Mephisto (film)

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Movie
German title Mephisto
Original title Mephisto
Country of production Federal Republic of Germany , Austria , Hungary
original language German , Hungarian
Publishing year 1981
length 144 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director István Szabó
script István Szabó,
Péter Dobai
production József Marx ,
Lajos Óvári ,
Manfred Durniok
music Zdenkó Tamássy
camera Lajos Koltai
cut Zsuzsa Csákány
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
Colonel Redl

Mephisto is a German - Hungarian drama directed by István Szabó from 1981. Its screenplay is based on the novel of the same name , which Klaus Mann wrote and published in exile in 1936. The novel traces weakly veiled career advancement of theater actor, -regisseurs and -intendanten Gustaf in the era of National Socialism by. An earlier edition of the novel was banned by a court in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1966. In the spring of 1981, when the film was shown in Cannes and received the award for the best screenplay and the FIPRESCI award , the novel appeared again in the Federal Republic. The film reduces the references to Gründgens and condenses the fictionalized main character Hendrik Höfgen into exemplary quality, the type of adaptive character and corruptible artist who sacrifices his convictions for professional success. The co-production with television was shot in the DEFA studios, in Budapest and in Paris. In addition to Szabó's production, it was Klaus Maria Brandauer in the main role that caused a sensation and received critical acclaim.

action

Hendrik Höfgen is an actor at a theater in Hamburg, very talented, but also vain and eccentric . At the end of the twenties he was enthusiastic about the idea of ​​developing theater for the broadest sections of the population. His attempts to bring “ proletarian theater” to the stage with amateur actors , however, fail because of his excessive demands on the performers. Several times he expressly opposes all National Socialist efforts in the country. He is convinced that you get dirty if you deal with people who have subscribed to the National Socialist direction.

Höfgen marries the upper-class daughter Barbara Bruckner without abandoning his former lover, the dark-skinned Juliette. He gets a guest engagement at a theater in Berlin and can establish himself there permanently, he is celebrated by the audience. His wife brings him the news that Hitler has become Chancellor. She has made the plan to turn her back on Germany and would like to win him over to her emigration plans. Höfgen, however, points out that as an actor he is bound to the German language and therefore would not find a job anywhere else. He tries again and again to save himself to the idea that his art is set apart from all politics. When the Reichstag burned in Berlin , it was in Budapest for a film. He hesitates to return to Germany because he is prepared that his past as a communist agitator could be his undoing. However, he receives a letter from a colleague close to the power circle, in which she assures him that he has good chances of further theater engagements.

He achieved his greatest successes in Berlin in the role of Mephisto in Goethe's Faust . The Prussian Prime Minister is present at one of the performances. He calls the "Mephisto" to him during the break and from then on becomes his patron. Höfgen accepts that his Juliette will be expelled from the country's rulers. Since he fits in well with the Nazis' calculations, he is offered the post of artistic director of the State Theater, and he accepts. He eloquently defended the regime from the international press. The former National Socialist Hans Miklas wants to start a protest against the terror regime and also comes to Höfgen, who is however completely averse to him. After the Nazis murdered Miklas and hushed up the death as an alleged car accident, Höfgen notices that the Nazis are walking over dead bodies. He goes to the minister, but is thrown out because he is "just an actor". The Nazi warns him not to interfere in political matters. When Höfgen meets his former patrons in Paris, he realizes that his former friends are against him. At the end, the Prime Minister and Höfgen go to the Berlin Olympic Stadium . The Prime Minister sends Höfgen to the middle of the stadium and lets spotlights follow him there. In a situation in which Höfgen feels uncomfortably pushed into the center, he speaks the last words of the film: “What do they want from me? I'm just an actor. "

criticism

Hans Gerhold from the film service found Brandauer “extremely brilliant” in an “acting tour de force that alone is worth a visit”. It offers an “intelligent psychogram of someone obsessed with success and benefiting from the powerful”. "Formally consistent", Szabó Höfgen expresses ambivalence through a semi-darkness. By not deciphering the characters as real persons, the film avoids gossip and gains generality for other totalitarian regimes. “This and the generally unobtrusive camera work, which alternates close-ups and close-ups and long long shots that occasionally drive around the people, also makes the change from psychological chamber play and impotent observation of power processes, in which art is literally involved, transparent Mephisto will become a cinematic discourse on politics and culture that is well worth seeing. "

