Narcissus and Psyche

Movie
German title	Narcissus and Psyche
Original title	Nárcisz és Psyché, Psyché (three-part TV version)
Country of production	Hungary
original language	Hungarian
Publishing year	1980
length	Abridged export version 141 minutes  Hungarian theatrical version in two parts, 216 minutes  Three-part television version 261 minutes
Rod
Director	Gábor Bódy
script	Vilmos Csaplár , Gábor Bódy
production	Hunnia Filmstúdió
music	László Vidovszky using excerpts from works by Jakob Arcadelt (attributed to), Ludwig van Beethoven , Hector Berlioz , Georges Boulanger , Johannes Brahms , Frédéric Chopin , Claude Debussy , Joseph Haydn , János Kálózdi , József Kossowitz , the Lakatos dynasty , Joseph Lanner , Gustav Mahler , Ödön Pártos , Lajos Podmanicky , Márk Rózsavölgyi , József Ruzitska , Frederick Schreiber , Franz Schubert , Johann Strauss , Ferenc Uhrner , István Weiner
camera	István Hildebrandt
cut	Anna Kornis
occupation
Patricia Adriani : Erzsébet Mária Psyche Lónyay Udo Kier : "Narcissus" László Ungvárnémeti Tóth György Cserhalmi : Maximilian Freiherr von Zedlitz Gyula Hornyánszky : József Graf Dessewffy (Psyche's uncle) János Pilinszky : Ferencz Kazinczy (poet) Nicole Karen : "Ninon" Anna Urania Erato Lónyay Gáspár Ferdinándy : Gaston Haller Gábor Karig : Josó Mailáth Eva Tóth : Klárcsa Rhédey Sándor Erdélyi : Fidél Filippovics (Narcissus' fellow student) Hunor Bucz : Márton "Marci" Vass (student colleague of Narcissus) Ferenc Jánossy : Professor Silver (doctor) János Derzsi : Zoltán Lovászi Dénes Ujlaky : Ferdinánd Kosztolányi Zoltán Gera : Hungarian theater director Ágnes Horváth : Ilse András Fekete : Václav (Ilse's grandfather) Olga Ujhelyi : Klára Mihály Hoppál : Priest / Professor Lorenz Ochsendorff Ingrid Caven : Ingrid (singer of the "Echo") Raymund Weber : Companion 1 of Narcissus in the Varieté Vilmos Csaplár : Companion 2 of Narcissus in the Varieté Babeth Mondini : Melise Semlyén Miklós Erdély : Professor Eberhard (director) Károly Ujlaky : Harold Scott Zoltán Bonta : Romanian officer (at farewell ball) Tibor Hajas : suicide at a farewell ball

Narcissus and Psyche (original title: Nárcisz és Psyché ; the three-part TV version is sometimes referred to as Psyché ) is a Hungarian fictional film by Gábor Bódy from 1980. The uncut version of the epic film over four hours is one in the imagery of the Fantastic realism told allegorical representation of European cultural history from the foothills of the Rococo to the period after the Second World War   in the form of a triangular relationship between a woman and two men, all three of whom did not or only insignificantly age during the action, which lasted well over a hundred years.

Due to its combination of the narrative elements of the feature film with the audiovisual techniques of the experimental film , Narcissus and Psyche occupy a special position in the history of film aesthetics.

Literary source and film

Narcissus and Psyche is based on the fictional anthology Psyché by the Hungarian writer Sándor Weöres , which is essentially a collection of poems; a "plot" results only implicitly from the chronological arrangement of the often "autobiographical" poems by the (fictional) poet Erzsébet Mária Psyché Lónyay and from a few associated short prose texts that report on her life. In order to make plausible that Lónyay actually existed, Weöres artfully interweaves her biography with the lives of many historical personalities.

It is obvious that a film cannot implement such an anthology one-to-one. Gábor Bódy takes this into account in two ways:

• Narcissus and Psyche shifts the weight to the (qua definition narrative) allegorical-mythological content of Psyché . This becomes particularly clear through the decision to extend the lifespan of the protagonists drawn in Psyché as realistically and historically correct as possible to a period of more than 130 years and thus to make them allegorical figures of European modernism .

• As Psyché is a seal over a poet, also is Narcissus and psyche self-reflective by the film with the means of experimental film focuses on the film medium itself. The non-narrative parts of the poems in Psyché correspond to the non-narrative film-language experiments in Narcissus and Psyche .

The shift in the focus of content in the film also changes the drawing of the protagonist: in the literary model, the full weight of Erzsébet Lónyay's personality lies in the depth of her poetry; her character, on the other hand, shows flickering and complacent traits. The Erzsébet Lónyay in Narcissus and Psyche on the other hand, whose poetry the film viewers met only once, wearing all seriousness of a mythological figure in itself; Her constant violation of role expectations has been the consciously lived rebellion against hypostatized conventions from the spirit of free sensuality from the start .

Action at a glance

This section gives an overview of the main storylines in Narcissus and Psyche . The section Action in detail describes the action in detail in order to enable the various cross-references to be looked up.

Erzsébet Mária Psyche Lónyay

Psyche , with full name Erzsébet Mária Psyche Lónyay , is a young Hungarian poet, irresistibly beautiful and driven by an irrepressible will for freedom. Her poetry is sensitive and erotic, very different from the Hungarian poetry of the time, carried by national pathos. She leads a sexually permissive life; she rejects the conventional female role and especially marriage. Born in1795 to a Hungarian nobleman and amotherof a Romni descent , she spent most of her childhood in a Roma colony after her mother left her father for the Roma violinist János Bihari .

László Ungvárnémeti Tóth

"Narcissus" László Ungvárnémeti Tóth is a pastor's son and also a poet. His works do not fit into his time either, because his classicist poetry is based on the noble ideals of antiquity . He hopes to achieve great things and thus to escape the poor conditions from which he comes. During Psyche's time in the Roma colony, Narcissus taught her to read and write, and later to teach her poetry. Since then he has been her great love.

But the relationship between Narcissus and Psyche is not unclouded. While Psyche could seduce any other man without any problems, Narcissus never approached her physically, out of love, as he says. Instead, he picks up at a prostitutes the syphilis , so that ruled out a sexual contact between Narcissus and Psyche from now on until Narcissus' disease can be cured.

Psyche is also sick. She has irregular bleeding between periods to struggle since her brother impregnated her and the child driven by blows to the belly. Narcissus and Psyche therefore agree that Narcissus will go to Pest to find a doctor for himself and for her.

For tactical reasons, Narcissus switched from the Reformed to the Catholic faith in order to receive a scholarship from the Archbishop of Erlau to study in Pest . When the Archbishop speaks of the positive role of the emerging scientific medicine, also from the point of view of the Church, Narcissus decides not simply to look for a doctor in Pest , but to study medicine himself instead of poetry.

Psyche's unadjusted life and her sensuality are admired by many who revere her like the prophetess of a new era, but the rest of society keeps making her atone for it bitterly. At the age of 18, Psyche was banished by her relatives to a monastery in Regensburg, as before, so that she could not follow Narcissus to Pest at first .

Maximilian Freiherr von Zedlitz

Maximilian Freiherr von Zedlitz is a Prussian noblemanwho feels obligedto the sober spirit of the Enlightenment . He himself likes to look at the stars; For the miners on his Silesian lands he had standardized, uniform housing estates built in order to guarantee identical living conditions and to break the isolation of the workers from one another. Psyche met Freiherr von Zedlitz on her trip to the Regensburg monastery in Vienna; now she asks him to free her from it. Baron von Zedlitz then appears in front of the monastery and asks Psyche to be his fiancée.

Baron von Zedlitz is serious about the engagement, but Psyche explains to him that she rejects the marriage. Both spend a passionate night of love together, but then Psyche goes to see Narcissus in Pest .

But with Narcissus' switch from poetry to medicine and science, Narcissus and psyche have grown apart. Although the psyche can be cured by an operation, the martial medical devices frighten her and the technical access to people alienates her. Narcissus, on the other hand, who is not cured himself, reacts increasingly jealously to Psyche's sensual life. Finally, Psyche escapes to Pressburg , where the reforms for a new Hungary are supposed to be decided on the Congress Day .

During the political euphoria, she began affairs with several young reformers and, disguised as a man, became a recorder in the state day. But the opposition are put down; two of her lovers end up in prison or exile and are physically or psychologically exhausted; another lover is shot. Psyche itself is pregnant without knowing by whom; at the behest of her uncle, for the sake of the family's reputation, the child is snatched away from her on a remote farm immediately after the birth.

After this traumatic end of his time in Pressburg, Psyche lives completely withdrawn in Košice and sustains himself through sewing. Baron von Zedlitz has meanwhile offered a reward for those who can tell him where Psyche is. Narcissus discovers Psyche in Košice, and for a moment it looks as if the two will find each other again. But Narcissus is trapped in his mind and hurts Psyche so deep that they lose each other in the end.

Baron von Zedlitz is informed by Narcissus about Psyche's whereabouts and again asks for her hand. Broken by her terrible experiences, Psyche now agrees. When Narcissus learns of the marriage, his self-referential scientific ambition increases to pre-fascist megalomania: he, who is unable to father children due to his syphilis, now considers it his task to create a “system” with which states can “breed” of their citizens ”and optimize them according to rational criteria.

Reality has little in common with Narcissus' lofty plans: for lack of money, he sells his main poetic work, the classicist tragedy Narcissus , to a Viennese variety theater , which turns it into a vulgar spectacle. And even that does not get performed because the First World War breaks out and the vaudeville is now playing war propaganda instead.

Baron von Zedlitz and Psyche spend the war years in South America ; When they return, Psyche finds Narcissus terminally ill in Vienna. He dies of his syphilis in her presence.

