Ludwig - Requiem for a virgin king
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Ludwig - Requiem for a virgin king |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1972 |
| length | 140 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hans-Jürgen Syberberg |
| script | Hans-Jürgen Syberberg |
| production | Hans-Jürgen Syberberg |
| music | Richard Wagner |
| camera | Dietrich Lohmann |
| cut | Peter Przygodda |
| occupation | |
| |
Ludwig - Requiem for a Virgin King is a two-part, German feature film from 1972 by Hans-Jürgen Syberberg with Harry Baer in the title role.
action
With strong visual stylization and at the same time framed by Wagnerian bombast, Syberberg recounts the tragic life story of the mythical, Bavarian “fairy tale king” Ludwig II, embedded in associative scenes of later German history with two of its most ominous representatives (Adolf Hitler, Ernst Röhm).
Bavarian folk dances are performed, and three Norns represent the young Ludwig as one of Lola Montez, the temporary lover of Ludwig I, cursed monarch with whom the Kingdom of Bavaria will one day perish. Ludwig II gives himself completely to aesthetics and art, politics, especially power politics, is repugnant to him. His love belongs entirely to his idea of beauty, which he lives out in the unrestrained building of palaces and the equally unconditional admiration of Richard Wagner's music. He does not hide his homosexuality and opposes modernity in the form of industrialization and modernization. He gradually begins to lose touch with reality as well as his contact with the population.
The sensitive Ludwig knows nothing to oppose the great Prussian antipode in Berlin, Otto von Bismarck , who absolutely wanted to drag the Francophile monarch's Bavaria into the planned war against France in 1870. Although it was on the winning side, Bavaria lost its importance after the Franco-German War won with the establishment of the German Empire, of which the country had become a part. Ludwig's eccentricity increases more and more, and soon he is faced with powerful opponents who no longer tolerate his worldly aversion and no longer want to support his extravagance.
In the end, Ludwig only sees a sister in spirit in his cousin Elisabeth of Bavaria, who as Empress “Sissi” of Austria, like himself, will soon become immortal. The Bavarian ministers dare to revolt against the monarch, led by Uncle Luitpold, who then takes over the reign. Ludwig II allegedly dies in Lake Starnberg. In Syberberg's production he stands yodelling under a guillotine, surrounded by motorcyclists. In his final vision, modern American tourists take possession of its fairytale castles.
Production notes
The almost two-and-a-half-hour film Ludwig - Requiem for a Virgin King , produced in a record-breaking time of only eleven days for only DM 300,000 , had its premiere on June 23, 1972, both in the cinema (in Munich) and on television (in ZDF at 10.50 p.m.).
The first part was called The Curse , the second part I was once .
Barbara Baum designed the costumes, Theo Nischwitz was responsible for the special effects.
The film is the first of Syberberg's so-called Germany trilogy, which he continued in 1974 with Karl May and concluded with Hitler in 1976/77 , a film from Germany .
