Märkische research

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Märkische research
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1982
length 96 minutes
Rod
Director Roland Graef
script Roland Graef
production DEFA
music Günther Fischer
camera Peter Brand
cut Monika Schindler
occupation

Märkische Forschungen is a German film adaptation of DEFA by Roland Gräf from 1982.

action

In rainy weather, a car slides halfway into a ditch on an unpaved road. A cyclist comes by without a greeting, but gets help, because in the next shot you can see the car on the tow rope of a tractor.

This is how the village school teacher Ernst Pötsch and the Berlin literary scholar Professor Winfried Menzel start a conversation, which soon becomes so stimulating that Pötsch leaves his bike by the wayside and Menzel invites him to coffee with his family in the small town of Liepros / Mark. The sole subject is the author Max von Schwedenow. Menzel, who is no stranger even in the village inn due to frequent television appearances, shows keen interest in Pötsch's “research”, as he plans to publish a large monograph on the forgotten poet in the near future. Schwedenow should return to the consciousness of the population in time for the celebration of the 165th birthday.

What he learns from the teacher electrifies Menzel: Pötsch claims that the progressive Max von Schwedenow and the conservative, even reactionary Friedrich Wilhelm Maximilian Massow, who himself worked as an employee of the Prussian "Oberzensurkollegium" after the Karlsbad resolutions, are the same person. If Pötsch could prove his thesis, Menzel's 600-page book would be wasted before it went to press.

Menzel does not show anything, is jovial and patronizing-condescending and invites Pötsch to come to Berlin. The two brothers drink here and the teacher is offered an assistant position in the institute. When Pötsch comes across more and more evidence that substantiates his thesis, Menzel again invites him to the capital. But there is no shortage of voices in the institute that warn him against the role of the professor's serf, which he voluntarily accepts. But Pötsch wants to leave the provinces behind and move to Berlin with his wife and children. Ms. Unverloren, an employee at the institute and a single mother, is immediately ready to swap her apartment. However, Pötsch does not want to be captured. That is why he is not only giving the interim report of his previous research to Menzel on his 50th birthday, but is also sending it to a GDR journal and to a professor in Braunschweig, after he has helped him to close a few gaps in his knowledge.

When Menzel found out about Pötsch's undertakings, he showed his true colors: He did not tolerate any competitors next to him, only a long-agreed joint lecture with the “hobby historian” in front of the Berlin Urania can no longer be canceled. Attempts at mediation are unsuccessful, the teacher is dropped and stays in his village. Pötsch's brother Fritz moves to Berlin to live with Frau Unverloren, with whom he has since fallen in love. Then the Braunschweig university professor appears in the Mark and encourages Pötsch in his research, but still rejects publication in the West at this point in time: Pötsch lacks the “unprejudiced view” of the Carlsbad censorship decisions.

Pötsch, who does not want to be forced into an ideological corset in his Märkische research, finally gets out, gives up his teaching profession and digs for the missing stone for his mosaic: In the bricks of an old, dilapidated house there are supposed to be inscriptions that represent his Confirm the theory, and if he can't find it in the ruins, he'll know where the rest of the stones were built.

production

Märkische Forschungen was shot on ORWO- Color based on the novel of the same name by Günter de Bruyn by the group "Roter Kreis" and had its premiere on April 21, 1982 in the Chemnitz City Hall (Karl-Marx-Stadt).

criticism

Renate Holland-Moritz described the film in the satirical magazine Eulenspiegel as a fascinating tragic comedy that relies entirely on the actors' ability and charisma. Hermann Beyer provided the village school teacher Pötsch with all the nuances of the shy, unworldly, eccentric, but self-confident loner, not susceptible to vain delusion and fashionable cynicism, but not without sectarian obsession. The GDR magazine Film und Fernsehen stated that the film tells life and does not engage in problem polemics. The very strong, individual cast, which results in an exciting ensemble performance, was praised.

Awards

At the 2nd National Feature Film Festival of the GDR Karl-Marx-Stadt , Dieter Adam received the award for scenography in 1982; Hermann Beyer was named Best Actor. In addition, Märkische Forschungen received the film club's prize, The Findling , which was created especially for the film , as the most effective film. In 1983 Märkische Forschungen also won the GDR Critics' Prize.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Renate Holland-Moritz: Kino Eule . In: Eulenspiegel , number 22/1982.
  2. ↑ Klaus Wischnewski: digressions on the subject In: Film und Fernsehen No. 5/1982, S. 17f.
  3. ↑ F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 383 .