Freiherr von Zedlitz has lost all relationship with his lands and wants to move to the USA ; Psyche's whole attire, however, is now the main poetic work of her great love, the tragedy Narcissus , which she would like to perform posthumously. But on the eve of the National Socialist catastrophe , she found only one director who understood the play as a means of guiding “people with a simple way of thinking”.

Baron von Zedlitz and Psyche become completely alienated in view of their different goals. On one last trip to the Silesian lands, tensions arise between the two; When Psyche gets off the carriage to take care of the horses that Baron von Zedlitz has mistreated, the latter throws the reins deliberately or carelessly at one of the horses. The horse goes through and Psyche is run over by the carriage. She is dead instantly.

Narrators at the end of the film comment that it is unclear whether it was an accident or the murder of a jealous husband - and whether Psyche died at all.

Plot in detail

This section describes the action of Narcissus and Psyche in detail in order to enable the various cross references to be looked up. The section Action at a Glance gives an overview of the main storylines .

The following table of contents refers to the full version of Narcissus and Psyche . Except for the added first, penultimate and final headings, the sub-headings are exactly the same as those shown in the film. The locations of the action can be seen on the map in the Scenes section , the timing of the events can be traced using the table in the Timing section . The historical background section explains the period of Hungarian history to which the film makes many references during the events in Pressburg .

The myth

In a place that has fallen out of time - the interiors of a lordly building, but with a meadow as the floor - many people who come and go tell the prehistory of the action, which is thus characterized as a myth (= "story"). The first narrator is the great Hungarian poet Ferencz Kazinczy  .

The poet Ferencz Kazinczy recalls Psyche's life.

Erzsébet Mária Psyche Lónyay , hereinafter referred to as Psyche , was born in Nagylónya in1795. Her father was the wealthy nobleman János Lónyay  . Her mother, Borcsa Nyiri , was the illegitimate daughter of a descendant of the Roma king Sindel ; she was adopted by Count Mailáth and thus Countess Borbála Mailáth .

Psyche does not fit into any social grid based on its origins. On the one hand she is a nobleman, on the other hand she belongs to a minority branded as unsteady, but within this minority she is in turn the descendant of a king.

In 1798, when Psyche was three years old, the Roma violinist János Bihari, known throughout Europe , was visiting Nagylónya . Psyche's mother, a passionate musician herself, fell in love with him, left her husband and followed him with her daughter Psyche to his relatives in a Roma colony near Mischkolz . Psyche spent her childhood there. When her mother died, since János Bihari was a frequent guest abroad, she was raised by relatives and other residents of the colony. This also included László Ungvárnémeti Tóth , the grandson of a shoemaker from mixed wood and the son of a pastor, seven years older than him, because of his penchant for self-love and, after the drama he was to write, called Narcissus . He taught her to read, write and later poetry and became the great love of her life.

On the orders of Count József Dessewffy  , Psyche's uncle and guardian, Psyche finally had to attend the Dominican nuns' monastic secondary school in Regensburg , a nightmarish experience for her. In 1809, when she was 14 years old and her biological father died, her older and already married sister Anna Urania Erato Lónyay , called Ninon , took her to their estate in Tállya in Hegyalja in northern Hungary , where she spent the remaining years of her youth.

Years in Hegyalja

Tállya

In Bányácska artists and intellectuals meet.

Psyche has grown into an irresistibly beautiful young woman and gifted poet. With her suitor, Count István Terek , she is in a horse-drawn carriage on the way to his mother. Since Count Terek wrote her awkward love poems, however, in order to confront him with a true understanding of art, Psyche spontaneously redirects the trip to Bányácska , where an illustrious circle of artists and intellectuals, the nobility and clergy around her uncle József Graf Dessewffy and the with he met the poet Ferencz Kazinczy , a close friend .

Bányácska

Psyche recites the ideal . To the right of her her uncle József Graf Dessewffy and the poet Ferencz Kazinczy .

Count Terek reads two of his crude love poems to Psyche to the embarrassed audience. In response, Count Dessewffy praises Psyche's poetry and recites an enthusiastic love poem from her ( Az Ideal , "The Ideal"), which he always carries with him. Also Kazinczy admits then a sigh, his poem Az én Sugallóm ( "The source of my verses") IN QUESTION of psyche.

While the old men are intoxicated by Psyche's erotic aura, Psyche seduces the young Nikolaus Freiherr Wesselényi in the next room out of rebellion in front of the eyes of the completely shocked Count Terek  . At first he is reluctant because he is afraid of losing his fighting strength with chastity, but after the sexual experience Psyche immediately makes a marriage proposal. Psyche rejects him and explains that she rejects marriage because it deprives her of her freedom.

Tállya

Psyche's brother-in-law rules his house by force.

Returning home, Psyche is sensitively courted by her (adoptive) cousin Josó Mailáth , but at the same time experiences first hand the violent marriage and bleak sexuality of her sister Ninon and her brother-in-law Gaston Haller and is also not safe from sexual assault by her brother-in-law. As often before, she flees to Réde  , where Narcissus is a private tutor for the rich noble family Rhédey .

Speech

Narcissus is the Rhédeys tutor , courted by their daughter Klárcsa .

As a private tutor and poet who wants to leave his poor origins behind and strives for higher things, Narcissus is swarmed by many young women, including Klárcsa , the daughter of the Rhédeys . But he himself only has eyes for psyche.

When she arrives this time, however, he has to confess to her that he has syphilis , which he contracted when he visited a Roma prostitute to celebrate his admission to theology studies. Psyche is deeply hurt that he "lusted after another gypsy" while he always rejected her attempts at seduction. Narcissus replies that he would never have dared to touch her, after all he would love her and she was still a child. Psyche rebukes him that she is not a child, but his mother, who feeds him without reservation when he is hungry.

Narcissus changes the subject and reports that he has completed the main work of his life: a classicist- style tragedy based on the myth of Narcissus and Echo with the title Narcissus , set in the Greek Tempe Valley.

Narcissus reads from his recently completed tragedy Narcissus .

A short reading from the piece breaks Narcissus but soon off because suddenly psyche with irregular bleeding is struggling. She tells him that she has been suffering from metrorrhagia since her brother-in-law Gaston Haller raped her and later aborted her child with blows to her stomach.

Narcissus and Psyche decide that Narcissus will go to Pest to have himself cured there and to find a doctor for Psyche.

Narcissus and Psyche hope to find doctors in Budapest for both ailments.

When Psyche arrives again in Tállya , Dominican women are already waiting for her in a carriage, which she takes again to the monastery in Regensburg against her will. Her brother-in-law Gaston Haller had become uncanny about her sexual independence, her sister Ninon wanted to get rid of the younger alleged competitor.

Years of odyssey

Erlau

Narcissus receives a grant from István Fischer , Archbishop of Erlau.

Narcissus, who inwardly has completely detached himself from the Christian religion and believes “solely in the aesthetic and historical authority of the Greco-Latin gods”, has converted pro forma to the Catholic faith in order to receive a scholarship from the Archbishop of Erlau , István Fischer , for to get a degree in Pest . When handing over the money, the archbishop mentioned that the church could no longer ignore the necessity of opening corpses , thus accepting the modern scientific understanding of the body as a machine and directing Narcissus' attention to medicine.

Austria

After Psyche's father had been abandoned by her mother, he had married Countess Charlotte Neipperg-Montenuovo for the second time . The Dominicans allow Psyche to interrupt the trip to Regensburg in Vienna in the house of their stepmother. There Psyche met the noble Maximilian Freiherrn von Zedlitz , who limped on one foot . Freiherr von Zedlitz is a Freemason , a scientist out of a hobby and a relative of the Kant sponsor Karl Abraham Freiherr von Zedlitz , thus the epitome of sober, enlightened reason.

Psyche lets the police minister flash off.

Months later, when Psyche can no longer bear monastery life, she asks Baron von Zedlitz for help in a letter and writes that he could earn her gratitude with it. Baron von Zedlitz then appears with a group of people who ironically call themselves “Boeotic pigs” in front of the monastery in Regensburg and asks Psyche to be his fiancée.

Freiherr von Zedlitz takes the liberated psyche to a Viennese ball. The mood is exuberant because Napoleon has just been defeated. Freiherr von Zedlitz makes it clear that he means the engagement to Psyche seriously and does not regard it as just a trick to free her. But Psyche doesn't want to know anything about it and throws herself into the fray of the ball, where she has to fend off the intrusion of the police minister with a slap in the face.

The following days she flirted in Vienna with a young archduke from Lorraine, who immediately proposed marriage to her. Both - the flirtation, which the Archduke's family did not tolerate, and the slap in the face for the police minister - ultimately lead to Psyche being expelled from the city of Vienna.

A stagecoach station

Psyche has dinner with Freiherr von Zedlitz.

Exposed at the city limits, Psyche is picked up by Freiherr von Zedlitz, who had followed her. They take a room in the nearby stagecoach station. Baron von Zedlitz speaks again of his intention to marry, but Psyche explains to him that she fundamentally rejects the institution of marriage and the woman's role associated with it, and also that she has a great love, Narcissus (whose name she does not mention). Then both spend a fulfilling night of love. Early the next morning, while Baron von Zedlitz was still sleeping, Psyche set off with a stagecoach to see Narcissus in Pest.

Pest Buda

Psyche finds Narcissus in Pest in a shabby dwelling.

Narcissus lives in the poorest conditions in Pest and has switched to studying medicine, because "the gods of Olympus today no longer crown poetry, only knowledge". Only now and then does he still write epigrams that process his scientific experiences ( Az Ember Alkatja (“The Shell of Man”), Az Igazság (“The Truth”)).