Awards
- Hans-Jürgen Syberberg received the gold tape for the best screenplay
- Film tape in gold for the best full-length feature film
- Special Jury Prize at the Valladolid Film Festival (1974) for Syberberg
Reviews
“Richard Wagner, the sybarite from Saxony, would not have got very far without Ludwigs Ticks and Börse. Ludwig drove the wagon business to extremes: His castle building fever was ignited by the Germanic operas. Entire wings of Neuschwanstein were copied from Wagner sets. Ludwig filmmaker Hans-Jürgen Syberberg used just this quirk for his play of light: He lets the king (Hary Bär) suffer in Wagner sets and to Wagner music; Wagner himself appears in two guises - as a pale woman and as a bad gnome. Syberberg also wants to "capture the spirit of the Ludwig era" with "fantastic realism". Karl May will appear, who described Ludwig in the novel ("Der Wurzelsepp"), as well as Lola Montez, who was once driven out of Munich and who was once loved as a mistress by the fairy tale king's grandfather, Ludwig I. As a Norn and "out of vengeance on Bavaria" (Syberberg), she should curse the younger Ludwig at the beginning. "
“A separate presentation for those lovers of allusive legends, who fared no different than the title hero himself ninety years ago. (...) All the allusions, secret references, hidden quotations, matches and incongruities that awaited deciphering! The luck of the rediscovery: one had seen the fairy tale grotto, recognized the singing hall of Neuschwanstein, unraveled the Lohengrin allusions. Yes, on the other hand, how much embarrassment! Don't guess Wagner's music when King Ludwig spoke of his compulsions to masturbation! The identity of Winnetou and Joseph Kainz ... completely missed! Wilhelm Bauer, the generally misunderstood inventor of the submarine, as everyone should know, considered a Syberbergian invention! In order to act on two levels and to be able to amuse and edify both the connoisseurs in the separate performance and the cheerful ground floor, this Ludwig was too single-layered, just gay, decadent, sentimental, lonely and cynical ... the artificial, the technically daring, that first gave the artificial paradise its nightmarish madness, did not come to light: warm air heating in the Venus grotto, dynamo machines on Hörselberg; Wagner's swans and Siemens electricity! The denunciation of a feudal lord who, apparently anti-capitalist, makes use of the blessings of heavy industry in order to be able to dream his paper dreams, could, with Wagnerian music, have made visible the relationship between dandyism and brutality that Ludwig bequeathed not only to his German heirs has ... Ludwig, the anti-Jesus and Bavarian yodelers. "
“At the same time as Visconti, 37-year-old Syberberg was also working on a film about the King of Bavaria in 1972. Instead of a 12 million budget, he had only 300,000 marks available. Out of the necessity of want, he made the virtue of radical scenic stylization. His Ludwig plays in backdrops that are reminiscent of fairground panoramas, the fantasy worlds of the film pioneer Georges Méliès and of course the pretentious self-presentation of Bayreuth. The artificial spirit of Wagner hovers above everything. The composer is embodied by a dwarf and a woman at the same time. “Sissi”, the beloved sister of the maddened regent, has nothing at all of the quirkiness of her iconography, which was shaped by Romy Schneider. Hitler experiences his grotesque appearance in a “flashover”. And finally, the dying Wittelsbacher is haunted by the vision of American tourists who enthusiastically take possession of his fairytale castles. Hans Jürgen Syberberg first formulated the style elements that would make him world famous five years later with the monstrous Hitler project: “A world of culture and Germanic myths that spreads like an obsession, an ongoing creation, the past and the present mixed up, breaks with the chronology that holds German Romanticism and Freud and Brecht against each other. " "
“Imaginative and intelligent film about the aura, form and tragic fate of the Bavarian king. In the mirror of an artificial, bombastically staged illusory world, with Wagnerian compositions, glossy and satirical references to the time, figure and folklore are demythologized - occasionally bypassing good taste. Interesting, but also overloaded to the point of tiring the audience. "
“For Syberberg, Ludwig and his environment have become legend. Legend of a life that seems to be represented in many stages of a single night, which seems to be represented in many stages of a single night, because Ludwig only lived at night. Contemporary reports, Ludwig's own writings, original photos, drafts for a large number of castles and the stage sets for Wagner's operas supported by Ludwig add up to dream stations of a Götterdämmerung, which claim authenticity and are nonetheless staged with scenes from Karl May's Ludwig novel and Wagner's Cover ideas. Why Ludwig has become an object of mythological popular longing, the great hunter, criminal, fairy tale king and redeemer, why today - and especially today - the charism of holy kings is attributed to the man who tried his whole life to escape from people, is attributed to this film legendary scenes: grief arises, yes, awe of this absolute individualist, who had to fail as a living anachronism on the threshold of the industrial age, a strange affection and love for a person with the charm of a dream figure, which is rare in Germany. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Norne Lola curses the king in Der Spiegel, April 24, 1972, p. 153
- ^ Ludwig - Requiem for a virginal king in: deutsches-filmhaus.de
- ↑ Ludwig - Requiem for a virgin king. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .