Max Schmeling (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Max Schmeling |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2010 |
| length | 123 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Uwe Boll |
| script |
Timo Berndt , Uwe Boll |
| production | Wolfgang Herold |
| music | Jessica de Rooij |
| camera | Mathias Neumann |
| cut | Charles Ladmiral |
| occupation | |
| |
Max Schmeling is a German biography by Uwe Boll from 2010 . It describes the life and career of the former German heavyweight boxing champion , Max Schmeling . The main role is shown by Henry Maske , a former world light heavyweight champion .
action
Towards the end of the Second World War , Max Schmeling, as a soldier in the German Wehrmacht, was commissioned to transfer a British prisoner of war from Crete. During the trip, the two men trust each other and Schmeling begins to tell his life story. Flashbacks show his first World Cup bouts, his relationship with actress Anny Ondra, and finally his legendary fights against Joe Louis.
background
Max Schmeling and Henry Maske were close friends until the death of the former heavyweight world champion in 2005. Schmeling once announced that he wanted to be portrayed by Mask if his life was ever filmed. Mask then felt the offer to embody his idol in a movie adaptation as a great honor and a matter close to his heart and accepted after careful consideration. Mask, who previously had extra roles in the television productions Then came you (2003) and Hammer & Hart (2006), took eight months of acting classes for the role.
For director Uwe Boll , it was the first film made in Germany after 1997. Boll himself is an amateur boxer. Sommerberg Castle in Wiesbaden-Frauenstein served as the backdrop for Schmeling's East Prussian estate .
Active boxing professionals such as Yoan Pablo Hernández and Arthur Abraham could be won for the boxing scenes. Henry Maskes former coach Manfred Wolke also made a brief appearance in the role of the coach of Jack Sharkey .
The film was supposedly financed as a commissioned work by two Hamburg millionaires who do not want to appear by name in order to pay tribute to their idol on film.
criticism
The German film critics largely agreed that the film had failed. Opinions only differed on the question of who was primarily responsible for this. Christoph Petersen von Filmstarts described the casting of the main role with Henry Maske as "a marketing gag that completely destroyed the film". Mask play is wooden and characterized by an involuntary comedy that nips any hint of atmosphere in the bud. Other weaknesses, such as the “bold treatise on National Socialism and an unimaginative staging style apart from the boxing scenes” were “hardly aggravating.” Andreas Dosch also judged in Stern that the main problem with the film was the wrong cast of the protagonist. “It is possible that the somewhat dumb naivety of the title character was in the script; In the case of a newcomer to the cinema, however, it looks anything but pretended. This involuntary " method acting ", coupled with the tendency to muffled the dialogues, creates unwanted cheerfulness. "
Jenni Zylka, on the other hand, wrote in Der Spiegel that the "debacle" was clearly Boll's account. It is “amazing how lame Uwe Boll filmed the life of an exceptional athlete”. Peter Zander denied Boll any ability as a director in the world and complained that Boll could "not even put a house in the limelight." Others, on the other hand, pointed to a weak script. Andrea Burtz, for example, spoke on Westdeutscher Rundfunk of "more than awkward dialogues" that would ensure the "technical knockout" of the film. Carlos Corbelle pointed out on filmreporter.de that "with such profound lines of dialogue like" I'm going to take a shower "or" I'm going to the toilet "even Robert De Niro would have reached his limits in Like a Wild Bull ." the film only for its boxing scenes.
The German cinema audience largely punished the production with neglect. In the first two weeks after the premiere on October 7th, the cinemas recorded only around 16,000 visitors - a catastrophic figure for a production of this size. As a reaction to the lack of visitors, Boll started a counterattack, as in previous failures. The box office result shows "that German viewers have no interest in German history and only run into fashionable Hollywood junk."
Web links
- Max Schmeling in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Max Schmeling . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2010 (PDF; test number: 123 884 K).
- ↑ IMDb.com: Trivia for Max Schmeling (2010)
- ^ BZ Online from October 20, 2010: Film flop not bad
- ↑ Come out of cover . Filmhaus Frankfurt, accessed on March 6, 2020.
- ↑ Sabine Müller: Henry Maske kisses in Wiesbaden . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , July 8, 2009.
- ↑ Jenni Zylka: Like a mild bull. In: Spiegel Online . October 8, 2010, accessed August 19, 2018 .
- ^ Filmstarts.de: Max Schmeling - A German legend
- ↑ Stern.de of October 7, 2010: "Max Schmeling" without any inspiration
- ↑ Welt Online from October 7, 2010: Boxer plays boxer
- ↑ WDR 2 cinema tip from October 7, 2010
- ↑ Filmreporter.de vom: Max Schmeling - Eine deutsche Legende ( Memento of the original from October 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://unterhaltung.t-online.de/henry-maskes-filmbiografie-ueber-max-schmeling-floppt-an-den-kinokassen/id_43177832/index
- ↑ Rheinische Post from October 24, 2010: Mask director insults the audience ( Memento of the original from October 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