Narcissus recites his poem The Truth , which parallels the refraction of light with the broken perception of reality. From then on, images in false colors appear again and again in the film.

The relationship between Narcissus and Psyche is strained. After returning from a ball attended by his fellow students Fidél Filippovics and Márton “Marci” Vass , Narcissus alternately reacts jealously to Psyche's flirtations with other men or wants to sleep with her, which she refuses with reference to his syphilis. Psyche, on the other hand, is alienated by Narcissus' medical textbooks, which try to sort people according to crude characteristics. When attending a horse race, the two argue publicly about purity and sensuality in poetry.

Psyche meets the young opposition activist Zoltán Lovászi at a horse race and follows him to Pressburg.

Narcissus takes Psyche to one of his medicine professors, whom he has told about Psyche's intermenstrual bleeding. Psyche is very afraid of the sinister and martial medical devices, but Professor Silver   finds a polyp and successfully removes it.

At a meeting in Narcissus' home, Fidél Filippovics and Márton Vass report on the preparations for the State Day in Pressburg , where important Hungarian reform projects are to be debated. Márton Vass is particularly impressed by the enthusiasm for reform of Nikolaus Freiherrn Wesselényi , known as " Baron Mika ". When Psyche asks about him, it becomes clear that she had an affair with him ( in Bányácska ), which annoys Narcissus again.

Psyche visits a horse race again, at that time a popular meeting place for Hungarian reformists. There she met the young oppositionist Zoltán Lovászi,   who was passionately in love with her, and has now agreed to follow him to Pressburg.

Pressburg

In Lovászi's apartment , members of a Bratislava opposition club debated a catalog of political demands. Psyche joins in. After the others have left, Lovászi worries Psyche to the fact that her uncle, Count Dessewffy , is an avowed opponent of the reform efforts.

A member of the opposition association, Ferdinánd Kosztolányi , is also interested in psyche and takes her to a casino, an opposition meeting place. Lovászi is extremely upset about this. When asked, Psyche learns that the casino is traditionally reserved for men only, but ignores it and stays. Kosztolányi uses this a little later, when everyone else has withdrawn to a back room to debate, and tries to rape her, but fails miserably because of his impotence. Since Psyche's dress tears in the process, he then temporarily puts on her the jacket of another male casino visitor and finds that it looks like a true recorder in the class day.

This inspires Psyche to cut her hair short, wear men's clothes and actually take a job as a note taker on the corporate day.

The state day in Pressburg.

On the one hand, the upcoming reform projects are debated in the Standing Day ; the ambassador for the nobility from Neutra made concessions on the tax liability of the nobility, but firmly refused to abolish further noble privileges and downplayed the reform goal of a better transport infrastructure by building bridges over the Danube.

On the other hand, it is about Hungary's stance on the November uprising , in which Poland is fighting for its national independence. The ambassador from Gran , who grants the old institutions such as the nobility more regulatory power than the nation- states that are emerging all over Europe, explains that history shows that nations would appear and then disappear again. On the other hand, another envoy turns on, pointing out that it cannot be inferred from this, however, that we are denying support to a nation which is currently fighting for its existence. For this he earned jubilant applause from the audience of the State Day; Psyche also agrees.

Psyche reaches her limits as a “man” when she then  wants to help with the launch of a hot air balloon - as a celebration of technical progress - in the courtyard of the State Day; The other parties involved forbid her to do so, stating that she was not a man and that she did not have the necessary physical strength.

Narcissus meets with a theater director, but his tragedy is rejected as too unpatriotic.

At this time, Narcissus had a meeting with a theater director about the performance of his play Narcissus . The theater director is deeply impressed by the play, but says that it will not find funding or an audience at the moment, as it does not deal with national issues. Narcissus indignantly rejects his suggestion to replace the Greek gods in the play with Hungarian national heroes like Árpád .

Psyche before the birth of your child.

In Pressburg, meanwhile, the situation has darkened. As announced by Count Dessewffy , the government has started closing the casino and pursuing the opposition. Psyche reports to Ferdinánd Kosztolányi that Zoltán Lovászi has already been arrested and, in order to help him and the others, she confessed to her uncle Count Dessewffy that she was pregnant by one of the opposition activists, but could not say by whom. However, this only led to Count Dessewffy demanding that she give birth to her child in a remote property of his in Upper Hungary and leave the upbringing to him. Shortly after the conversation, Kosztolányi is shot by a soldier; Psyche was able to flee from Pressburg at the last moment. On the way to Upper Hungary, she met one of the opposition activists, János  , who, on behalf of the government, led Nikolaus Freiherrn Wesselényi , who was now completely blind (who, in contrast to Psyche, had actually aged by decades) into political exile in Austria. János also reports that Zoltán Lovászi will never be released from prison and that he mentally collapsed there. The terrible end of two of her former lovers hits Psyche deeply.

As planned, Psyche gives birth to her child in Upper Hungary. On behalf of Count Dessewffy, a stranger snatches the child from her immediately after the birth; Psyche doesn't even know its gender.

Meanwhile, Baron von Zedlitz meets with Narcissus and complains that Psyche cannot be found. He doesn't care about marriage, but he wants children with her. He offers a reward for whoever tells him Psyche's whereabouts.

Košice

Narcissus is looking for psyche.

After the traumatic end of her time in Pressburg, Psyche lives completely withdrawn in Košice and makes a living as a tailor. One day, three of her customers rave about a ball that is about to take place, at which a legendary captain, whom all women desire, will also be present. Psyche struggles with itself and in the end decides, despite the fear of this decision, to go to the ball. The captain, who was able to capture six Prussian soldiers in the battle of Königgrätz and is therefore considered a hero, promptly tries to tinker with Psyche. When he becomes intrusive and wants to kiss Psyche, she flees into the garden and meets Narcissus, who is looking for her.

Narcissus and Psyche find and lose each other.

Psyche is overjoyed to meet her great love again in her meanwhile sad life, and for the last time there seems to be a moment in which the two lovers could find each other. Psyche says to Narcissus that Heaven sent him, but Narcissus replies that “Heaven only loves itself”. He is rude and dismissive of Psyche and tells her that he only found her because of the reward offered by Freiherr von Zedlitz. In his typical ambivalence, he adds that he could use the money to cure his syphilis and finish his studies and would then finally be able to marry her appropriately, but in a new twist he does that again immediately as a wedding out of pure career calculation. Only when he has hurt Psyche so much that she runs away crying does he understand what he has done and start looking for her, shouting out loud. Psyche also calls for him, but in a forest full of fog, the two can no longer find each other. When Narcissus finally gives up the search, he crouches over a body of water, sees his reflection and whispers: "Narcissus ..."

Women years

Kramow

Psyche with her children on a lake on the Zedlitz estate in Kramow.

With Narcissus' help, Maximilian Freiherr von Zedlitz finds Psyche again and asks for her hand again. This time Psyche no longer refuses, both marry and move to the family home in the Bohemian-Silesian Kramow  . Psyche gives birth to two children, the girl Marie and the boy Max . Although Freiherr von Zedlitz Psyche explicitly promised a free marriage in every respect, Psyche did not leave Gut Zedlitz once during the first years together and devoted himself exclusively to the family; She hardly ever writes poetry.

Freiherr von Zedlitz plans a new workers' settlement.

A major source of income for the Zedlitz lands is a mine . Freiherr von Zedlitz tries to improve the living conditions of the miners according to his enlightened and sober spirit. He has new miners' settlements built, which are not beautiful but deliberately kept uniform in order to be able to guarantee a standardized standard of living. He inspects the miners' health and, where necessary, pulls teeth or lets the sick inhale. And he allows Professor Lorenz Ochsendorff to measure and catalog the heads of particularly interesting “specimens” of the miners with the help of peculiar geometrical equipment, even if he is unsure of the purpose of such investigations.

• 

  The workers' settlement is desolate ...

• 

  ... but through the eyes of the children in the settlement, Psyche sees a pig fly away.

Psyche is alienated from this world in which sensuality and imagination have no place. When one of Freiherr von Zedlitz's patients   complains about his “useless, twisted” granddaughter Ilse , who is a talented young dancer, Psyche decides to take Ilse with her. In other respects, too, their gaze belongs to the children, who can still play in this bleakly useful environment; with the eyes of the children she sees a pig released from a stable flying into the sky with its own wings.

• 

  Narcissus means the deformed bodies of the people due to the workload ...

• 

  ... having to oppose the breeding of a new human being.

Returning to Gut Zedlitz, Psyche receives a letter from Narcissus who found out about their wedding and completely collapsed as a result of this news. Narcissus reports that it is only now that it is too late that he realizes what he has lost. He wandered around in Pest for days and finally returned to the places of their childhood together in the Roma colony near Mischkolz. There, on “wanderings [...] through the landscapes of the scorched past”, the purpose of his life suddenly occurred to him, in which he would be able to bring his artistic and scientific abilities to the fore: the desolation of the industrial era, the destruction of nature All of this is the result of a completely chaotic, uncontrolled increase in people. He, who is outside of the reproductive cycle due to his syphilis, can see through this connection and must now "create the system [...] through whose introduction the states can finally control the breeding lines of their citizens". Since Vienna is the more suitable place for scientists, he drives there directly from Mischkolz and does not even return to Pest. If they hadn't married, he hoped, Narcissus, now for your, Psyches, financial support for this project.

Psyche and Freiherr von Zedlitz decide to give Ilse dance training in Vienna. Psyche brings Ilse to Vienna and in this way can also meet Narcissus there.

Vienna

Narcissus dreams of a scientific career in Germany.

