June and July and September 1967, was funded by the Young German Film Board of Trustees and premiered in the Federal Republic of Germany on June 25, 1968 at the IFF in Berlin . It was shown for the first time in Munich on July 5, 1968. It was also presented in October 1968 as a German contribution to the New York Film Festival and on June 14, 1970 at the Adelaide Film Festival and also at the London Film Festival . In Belgium it was shown on television in May 1970, in Spain it was released in April 1978, in the USA in December 1981. In November 1985 it was screened at the Turin Film Festival and in January 2001 it was featured in the Ciclo grandes clásicos europeos published in Argentina. In October 2002 it was screened in Hong Kong, in March 2009 it was screened at the Zlín Student Film Festival in the Czech Republic, in May 2009 it was screened at the IndieLisboa in Portugal and in November 2009 at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival . It was also shown in February 2010 at the International Film Festival in Berlin. It has also been published in Brazil, France, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Poland and the Soviet Union. The English title is: Signs of Life .

The film was released on DVD by Arthaus on June 22, 2004 as part of the two thousand and one edition “Der deutsche Film” under the number 3/1968, and on February 6, 2009 it was released by Kinowelt Home Entertainment.

criticism

In the Spandauer Volksblatt of September 14, 1969, one could read at the time: “The portrayal of Stroszek's fate remains on this Greek island. It has little relation to society. And if there is one, no guilt of society can be derived from it. "

Filmstarts .de wrote about the performance of the main actor: “At the beginning Peter Brogle portrays his Stroszek with stoic calm, then increasingly interrupts the routine with small eruptions and finally burns up in excess.” It continued: “Wolfgang von Ungern-Sternberg and Wolfgang Reichmann play on the other hand, on the verge of caricature - the script, which is rich in absurdities, didn't leave anything else for them. ”Conclusion:“ 'Sign of life' is the statement of an author who was highly self-confident from the start, a challenge to the triviality of German post-war cinema and an outlook on Herzog's core issues - including hereditary enmity with poultry, which Herzog sums up via Meinhard: 'My God, such a chicken has a stupid expression'. "

Kino.de was of the opinion that Stroszek, who was "gradually going mad", "because he was unable to cope with the challenges of a grandiose landscape, the intensity of the glaring light, the strangeness of the people and the signs of an ancient culture", for Herzog " had something titanic ”and he had“ found his ongoing topic ”.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Signs of life at filmstarts.de. Retrieved June 30, 2017.
  2. ↑ Klaus Bötig: Kos , Ostfildern: Dumont 2013, p. 32
  3. ↑ a b Lebenszeichen (1968) at kino.de. Retrieved June 30, 2017
  4. ↑ CineGraph: Werner Herzog, delivery 4
  5. ^ Signs of life at filmportal.de
  6. ↑ vital signs DVDs of the film adS film portal.
  7. ↑ Heiko Christians: Lebenszeichen 1818/1968 comparison of film and novella at edoc.hu-berlin.de, p. 67.