For the 1982 Fischer Film Almanach , Mephisto was “much more than a film adaptation of a famous key novel”. He named the final scene in which Höfgen exclaims: “I'm just an actor!” “A great metaphor in a film that is not lacking in such virtuoso tricks.” Brandauer, who embodies Höfgen “with a ravishing passion”, is part of it the intensity of the other actors “in the shadows, although they too show excellent performances. István Szabó is on a par with his mastery of his resources […]. With the »Mephisto« he achieved his masterpiece. "

Uta van Steen from the evangelical film observer saw the scene at the end more prosaically: “Just an actor” could be added “just a minor official” or “just a train driver” and so on. Szabó's brilliant style included switching between close-ups and long shots, between pictures in light pastel tones and semi-dark scenes, hectic fast-forwarding and calm shots. Brandauer received "the highest praise": "Sensitively and consistently credible, he mastered the difficult task of making Höfgen's fascinating personality tangible, masterfully contrasted by GDR star Rolf Hoppe as a diabolical general."

subjects

Uta van Steen understood the film as a “study of a success-obsessed, almost manic character, who settled into extreme contradictions in order to be able to live in and for his art, makes it clear that the security of an existence separated from life in an ivory tower is only an illusion . "According to the Fischer Film Almanach , the acting profession is an" ingenious metaphor "for" an adaptation to the extreme, up to the loss of one's self. "Although Mephisto Höfgens is a" prime role "," in life he is not that. " Seducer, but the seduced ”. He made a pact with the devil, who in the figure of the Prime Minister “in no way appears like a devil. He doesn't need any violence, he has other means at his disposal. ”Höfgen achieves the ascent through betrayal of other people and surrenders himself to power eaten away by“ fear, ambition and genius ”.

In Zoom, Gerhart Waeger argued about Brandauer's “amazing achievement”. “By means of purely interpretative means, his Höfgen becomes an almost eerie character who initially only gets a“ face ”in role play on the stage, but later finds ways to play a“ role ”in private life and at least pretend personality to be able to. ”Höfgen is a type of actor who has little personality of his own and can therefore slip into roles all the more easily. “The fact that the character of Mephisto Höfgen is a brilliant role only shows how little he is suited to being a seducer himself.” Therefore, he adapts to the circumstances at any cost: “Because playing a role - on stage as in private life - is for Höfgen the only possibility of existence; The actor's mask conceals the facelessness of the individual. ”Similarly, Rolf Hoppe does not present a Göring caricature, but rather the“ type of cold power man who is internally just as hollow as Höfgen and who only gets his face through his (in this case political) role who he plays: Höfgen and the «General» appear in Szabó as two smear comedians of doom […] ”, right down to the composition of the picture. Uta van Steen thought Höfgen was someone who equated life with theater. At the beginning of his career he was firmly committed to “the concept of total theater [...] that overcomes the boundary between actors and audience. Then [...] the Nazis came and staged their total theater, the stage of which was the world and Höfgen's willing tool. “The actor equated life with theater.

Awards

Dramas and pieces of music used

Bertolt Brecht's The Bread Shop , Goethe's Faust , Franz Liszt Mephisto Waltz , Johann Strauss Spring Voices , Franz Meißner The Timber Auction, Reinitz-Klabund "Es wird geht", Erich Mühsam "Lumpenlied".

Others

The film was first shown on GDR television on January 1, 1983, and on January 30, 1983 at 9:30 p.m. on ARD television .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mephisto. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 13, 2015 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ Certificate of release for Mephisto . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2005 (PDF; test number: 52 608 DVD).
  3. ↑ For the locations see Knut Hickethier: Mephisto. In: Thomas Koebner (Ed.): Reclams Filmklassiker , Volume 3. Reclam, Stuttgart 1995.
  4. ↑ Hans Gerhold: Mephisto. In: film-dienst No. 20/1981.
  5. ^ A b Fischer Film Almanach 1982. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982. ISBN 3-596-23674-6 , pp. 158-160.
  6. ↑ a b c Uta van Steen: Mephisto , criticism in the film observer, printed in: Lother R. Just (ed.): Das Filmjahr '81 / 82. Filmland Presse, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-88690-022-3 , pp. 169-171.
  7. ↑ Gerhart Waeger: Mephisto- In: Zoom No. 20/1981, pp. 12-13.
  8. ^ Deutsches Filmhaus and Spiegel.de .