Narcissus lives in Vienna with his housekeeper Klára  . When Psyche visits him there with Ilse, Narcissus gives the Cartesian doubter whose sense organs admittedly simulate the presence of Psyche for him, but whose actual existence is not certain. "Nothing exists ... just me ... and the cells of my thinking brain." He later commented on this behavior by stating that he was also reaching the limits of the available possibilities in Vienna, and asks Psyche that Baron von Zedlitz should be Professor Ochsendorff as a sponsor for his study To win the role of the individual in the perfection of destiny . Afterwards, Narcissus fantasizes again that, after achieving his scientific goals, he will be able to take psyche as a wife. Psyche gives him money and leaves.

At home in Kramow, Psyche tries with little success to attract the attention of Baron von Zedlitz and Professor Ochsendorff for Narcissus' study and emphasizes that it is precisely the poetic treatment of the subject that will move you. But that doesn't impress Professor Ochsendorff, because “the world can no longer live from poetry”, and Freiherr von Zedlitz also wishes the “fixed ideas” “to the devil”, although for the sake of Psyche he later spoke half-heartedly of Narcissus as a great talent . Psyche also thinks (rightly) that he recognizes in Professor Ochsendorff a clergyman from the circle around Count Dessewffy in Bányácska , but Freiherr von Zedlitz finds the idea that a former “person of the soul” would now take measurements on people in the style of Professor Ochsendorff is absurd . Because of Narcissus there is increasing tension between Freiherr von Zedlitz and Psyche, but when Psyche reminds him of the freedom in marriage he has promised and that he cannot sleep with Narcissus because of his syphilis anyway, Freiherr von Zedlitz apologizes for his jealousy and both spend an intimate night of love.

Narcissus' tragedy is staged as a vulgar spectacle by a Viennese variety theater.

In Vienna, theater director Rinnlinger visits Narcissus , who would like to have Narcissus rewritten and set to music as Narcissus and Echo in German for his vaudeville theater . Narcissus initially reacts to the request with helpless incomprehension, but finally agrees under Klára's pressure due to the fee offered. Narcissus can only endure rehearsals for his piece, which has been disfigured into a vulgar spectacle, in which Ilse also dances, with alcohol; the evening after a rehearsal, he begins a relationship with Ilse, completely disillusioned and drunk.

In Kramow, Freiherr von Zedlitz is increasingly haunted by inner loneliness and fears. He interprets the nocturnal noises of a runaway foal as an attempted break-in and screams his entire servants out of bed. Soon afterwards he and Psyche go to the sea, and Freiherr von Zedlitz indicates that he would like to cross the ocean one day. Psyche replies: “You are always looking for space. The stars ... The sea ... What are you fleeing from? "

In Vienna, meanwhile, Narcissus , who was so disfigured, is not even performed , because the First World War breaks out before the premiere , and Rinnlinger reacts by putting a war-glorifying revue on the program instead . When Narcissus Rinnlinger then threatened a lawsuit, the chansonette Ingrid  , who should have sung the role of Echo , only said: "You should put world history on trial!"

Years of separation

On her return after the end of the war, Psyche finds a letter from Narcissus in Budapest.

In view of the outbreak of war, Freiherr von Zedlitz implements his plan to cross the ocean, and he and Psyche go to South America , where they wait for the war to end. When they return, Baron von Zedlitz finds his lands in a dilapidated state, and since he has also lost all inner relationship with them, he decides to sell his property and move permanently to America with Psyche, albeit to North America . Meanwhile, Psyche has found a letter from Narcissus in Budapest in her mail and wants to rush to him immediately.

Budapest

Narcissus lives with Ilse and Klára in an empty apartment. When Psyche arrives, he is already marked by death from syphilis and is close to madness. One last time he begs Psyche to sleep with him. Ilse, who has an intimate relationship with Narcissus, confirms to Psyche that his illness is no longer infecting, but Psyche, who does not feel any desire herself, hesitates to grant him the wish. Narcissus dies in the presence of Psyches; whether the sexual contact still took place remains open. At the funeral, Klára is surprised that Psyche doesn't cry, but she replies: “My love is fire, not water. You don't leave me that easily. "

• 

  When Psyche arrives, Narcissus is already terminally ill ...

• 

  ... and dies.

Psyche's goal from now on is to bring Narcissus' legacy, his play Narcissus , to an appropriate performance.

Kramow

Melise Semlyén is on a shopping spree .

Freiherr von Zedlitz organizes a big ball at which his movable possessions are to be auctioned. The event turns into a ghostly farewell party to an old era with a blank look at what's to come. The nouveau riche Melise Semlyén is in a consumer frenzy, the American millionaire Harold Scott inquires about the purchasability of nobility titles, from sewing machine manufacturer Baron Reithauser , gained fortune through arms production during the war and the title "Baron", it is said that Sigmund Freud had explained to him, He urgently needs profit in order to reduce his inhibitions, Frau Doktor Knapitsch-Jaksche , chairwoman of an international women's association, praises her self-designed bridge cards with Hungarian folk costumes, and Corvette Captain Paul von Struwe is indignant because he no longer has the uniforms of all the nations that emerged during the war can tell apart.

Psyche invited Professor Eberhard in the hope that he would perform Narcissus .

Psyche is not interested in all the hustle and bustle; she has brought in Professor Eberhard   , a scientist and artist with a shady political agenda, which Psyche hopes will be able to perform Narcissus . Before the interview with Psyche, Professor Eberhard is called on the phone; at the other end of the line, Adolf Hitler warns against “falling into disintegration due to destructive elements”. Professor Eberhard interrupts several times with "I don't understand", but finally hangs up, exasperated.

Professor Eberhard sees theater as an opportunity to bring "simple" people into line under scientific auspices.

Professor Eberhard told Psyche that he was interested in a performance of Narcissus himself , as this piece is ideally suited to equating “simple” people with the means of art, which would be better than doing this with the means of religion or politics . Baron von Zedlitz, who overheard the conversation with suspicion, offers to clear a room for a corresponding demonstration. Professor Eberhard is called on the phone again and now says several times "I understand".

After a long night, the soil of the old world dissolves among guests at the farewell ball.

A Romanian officer persistently asks Psyche to dance; Then the demonstration by Professor Eberhard begins, which turns out to be a pseudoscientific body cult, a “collective exercise of free body culture ”: A group of undressed dancers arranges themselves in the empty space to form mantra-like psychological sentences from Professor Eberhard in ever new geometric arrangements. More and more ball guests pour in and begin to undress as if in a trance. They are lured outside by the dancers and lose themselves there in the darkness.

A crouching figure emerges from the darkness, exposing its upper body and then blowing itself up. Similar explosions occur elsewhere in the area, and one can suspect the same cause. Only the Romanian officer is still dancing (fully clothed) with a dance partner on a piece of the ball area, which is now floating in a shimmering orange water.

Psyche dies.

Gradually it becomes quiet and day breaks. The guests return from the outdoors, dress again, talk briefly about the deathly drunk, orgiastic night and say goodbye.

Baron von Zedlitz wants to go out one last time in his carriage. It's a dreary day and the mood between him and Psyche is irritable. Freiherr von Zedlitz talks about the crossing to the USA , Psyche wants to go to a city where Professor Eberhard can perform Narcissus . When Freiherr von Zedlitz repeatedly whipped the horses hard, Psyche asked to stop, got out and applied an ointment to a bleeding wound on the horse's neck. At this moment Baron von Zedlitz throws away the reins in exasperation; they meet a horse, which then passes away. Psyche gets under the carriage and is run over. When Freiherr von Zedlitz stops the carriage and rushes to her, she is already dead.

The presence

Psyche's corpse is overgrown by vegetation, but it is only a doll.

As the seasons change, Psyche's corpse gradually overgrows and disappears into the ground. However, the corpse is only a dress-up doll.

The narrators meet again at the place where the film started , and tell of Psyche's end. It is unclear whether Psyche's death was an accident or the act of a jealous man. In any case, Baron von Zedlitz was no longer happy with his life and followed Psyche into his death three years later. A young woman says, very quietly, that it is unclear whether they died at all.

Again the last remains of the dress-up doll can be seen in the change of the seasons. Gradually, through the defoliated trees in the background, a building from the 1970s can be recognized. The story ends in the present.

Differences between the three film versions

Narcissus and Psyche are available in three versions of different lengths. The longest, full version of the film (apart from a few special events so far only broadcast in three parts on Hungarian television and available on DVD) shows in the middle of the film in detail Psyche's experiences in Pressburg at the time of the Estates day and then her secluded life as a tailor in Kosice . In the two shorter film versions, these episodes are only described in a few sentences by narrators in the film and illustrated with a few pictures.

The two shorter film versions, however, do not differ in terms of entire storylines; rather, the shortest version (which was intended for export from Hungary) is a variant of the medium-length (two-part) version that is more or less evenly (and partly beyond comprehension) thinned out throughout the entire film.

The shortest and - later added - the medium-length version are available in versions with German subtitles (see web links ) that were shown in cinemas in Germany (mostly the shortest version). The complete version was created for the exhibition Der Stand der Bilder. The media pioneers Zbigniew Rybczyński and Gábor Bódy have been re-digitized in full HD quality   at the Berlin Academy of the Arts and shown there for the first time digitally with German subtitles on October 30, 2011.

There is no synchronized version of the film. On the one hand, this would hardly be feasible, since the film sometimes uses the voices of the characters in a quasi-musical way, electronically processed and distorted them; on the other hand, the film is also multilingual in the original (Hungarian, German, English, Slovak, Polish and Hungarian Romani ).

Background information for a better understanding of the film plot

Locations

The following map shows the scenes and places that play a role in Narcissus and Psyche , within today's boundaries. Deviating Hungarian names are in brackets.

