Majesty need sun
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Majesty need sun |
| Country of production | Germany , Netherlands |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1999 |
| length | 105 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 0 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Peter Schamoni |
| script | Peter Schamoni |
| production | Peter Schamoni, Rob Houwer |
| music | Holger Aurel Jung |
| camera |
Michael Bartlett , Ernst Hirsch , Konrad Kotowski , Peter Rosenwanger , Thomas Rosié , Morten Skallerud |
| cut |
Thomas Krattenmacher Carolin Rethfeld |
Majesty need sun is a German-Dutch documentary by Peter Schamoni from 1999 . He deals with the life of the last German Emperor Wilhelm II.
action
The film follows Wilhelm II's life primarily from a cultural-historical perspective. The last German emperor was a friend of the realistic arts and often had himself portrayed. In Potsdam and Berlin he employed 20 court photographers and gave away pictures of himself in different sizes to deserving subordinates. He was also - after initial distrust - an enthusiastic supporter of the new art of film, which had also become acceptable from 1908. The earliest film document showing him dates back to 1901 and was made in London on the occasion of the funeral of his grandmother Queen Victoria . Wilhelm II showed great interest in the erection and dedication of monuments, so he had monuments of Wilhelm I, the unification emperor, erected throughout the country. In 1901 the inauguration of Siegesallee took place in Berlin , which included statues from Albrecht the Bear to Wilhelm I.
Wilhelm's left shoulder nerves were injured when he was born, which resulted in permanent disability. He could hardly move his left arm, which was also much shorter. This is particularly evident on film recordings. These were only allowed to take place during “ imperial weather ”, i.e. sunshine.
Surprisingly, Wilhelm became German Emperor in 1888 at the age of 29 in the three emperor year. He saw self-representation as a main task and visited 50 cities in 1889 alone. In the following years he also made a noticeable number of trips at home and abroad, so that he was popularly known as the “travel emperor” and the addition “IR” (Imperator Rex) was reinterpreted as “always ready to travel”. With a progressive interest in the development of transport, Wilhelm II sponsored the Imperial Automobile Club , which later developed into the AvD . He was interested in the expansion of the postal system and the progress of the railroad. He himself traveled by car or, more often, by train. If his wife went with him, the imperial train consisted of eleven wagons, if he went without her, it got seven or eight wagons. Wilhelm II paid special attention to the navy. He owned the imperial steam yacht Hohenzollern , on which he made a trip to Norway every year. At his instigation, the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal , which was opened in 1895, was built. As the “Emperor of the Fleet”, Wilhelm II promoted sailing and brought the Reichsmarineamt into being. He regularly went on Mediterranean cruises and, in addition to Italy, headed for Corfu. Here he bought the Achilleion in 1907 , which he used as a summer residence. He also devoted himself to archaeological excavations, which were, however, canceled due to the unrest leading up to the First World War . As every year, Wilhelm II traveled to Norway in the summer of 1913 and not only made friends by donating the colossal Frithjof sculpture to Vangsnes in 1913 . During the Kieler Woche 1914, Wilhelm II learned of the Sarajevo assassination attempt and went to Norway for the last time during his summer vacation.
The emperor's reputation declined during the First World War , something that even the first propaganda films during his visit to the Ottoman Empire could not change. Wilhelm II sank into depression more and more often, especially since he could only rule as a shadow emperor, since the actual political power emanated from the Supreme Army Command. The Kiel sailors' uprising shook him deeply, as he had brought the fleet into being himself. He went into exile in the Netherlands and settled on House Doorn . He has never touched a hunting rifle since then - he used to be proud of his one-handed kills and his hunting successes - and gave up riding, which he had also learned one-handed. Instead he dedicated himself enthusiastically to tree felling and decimated the tree population around Haus Doorn considerably. With bitterness he registered the "deceit" by Hindenburg, who had sat on his throne. He did not want to work with the National Socialists and later found that all Berliners had become proletarians by now. The Germans will one day curse the swastika flag, he foresaw. His burial in 1941 took place with military honors in the grounds of Haus Doorn and not, as Hitler planned, in Berlin.
In 1950 the statues on Siegesallee were dismantled and buried by the Allies, but dug up again in the 1980s and placed in a building in Berlin-Kreuzberg, where they are still located today. House Doorn is now a museum and can be visited. Among other things, Wilhelm II's bedside cabinet contains a molar tooth of the last German emperor, and a museum guide notes that Wilhelm II could be cloned on this basis.
production
Majesty need sun was filmed from August 15, 1997 to August 1, 1999 at Doorn Castle near Utrecht, in Norway, Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig, Venice and on Corfu. Most of the recordings, however, are original films of the time, some of which were accompanied by noises. Mel Kutbay was responsible for the sound effects .
The film's spokesman is Mario Adorf . Wilhelm II is spoken to by Otto Sander . Among other things, you can hear quotations from Wilhelm II's works, Events and Figures (1922), Memories of Corfu (1924) and From My Life (1927). Other speakers from various personalities were Donald Arthur , Arthur Brauss and Salome Kammer . The film features excerpts from Richard Wagner's Lohengrin , Walküre , Götterdämmerung , pieces by Edvard Grieg , Eduardo Di Capua's O sole mio and works by Holger Aurel Jung .
Majesty need sun was shown in 1999 as the opening film of the 42nd Leipzig Documentary Festival and was therefore out of competition. The official cinema premiere was on November 9, 2000. ZDF first broadcast Majesty Need Sun on May 9, 2002 on television. The film was released on video in 2001 and DVD in 2006.
criticism
For the film service , Majesty need the sun was “a very entertaining, carefully put together film, which was dubbed and provided with ironic commentary and, on a psychological level, reveals a lot about the nature of the emperor and his era. As a contemporary historical documentation, however, it is hardly of any value, since the historical connections are hidden apart from a few hints and especially the role of Wilhelm in the First World War is played down. "
The Frankfurter Rundschau stated that Schamoni in the film "focuses on the enigmatic, sometimes bizarre of this ruler." The film is an "idiosyncratic film essay that shows Wilhelm II as nervously driven and ridiculously vain as well as a curious modernist and misguided artists. In this way, the one-dimensional image is enriched by many facets. "According to the Frankfurter Rundschau, Schamoni succeeded with the film " with ease, humor in places and sufficient distance [...] one of the most original documentation projects of recent years ".
Die Zeit called the film “a sensation. You sit in front of it in disbelief for 95 minutes. Concepts come to life with intuition, historical interpretations are filled with flesh and blood. "
Awards
Majesty need sun was awarded the producer prize of the Bavarian Film Prize in 2000.
The film evaluation agency awarded the film the rating “valuable”. The jury justified the award of the rating, among other things, with the fact that “this treasure trove of images already deserved a rating as an archival and compilation achievement”.
literature
- Majesty need sun . In: Hilmar Hoffmann (Ed.): Peter Schamoni. Film Pieces . Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart 2003, pp. 62-83.
Web links
- Majesty needs sun in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Majesty need sun at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Your Majesty needs sun. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ^ Rüdiger Suchsland: Wilhelm Zwo - The first German film star . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , November 9, 2000.
- ↑ Gustav Seibt : The fair weather emperor . In: Die Zeit , No. 46, November 9, 2000 ( online ).
- ↑ Majesty need sun on fbw-filmbeval.com