Tállya Mixed wood (Miskolc) Patak am Bodrog (Sárospatak) Nagylónya Speech  Bányácska Pest Buda Pressburg (Pozsony) Neutra (Nyitra) Vienna (Bécs) Kaschau (cash desk) Eger Gran (Esztergom) Slovakia ("Upper Hungary") Ukraine Austria Hungary ← Regensburg / Germany  ^ Kramow / Poland  Romania Serbia Croatia Slovene nien

Temporal course

The following table makes it clear how, after an identical beginning in the course of the plot, Psyché (the literary model) and Narcissus and Psyche diverge further and further in time. In contrast to the literary original, the film mostly does not provide any explicit dates; the event can be located in time through the historical references (see column clue for film dating ). With the divergence in duration, the deviations in content also increase; many dramatic characters and storylines at the end of the film no longer have psyché equivalents .

event	Psyche	Narcissus and Psyche	Clue for film dating
Narcissus birth	1788	1788	no reason to assume otherwise
Psyche's birth	1795	1795	explicit mention in the film
Psyche in Bányácska	1812	1812	no reason to assume otherwise
Psyche in the monastery	1813	1813	no reason to assume otherwise
Liberation of Psyches by von Zedlitz	1813	circa 1815	after defeating Napoleon
Narcissus and Psyche in Pest	1814	1831	after the November uprising of Poland in 1830
Pregnancy psyches	1814	1840	Parole Nicholas Wesselényi s
Wedding of Psyche and Zedlitz	1816	circa 1870	some time after the battle of Königgrätz
Narcissus' death	1820	1918	after the end of the First World War
Psyche's death	1831	1920-1937	after the end of the First World War , Hitler on the phone

Historical background

While the basic course of modernity from the Enlightenment to the world wars is a shared European experience, Narcissus and Psyche in his plot in Pressburg refers heavily to the specific historical situation in Hungary during the reform period around 1830, which the non-Hungarian audience does not necessarily see is familiar and is therefore briefly explained below.

Narcissus and Psyche incorporated many historical figures into his plot. But one person who is omnipresent between the lines in the storyline in Pressburg is mentioned only once in passing: Count István Széchenyi , the "founding father" of modern Hungary and a close friend and political companion of Nikolaus Freiherrn Wesselényi .

At the beginning of the 19th century, Hungary lagged behind its European neighbors in terms of development. Count Széchenyi , on the other hand, started a reform program, which he outlined in his immensely popular book Ueber den Credit . In it he looked for ways to stimulate the Hungarian economy and to finance the reforms that he believed to be necessary. He saw a way to do this is the nobility to tax payments to oblige. In addition, he wanted to abolish the inalienability of the noble lands . Only then, according to his calculation in Ueber den Credit , would banks be prepared to accept the property, which is now for sale if necessary, as security for loans with which the nobility would be able to make the urgently needed business investments in Hungary. What promised new opportunities for the progressive-minded part of the nobility was, of course, understood by the conservative part only as an unacceptable encroachment on noble privileges. József Graf Dessewffy wrote the sharp reply to the dissection of the work: Ueber den Credit and thus positioned himself as a conservative opponent of Count Széchenyi's reform proposals .

An important reform project by Count Széchenyi (who was also Minister of Transport for a while) consisted of improving the transport infrastructure. At that time there was not a single bridge over the Danube in all of Hungary; the country was, as it were, divided in two. The bridge building therefore became a symbol of Count Széchenyi's reform efforts ; the first completed Danube bridge, the Széchenyi chain bridge , bears his name, connected Buda with Pest and thus laid the foundation stone for the two cities to merge to form Budapest .

Great Britain served Count Széchenyi as a model in his reform efforts; this also extended to the cultural area. So he established horse races in Hungary based on the British model   and - based on the English clubs - " casinos ". As a result, horse races and casinos became popular meeting places for the reform movement in Hungary during the reform period.

Narcissus and Psyche allude to all of these points :

• The young Nikolaus Freiherr Wesselényi is seduced by Psyche in Bányácska .
• Zoltán Lovászi speaks to Psyche about the conservative attitudes of her uncle Count József Dessewffy .
• On the Ständetag in Pressburg , the representative of the nobility from Neutra accepted tax payments , but refused to touch any further noble privileges (meaning the inalienability of the property ) and played down the importance of building bridges .
• Psyche gets to know the young opposition members Zoltán Lovászi and Ferdinánd Kosztolányi at a horse race and in a casino (better).

Formal aspects of the film

Experimental Film Techniques

A pseudo-solarization sequence during Narcissus' death.

The use of audiovisual techniques in experimental film is characteristic of Narcissus and Psyche . Sometimes Gábor Bódy integrated excerpts from independently created works. For example, parts of his Homage to Eadweard Muybridge (see web links ) are based on Narcissus' pre-fascist fantasies of the control of states over the breeding lines of their citizens . Elsewhere techniques of experimental film are applied to genuine film scenes; during Narcissus' death, for example, the film images are alienated with pseudo-solarization effects and the film sound with audio filters.

What all these techniques have in common is that, in contrast to the use of special effects , the aim is not to create the illusion of physical reality in the film images, but to comment on the film plot aesthetically. This independent film aesthetic also means that Narcissus and Psyche , although they originated in the pre- CGI age, in no way appear “technically outdated” today.

Fantastic realism

In the shadow of the church, industrialization dawns in the form of a mechanized laundry with grotesquely disfigured work slaves.

Narcissus and Psyche repeatedly fall back on the imagery of Fantastic Realism , for example in the stately building at the beginning of the film , whose interiors have a grass floor, or in the gigantic measuring rods and measuring tapes that run through Baron von Zedlitz's rigorously constructed world. These pictures were technically not difficult to realize and therefore did not show any patina either. The frenzied time-lapse , in which a place runs through the seasons of a whole year in less than a minute, hold up to today's view, as the seasons are not realized using tricks, but actually recorded over the course of the year.

Postmodern

The ionic column is a leitmotif in Narcissus and Psyche , here on Narcissus' grave at his funeral.

Shot at the beginning of the great debate about postmodernism , Narcissus and Psyche in its self-reflective structure as a myth is at the same time a quote from the myth. A prominent example is an Ionic column that runs through the entire film, but never in its actual architectural function, but always as a quote: as a lectern for Ferencz Kazinczy , as a torch holder in the manor house in Tállya , as staffage in the park in Réde , as a stage set for the Rehearsals for Narcissus and Echo in Vienna and as a tombstone for Narcissus .

Historical integration

Narcissus and Psyche takes up the integration of historical personalities into the plot from Psyché ; However, Gábor Bódy dispenses with the very big iconographic figures of the literary model such as Goethe or Beethoven in order to save himself embarrassing superficiality, and avoids direct naming of Ferencz Kazinczy , József Graf Dessewffy and Nikolaus Freiherrn Wesselényi . Instead, Bódy doubles the approach on the cinematic meta level by having well-known personalities from the film scene portrayed by well-known personalities of the present. The famous Hungarian poet Ferencz Kazinczy is played by the famous Hungarian poet János Pilinszky ; the Hungarian avant-garde film director Miklós Erdély becomes the avant-garde director Professor Eberhard , the Hungarian ethnologist Mihály Hoppál becomes the anthropologist Professor Lorenz Ochsendorff and the chansonette and Fassbinder actress Ingrid Caven becomes the vaudeville singer Ingrid . In his electronically alienated music on Narcissus and Psyche, film composer László Vidovszky uses excerpts from music recordings of the Lakatos dynasty , a famous family of Roma musicians descended from János Bihari , in the film Psyche's stepfather .

Reflection on one's own medium

The medium addresses the interference of the rotating carriage wheels with the frame rate of the film.

The self-reflexivity of Narcissus and Psyche is an attempt by Gábor Bódy to implement the literary model in this regard. This includes the use of experimental film techniques to thematize the medium of film and postmodern quoting , but Bódy also pursues this approach elsewhere. For example, the close-ups of the rolling spoked wheels of a carriage - a recurring motif of change  - which, due to the different rotational frequency of the wheels and the frame rate of the film, typically lead to interferences that seem to cause the wheels to run slowly in the opposite direction first appearance with music underlaid, which in its polymetric reflects this physical phenomenon of the cinematic image of movement. And from the moment when Narcissus in the epigram Az Igazság ("The Truth") parallels the subjectively colored perception of the world of appearances with the color-generating light refraction in a prism , Narcissus and Psyche take up this as a film metaphor and from then on repeatedly work with false colors .

Hypertext and New Narrativity

Behind the shifting narcissus and psyche between avant-garde and kitsch, as noted by critics, as well as the high degree of stylization, is a film-aesthetic approach that Gábor Bódy calls New Narrativity . In his media-theoretical considerations, Bódy was convinced that technological development would lead to a universal audiovisual database of all images and sounds that existed in the world, which, detached from their context of origin, would be generally available as semantic building blocks and accordingly require a new audiovisual aesthetic would. A correspondingly eclectic approach was in keeping with his conviction that art and kitsch as cultural symbols are equally significant elements of cinematic representation: “Truly great art - and in its own way kitsch as well (and that is something that particularly fascinates me) - revolves somewhere always about the banal, fundamental questions of existence [...] " 

• 

  From the first union of psyche and Freiherr von Zedlitz, the union of sensuality and instrumental reason ...

• 

  ... stylistic "hyperlinks" lead to seemingly remote scenes:

• 

  The sometimes violent scientific medicine beneath its surface is bathed in the same blue ...

• 

  ... also the deformation of people through industrial work.

• 

  And Psyche learns of Narcissus' approaching death in the same blue and on a similar bed as the one on which the first union with Freiherr von Zedlitz took place (in the first picture in the background).

In contrast to the entertainment industry film, kitsch and other cultural symbols are not used abruptly in the New Narrativity , but as quotes in a syntactic network of cross-references marked by cinematic stylizations. This non-linear hypertextuality typical of databases ( Bódy speaks of hyper- fictionalism   and hyper- narrativity  ) is supposed to constitute the actual symbolic content of the film on a meta-level, which cannot otherwise be represented in this consistency, ideally a “timeless conceptual system”; that in turn distinguishes the New Narrativity from the semantic decentration of postmodernism.

Music and total work of art

In addition to the various visual techniques, sound also plays a prominent role in Narcissus and Psyche and contributes a lot to the overall effect of the film. On the one hand, this applies to film music in the narrower sense, for which film composer László Vidovszky draws from the entire fund of art and popular music of the epoch, but always electronically alienates these sources, thus removing them in time and thereby underlining the allegorical character of the film. On the other hand, non-musical filmic sound events such as noises or voices are often electronically alienated and musique concrète or sound collage , so that a musical level is present over long stretches of the film. Finally - in an ironic reflection  - Narcissus' play Narcissus as Narcissus and Echo itself is set to music (shown in the film) by the Viennese variety theater . This strong musical presence brings Narcissus and Psyche closer to a cinematic counterpart to the total work of art of Wagnerian provenance.  

Content-related aspects of the film

philosophy

As a radical doubting the world of the senses, Narcissus distrusts his ears and remains trapped in his world of thoughts.

The film by the studied philosopher Gábor Bódy is full of philosophical references. On the one hand, there are explicit quotations from philosophical figures of thought, such as the Cartesian doubt that Narcissus demonstrates in Vienna when he hesitates to assume that Psyche is actually in his room based solely on his sensory impressions, or of the naturalistic fallacy that the ambassador from Gran made on the Standing day in Pressburg is held when he concludes from the fact that nations have repeatedly perished in history that there is no need to rush to help a nation that is struggling for survival.

In addition, the figure of Freiherr von Zedlitz is associated with the thinking of Immanuel Kant through a relative , Karl Abraham Freiherrn von Zedlitz , and Narcissus bears many traits of Friedrich Nietzsche ( rejection of the Christian God , idealization of ancient tragedy , oscillation between art and science , Breeding the future man , death from syphilis ). A physical encounter and an exchange of ideas between Freiherrn von Zedlitz and Narcissus occurs only once in the film, when love pain has driven the enlightener Zedlitz to the hermetic esotericism of Robert Fludd (and he offers a reward for finding Psyche ).

The main philosophical emphasis, however, lies on the elaboration of the allegorical-mythological level of Psyché . Due to the narrative character of the film and in particular the decision to give the protagonists a lifespan of over 100 years, the mythological-allegorical figures can be drawn in a more complex way than in the literary model. This is especially true for Narcissus in his development from the classical poet to the scientist to the pre-fascist ideologist; But Baron von Zedlitz can also show his sober rationality more clearly in the context of the industrial era, for example with the construction of the miners' settlement , and Psyche's death on the eve of the National Socialist catastrophe makes the historical-philosophical allegory particularly haunting.

• 

  The world of Baron von Zedlitz ...

• 

  ... is a "measured" world.

From the ancient myths of Cupid and Psyche on the one hand and Narcissus and Echo on the other, a myth of modernity emerges in which beauty, sensuality and soul (psyche) are crushed between an emphatic, but caught in subjective idealism , self-centered and ultimately a destructive delusion decaying rationality (Narcissus) and a sober, in the end often instrumental rationality (Freiherr von Zedlitz, despite all Kantian echoes). Unlike Echo, Psyche does not perish directly because of Narcissus, but because of the firm connection to Freiherr von Zedlitz, into which she is driven by Narcissus, she fails (while Narcissus finally loses her mind in the face of this connection).

In the context of this allegory, the film's final sentence , that Psyche's death is not certain, as well as the associated image, which shows only a doll instead of Psyche's corpse, are of decisive importance from a diagnostic perspective, because they leave open whether Psyche is actually dead or just - how in Amor and Psyche  - has sunk into a death-like sleep and can therefore still hope for redemption through a figure corresponding to Amor.

natural Science

Modern science, in the form of modern medicine, helps the psyche to overcome its injuries from rape, but is itself nightmarish.

Modern science, whose triumphant advance has shaped the modern age, is symbolized in Narcissus and Psyche primarily by medicine as an applied natural science of humans. The portrayal of medicine in the film is ambivalent; On the one hand, she is actually able to free the psyche from the sufferings caused by rape (Narcissus, of course, not from his), on the other hand, she herself is surrounded by an aura of violence and repugnance. From the grotesque geometrical catalogs of humans that can be found in Narcissus 'medical textbooks as well as in the research work of Professor Ochsendorff, one line ultimately leads to Narcissus' pre-fascist fantasies of the control of states over the breeding lines of their citizens .

sexuality

For the conclusiveness of the mythological picture of psyche as a utopia of sensuality, an affirmative representation of sexuality is essential. In Gábor Bódy's words: “- a representation of sexuality that is neither pornographic, grotesque nor escapist, but positive in the context of all human behavior and in the context of our interpretation of the body”. The film tries to do this through, on the one hand, very long and comparatively explicit scenes of sexual activity which, on the other hand, are alienated and exaggerated using experimental film techniques . Of course, this only applies to fulfilled sexual encounters, in the film namely two nights of love between Psyche and Freiherrn von Zedlitz ( at the beginning and at the end of the relationship). Violent sexuality, on the other hand, mostly takes place in the presence of animals (as does Psyche's operation because of her rape).

• 

  Sexuality between psyche and Freiherr von Zedlitz: euphoria and violence of the wars of liberation rage under the sleeping quarters  ...

• 

  ... or natural science surrounds them as a longing for the cosmic union in which sperm and galaxies merge.

time

In Narcissus and Psyche, sunrise and sunset symbolize time.

Time obviously plays a constitutive role for the allegorical representation of a historical development. Narcissus and Psyche emphasize the historical element mostly through frenzied time-lapse of moving clouds or changing seasons, which appear again and again throughout the film and create the "mythological time" in which the protagonists do not age. But other images of change such as the rolling spoked wheels of a carriage and the associated music are used repeatedly (together or individually).

Origin and reception

On the one hand, a complex, avant-garde film for an intellectual audience, on the other hand , Narcissus and Psyche was shot with unusually high expense in terms of equipment, crowd scenes and length, and with a budget of 30 million forints (at the time about 2.3 million DM) was the one with By far the most expensive Hungarian film of 1980. The fact that such a production would take place, which is unlikely from an economic perspective, is with a certain degree of probability due to the very specific conditions in Hungary at the time the film was made. In the countries of Eastern Europe, at that time, social criticism could not be openly expressed in films. Conversely, however, the financing of a film was not subject to the same economic constraints as in the West, if the responsible government agency was even willing to produce it. Aesthetically, the Hungarian Béla Balázs studios in Budapest and there in particular the experimental film group K / 3   , which Gábor Bódy co-founded, had achieved a comparatively high degree of autonomy, which enabled films to be far removed from the ideal of socialist realism . This combination of factors allowed the production of an elaborate, non-commercial, allegorical film like Narcissus and Psyche .

Nevertheless, due to the enormous costs, there was an expectation of at least a certain financial return. After filming was over, Gábor Bódy cautiously anticipated that the film could fill “an art cinema or two in most European capitals”. 

Instead, the visually stunning film initially surprisingly became a box-office hit; 85,000 Hungarians saw the two-part long version in the first four weeks, 600,000 in the first six months. The export version was also unexpectedly successful in other European countries, especially in Germany. Narcissus and Psyche won several prizes at European festivals .

However, when Gábor Bódy handed over the three-part television version to the co-producing Hungarian television in the spring of 1981 as agreed, the film came into the political line of fire. The television version, the added middle section of which detailed the support of the Hungarian Estates' day for the November uprising in Poland in 1830, was interpreted as claused partisanship for the Polish trade union Solidarność , which arose after the August strikes in Poland in 1980 . As a result, Hungarian television failed to broadcast it and later claimed that the film was lost. When Gábor Bódy died under mysterious circumstances in 1985, his work continued to disappear from the public eye; All the more so since Bódy's work for the Hungarian State Security Service became known in 1999 . Publications from this later period assessed the success and artistic content of Narcissus and Psyche sometimes more skeptically than the reviews after the film premiere.

After all, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the three-part version of Narcissus and Psyche was finally broadcast on Hungarian television at the end of 1990; Since 2009 it has been available on DVD in Hungarian , but only in very poor picture and sound quality. In 2011 the three-part version for the exhibition Der Stand der Bilder. The media pioneers Zbigniew Rybczyński and Gábor Bódy have been re-digitized in full HD quality   at the Berlin Academy of the Arts and shown there for the first time digitally with German subtitles on October 30th.

An international DVD edition with subtitles was not available for a long time, which made reception outside Hungary very difficult. Since October 2018 (DVD) and January 2019 (Blu-ray), the fully restored, three-part version of the film has finally been available with German and English subtitles .

criticism

“The film, which was heavily controversial under the Hungarian criticism, and which Budapest audiences rarely see in an experimentally complex, association-rich film, has meanwhile released a cometary trail of interpretive decipherments. Because of the abundance of its hints and the optical inventions that freely oscillate between kitsch and astonishment and visionary exaltations, it is above all a sensually captivating, unruly essayistic explosion that will probably unfold its baroque fireworks of associations in Cannes . "

- Wolfram Schütte : Frankfurter Rundschau , April 11, 1981

“In 1977 Bódy took over the management of the Béla Balázs studios, a little later he became head of the experimental department of Mafilm, the state film company. Now he has almost unlimited resources at his disposal, and he uses them: Narcissus and Psyche is an originally seven-hour epic grandiose in terms of effort and scope, which under the double pretext of telling an unhappy love story and a hasty march through Hungarian history from 1795 to in To complete the thirties of this century, the abundance of visionary possibilities of cinema unfolds before us. Every new scene works like a lucky bag, from which even more unheard of, even crazier ideas tumble towards us; For two and a quarter hours, Bódy immerses our senses in a rollercoaster of speeding rides and exquisite tableaus, dances in slow motion and clouds that rush across the sky in fast motion, tinted pastel and bright art colors. "

- Kraft Wetzel : Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 10, 1981

“Of course, the plot is neither a mere occasion for film-language experiments, nor does it merely serve as an effective and certainly questionable exaggeration of a 'love story'. Rather, the perfect, inventive and often visionary images in their inexplicable visual complexity make the story, in the course of which the characters do not age in the course of 120 years, into the drama of our 'scorched past', the Enlightenment and the technically rational age. They tell of the megalomania suffered, the poetically glorified pursuit of science for a 'heaven that only loves itself'; they tell of a stormy, creative sensuality that breaks and is absorbed by the bourgeois technocracy of the feasible, in which it slowly perishes; they tell from the overheating of megalomania to fascism in desperation about this 'marriage'. When Psyche dies in a hollowed out time after the First World War, she is actually already dead. Only the epilogue of the film leaves open whether she ever really died, and that probably means - whether we still have a chance. "

- NN : die tageszeitung (Hamburg edition), April 8, 1982

Awards

• Feature Film Festival Budapest 1981: Special award for directing
• International Film Festival of Locarno 1981: Ernest Artaria Prize (Bronze Leopard) "for the successful integration of image and sound research of experimental film in its narrative structures" 
• Festival Internacional de Cinema da Figueira da Foz 1981: CIDALC Prize

Film editions

• Gábor Bódy : Narcissus and Psyche . absolut MEDIEN, Fridolfing 2019, ISBN 978-3-8488-8508-4 , absolut MEDIEN 8508 (Blu-ray; Hungarian original version with German and English subtitles).
• Gábor Bódy : Narcissus and Psyche . absolut MEDIEN, Fridolfing 2018, ISBN 978-3-8488-7033-2 , absolut MEDIEN 7033 (2 DVDs; Hungarian original version with German and English subtitles).
• Gábor Bódy : Psyché . Best Hollywood , Budapest 2009, BEST-7193 (3 DVDs; original Hungarian version without subtitles).

literature

• Sándor Weöres , Psyché .
• László Beke, Miklós Peternák (eds.): Gábor Bódy 1946–1985 . A Presentation of His Work . Catalog of the exhibition Life and Work of Gábor Bódys in Budapest, January 19 - February 8, 1987. Műcsarnok / Művelődési Minisztérium, Filmfőigazgatóság (Art Hall / Central Office for Film of the Ministry of Culture), Budapest 1987, ISBN 963-7162-70-4 ( 338 pp., EBook [accessed January 27, 2011]).
• Éva Ócsai : A Lyrical Novel and its Filmic Adaptation. ( Sándor Weöres: Psyché and Gábor Bódy : Narcissus and Psyche ) . In: TRANS. Internet journal for cultural studies . No. 16 . Institute for Research and Promotion of Austrian and International Literature Processes , 2005, ISSN  1560-182X ( eMag [accessed on January 22, 2011]).
• Eszter Fazekas : Psyche . In: Filmkultúra . ("Film Culture"). Hungarian National Digital Archive and Film Institute , Budapest 1998 ( eMag [accessed January 22, 2011] first edition: 1996).

Individual evidence

• Evidence of the historical background (in addition to the linked Wikipedia articles) :

1. ^ ^{A b} Elemér Szentkirályi : Count István Széchenyi on the way into politics . The phase of life up to the appearance of "Hitel". Part II. In: Gabriel Adriányi , Horst Glassl , Ekkehard Völkl (eds.): Hungary year book . tape 20 (1992) . Hungarian Institute, 1993, ISBN 3-9803045-2-3 , ISSN  0082-755X , p. 55 ff . ( eMag [PDF; accessed on January 28, 2011]).
2. ↑ Bettina gneiss: István Széchenyi Casino movement in the Hungarian reform era (1825-1848) . A contribution to the exploration of the beginnings of the national liberal organization in pre-March Hungary. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-631-42811-1 (382 pages).

• Quotes by Gábor Bódy from: László Beke, Miklós Peternák (eds.): Gábor Bódy 1946–1985 . A Presentation of His Work . Catalog of the exhibition Life and Work of Gábor Bódys in Budapest, January 19 - February 8, 1987. Műcsarnok / Művelődési Minisztérium, Filmfőigazgatóság (Art Hall / Central Office for Film of the Ministry of Culture), Budapest 1987, ISBN 963-7162-70-4 ( 338 pp., EBook [accessed January 27, 2011]).

1. ↑ “ Truly great art - and, in a different way, kitsch, too (and this is something which intrigues me greatly) - always concerns somewhere the banal, basic questions of existence […] ”, page 133
2. ^ " Hyper-fictionalism ", page 131
3. ↑ " hyper-narrativity ", page 131
4. ^ " A timeless conceptual system ", page 132
5. ↑ “ István Zsugán : In your film Narcissus and Psyche, the problems of the Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk are raised at various points, sometimes in a studied, direct manner, at other times in the form of ironical insets. Gábor Bódy : Why, of course! [...] ", page 132
6. ↑ "-  a presentation of sexuality which is neither pornographic, not grotesque, nor escapist either, but positive within the entire action of human behavior, and within the interpretation of the body ", page 128
7. ↑ " [...] the original official opposition has decreased in its rigor [...] The question arises just how much this alternative cinematic thinking will be 'legalized' over the following years ", page 261
8. ^ "[...] it could do well in one or two art movie-houses in most European capitals" , page 128

• Quotes by Eszter Fazekas from: Eszter Fazekas : Psyche . In: Filmkultúra . ("Film Culture"). Hungarian National Digital Archive and Film Institute , Budapest 1998 ( eMag [accessed January 22, 2011] first edition: 1996).

1. ^ " Then, in December 1990, [...] the public had first access to Gábor Bódy 's original idea ", 6th paragraph

• Quotes by András Bálint Kovács   from: András Bálint Kovács : Gábor Bódy: A Precursor of the Digital Age . In: Anikó Imre (Ed.): East European Cinemas . AFI Film Readers . Routledge , London; New York 2005, ISBN 0-415-97268-X (288 pages, manuscript online ( memento of June 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) [PDF]).

1. ^ " In the early 1980s Bódy had a utopian vision about what the audiovisual culture of the new age would look like. He spoke of a universal audiovisual 'dictionary' - a database of sounds and images from which anybody, anywhere on the earth, would be able to take any item and use it. [...] That database would store any image and sound created in the world, isolated from its original context. He had this idea ten years before the World Wide Web appeared […] This database logic is contrary to linear narrative thinking, and creates intimate links among the paradigm, data, and the way data is reached or organized - in other words, the syntax of the media. Bódy ’s notion of 'new narration' and his experiments with different formats are very similar to this conception; but instead of database he used the word encyclopedia ", page 162
2. ^ " Bódy ' s film did not have the success he had expected [...]. It was presented at several international festivals, including the unofficial section of the Cannes Film Festival; but received only one prize [this information is apparently related to the regular prizes of the international festivals] , the Ernest Artaria Award at the Locarno International Film Festival; and was not widely distributed outside of Hungary. Psyché was viewed as an extravagant and eclectic stylistic exercise rather than as the radical innovation in narrative cinema that it intended to be. […] Bódy asserted several times in private that he was not disappointed with the film's lack of success because he was certain that his film created a language that contemporary cinema was not prepared for. He posted that ten or fifteen years later his film would be viewed in a totally different manner, when elements of a new narration and the new media would be in common use ”, p. 161

• Quotes by Bryan Burns from: Bryan Burns : World Cinema: Hungary . Flicks Books /  Associated University Presses , Trowbridge / Cranbury 1996, ISBN 0-948911-71-9 (234 pages).

1. ↑ " Bódy ' s Narcissus and Psyche is one of the most striking experimental works of the modern Hungarian cinema. Its gestation was long, its budget large and its reception, both in its native country and outside, enthusiastic. [...] Narcissus and Psyche takes itself seriously. It makes much of its origin in a work by the great Hungarian poet, Sándor Weöres , and the mythological nature of its concerns. It is inventively photographed by István Hildebrand , who employs an elaborate technical repertoire and a fine palette of colors, especially of blues, to create the ambitious effects which Bódy requires. […] But Narcissus and Psyche is convincingly neither a modernist nor a postmodernist work. On the contrary, it reminds one of nothing more than a Swinburnian fin de siècle melodrama, using well-established tropes (the handsome poet infected with syphilis; the beautiful, sad nymphomaniac), presenting them in a highly aestheticized and lyrical manner [...] “, Page 172 f.

• Quotes by Christoph Egger from: Christoph Egger: On the Hungarian film production of 1980 . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . tape 1981 , no. 60 . Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 13, 1981, ISSN  0376-6829 , p. 65 .

1. ↑ "[...] a total of around 250 million forints (around 17 million [Swiss] francs) were available [in Hungary] for the 22 films made in 1980. With a budget of 30 million [forints], 'Narcissus and Psyche' was by far the most expensive production of the past year ”. At that time, 100 Swiss Francs was equivalent to around 115 DM.
2. ↑ "Now, with the state organization of its entire film industry, Hungary is in the comfortable position for every director that a criterion for success - if it should be applied in any way - is in any case not measured according to the box office results. The policy of promoting the artistically active and not the products of an officially approved genre had a major influence on the 'Hungarian miracle' that suddenly blossomed in the mid-1960s. Today the situation presents itself differently than during the artistically unusually fertile years between 1965 and 1975. Nevertheless, unforeseen things can happen, as the 'monumental experimental film' ' Narcissus and Psyche' ('Nárcisz és Psyché') by Gábor Bódy illustrates in a remarkable way . "
3. ↑ “While in Budapest the average number of viewers for a Hungarian film is around 30,000 in ten weeks, after 4 weeks 85,000 visitors had already seen 'Narcissus and Psyche'. This is astonishing in that the two-part work of originally seven hours is still three and a half hours long and the abridged version still comprises 140 minutes. And mind you: this for a film that would be predicted to have an elitist studio audience. "

• Quotes from Barbara Schweizerhof from: Barbara Schweizerhof: Hidden sizes . In: taz-Genossenschaft (ed.): The daily newspaper . tape 2009 . taz, the daily newspaper Verlagsgenossenschaft eG, February 6, 2009, ISSN  0931-9085 ( ePaper [accessed on February 23, 2011]).

1. ↑ "Today it is considered likely that someone like [ Gábor Bódy ] could not have made a film like his legendary 'Narcissus and Psyche' outside of a 'state culture' like that in the 'Eastern Bloc'."

• Evidence from the Hungarian DVD edition by Psyché : Gábor Bódy : Psyché . Best Hollywood , Budapest 2009, BEST-7193 (3 DVDs).

1. ↑ ^{a b c} This and much of the following information on the origins and reception are taken from the thirteen- minute interview with Vilmos Csaplár , the screenwriter of Narcissus and Psyche , which Hungarian television broadcast in December 1990 in connection with the first broadcast of the three-part version of Narcissus and Psyche and which is included as an extra on the 2009 DVD.

• Evidence from print publications:

1. ↑ Gisela Ullrich: Far from the dream factory . 34th Locarno Film Festival. In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten . tape 1981 . Stuttgarter Nachrichten Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Stuttgart August 11, 1981.

• Quotes and evidence from the web:

1. ↑ ^{a b} The text fragments heard by Hitler on the phone ("Any attempt but ..." and "The strength of these two realms [are today the strongest guarantor for the preservation of a Europe that still has a feeling for its cultural mission and is unwilling is,] to lapse through destructive elements of the dissolution ”) come from his speech on the occasion of the state visit of Benito Mussolini on the Maifeld in Berlin on September 28, 1937; see Fox Tönende Wochenschau No. XI – 40 of September 30, 1937 (from 15:48 min - 16:15 min, accessed on February 28, 2011).
2. ↑ ^{a b} Exhibition The State of the Pictures. The media pioneers Zbigniew Rybczyński and Gábor Bódy ( Memento from December 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), October 28, 2011 - January 1, 2012, Akademie der Künste Berlin.
3. ↑ " In 1973 [Bódy] became co-founder of the K3 experimental group at Béla-Balázs Studio in Budapest, the goal of which was to encourage experimental art practice in the context of life under a communist government ", LIMA Catalog (accessed on August 20, 2019).
4. ↑ “It must be said that film production in Hungary was already distinguished in the 1960s by formal modernity and liberal choice of topics. In Hungarian films it seemed possible to express uncomfortable opinions and positions, to address the viewer as an intelligent being - although many authors inevitably preferred an expression 'between the lines'. [...] In many respects the conditions in the Hungarian film of the time were unique, especially when compared to the other Eastern Bloc countries. This applies, for example, to the Béla Balázs studio, which was founded at an early stage especially for the production of experimental contributions and was able to produce a number of sensational films, " Ulrich Gregor : Opening speech for the exhibition CINEMA TOTAL - Film as Fine Art ( Memento from June 13th 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 97 kB), February 14th - March 30th, 2008, Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, Moholy-Nagy -Galerie.
5. ↑ “In Hungary and in Germany, 'Narcissus and Psyche' was a success in the movie theaters, the film was even successful - unexpectedly! - as an export product “ , Ulrich Gregor : Bódy Gábor. The most outstanding in European cinema of the 70s and 80s (accessed February 25, 2011).

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} length according to the information provided by the German rental company (see web links ); Slightly different information can be found in the Internet Movie Database .
2. ↑ In this article, Psyché always refers to the literary source of the film.
3. ↑ Essentially, the plot of the film spans the long 19th century and its breakup with and after the First World War .
4. ↑ The name Kazinczy's is never explicitly mentioned in the film - in contrast to the literary model; the identity is revealed only indirectly through the poem he recited.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Sándor Weöres gives in Psyché the lifetime of János Lónyay with 1755-1810. According to a family tree of the Lónyay family on the web (entry B1 , accessed on February 7, 2011), the historical János Lónyay lived until 1809 (date of birth unknown). This is also used in the film, which mentions that Psyche was 14 years old when her father died.
6. ↑ In fact, Ungvárnémeti Tóth  - unlike Psyche, who bears the name "Psyche" as a third baptismal name - is never mentioned by anyone in the film by his mythological name; only he himself utters the name once when he sees his reflection in the water. The title and plot of the film make it clear that Ungvárnémeti Tóth is Narcissus , which is why this synopsis also refers to him.
7. ↑ The name of Count Dessewffys is never explicitly mentioned in the film - in contrast to the literary model; his identity is only revealed indirectly through his relationship with Ferencz Kazinczy and his political views.
8. ↑ The name Wesselényis is not explicitly mentioned in the film - in contrast to the literary model - at this point; the identity only reveals itself retrospectively through Psyche's reference to an affair with him.
9. ↑ ^{a b} The full name of the village is Kis-Réde ( Klein- Réde ), which together with Nagy-Réde ( Groß- Réde , see Hungarian Wikipedia ) lies in Heves County , over 100 km from Hegyalja . The family castle of the noble Rhédey family is historically located here, and this is how the place is also called in Psyché , the literary model. In the film, however, a narrator reports that Réde (or the castle of the Rhédeys ) is like Tállya in Hegyalja . It is possible that the script is intentionally imprecise or the location of Réde in the film is fictional, in order to make the frequent journeys Psyche from Tállya to Narcissus in Réde , which does not exist in the literary original, plausible from a distance.
10. ↑ In the film - in contrast to the literary model - only the last name is mentioned.
11. ↑ In the story, which is otherwise so carefully embedded in historical facts, a discrepancy occurs here: The sideline of the Counts of Montenuovo only emerged in the aristocratic family of the Counts of Neipperg through the relationship between Adam Albert Graf von Neipperg and Marie-Louise of Austria since 1815 (legalized by marriage in 1821), years after the death of Psyche's father.
12. ↑ Malignant name of ancient Greece for the current as uneducated Boeotians .
13. ↑ ^{a b} This person has no first name in the script.
14. ↑ The first name of the historical figure was László , not Zoltán ; the key biographical data - his position as the leader of the Bratislava opposition association and later the psychological breakdown in prison - show, however, that this is László Lovászi .
15. ↑ ^{a b c d} This person has no surname in the script.
16. ↑ ^{a b} Kramow , written in Psyché (the literary model) Chramow , Kramov and Kramów , cannot be clearly localized. On the one hand, it seems to be Chrumow (Polish Chromów  - see Polish Wikipedia ), 36 km from Chlebitz (German Wiesenthal , Polish Chlebice , rural community Tuplice  - see Polish Wikipedia ), according to Psyché, the second estate of Maximilian Freiherrn von Zedlitz . While Chrumow and Wiesenthal are both in the Prussian province of Brandenburg , north of Silesia and especially from Bohemia , compared to the borderline in force at the time of the act of Narcissus and Psyche , it is said in Psyché, on the other hand, that Chramow and Chlebitz are "Silesian", von Chramow even said that it was “Czech-Silesian” and was located at the foot of the Giant Mountains ; and Narcissus and Psyche speaks of the "Bohemian-Silesian" Kramow . In this respect, Kramow blurs into the fictional.
17. ↑ In Psyché , the literary model, Psyche gives birth to her child before meeting Narcissus in Pest.
18. ↑ The ball on the eve of Psyche's death, which paints the end of an era, is amorphous in time. On his return from South America in the late autumn of 1918, shortly before Narcissus' death, Baron von Zedlitz gave his lawyer only a week to sell his property, but before the associated auction of the facility and the associated ball take place, the viewer sees two summers over the grave of Narcissus. Many of the dialogues during the ball still relate strongly to the situation after the end of the First World War; on the other hand, Psyche speaks to the director Professor Eberhard of Narcissus as a "long dead poet", and the words of Hitler that Professor Eberhard hears on the phone ( and which of course could be an echo from the future), date from 1937.
19. ↑ The relationship between Bódy and Wagner does not only extend to the formal; Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen , like Narcissus and Psyche, is an attempt at an allegorical-mythological interpretation of modernity.
20. ↑ András Bálint Kovács is professor at the Department of Film Studies (accessed on March 11, 2011) at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and was the director of the National Audiovisual Archive of Hungary ( NAVA , Nemzeti Audiovizuális Archívum ) from 2003 to 2009 .

Web links

Commons : Nárcisz és Psyché  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Narcissus and Psyche in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Experimental film used in Narcissus and Psyche (from 1:20 min) by Gábor Bódy : Homage to Eadweard Muybridge (excerpt) (accessed on March 3, 2011)
• Rights holder: Hungarian National Digital Archive and Film Institute ( MaNDA , Magyar Nemzeti Digitális Archívum és Filmintézet ) (accessed April 15, 2011)
• Studio: Hunnia Filmstúdió (accessed March 3, 2011)
• Hungarian distributor: Mokép (accessed February 25, 2016)
• German distributor: Arsenal ( short version with German subtitles , medium-length version with German subtitles , short version with English subtitles ) (accessed on March 3, 2011)