Paimann's film lists

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Head of the magazine, 1922.

Paimann's Filmlisten was a weekly film program initiated by Franz Paimann (1847-1921) and edited by him for the first five years , in which up to 1965 reviews of all films released in Austria were listed in lexical form . Since the Austrian film production and the rental market are only inadequately known, Paimann's film lists are of enormous importance for Austrian film studies.

history

The magazine's advertisement, 1922.

The first edition of Paimann's film lists appeared in 1916, at that time still in letter form. The founder was Franz Paimann, a retired health resort administrator in the Bosnian Jajce , who was also editor of the film lists until the summer of 1920. These film lists were sent to interested cinema owners in Austria on a weekly basis, especially in the provinces , where it was difficult to find independent information about films. The film lists contained table of contents and brief reviews of all films that were newly offered by film distributors in Austria each week.

When Paimann fell ill with pneumonia in the summer of 1920 and died on January 26, 1921, his deputy Joseph Eduard Bernard, who had previously been a theater assistant in Wiener Neustadt, took over the management of the film lists, which from then on appeared as a subscription magazine. In March 1923, he acquired the remaining shares in the company from Paimann's daughter, Karoline Paimann, and continued the lists in the same style.

With the claim to critically examine newly released films in order to offer cinema owners independent information in addition to advertising and dependent information from the other film magazines, Paimann made himself extremely unpopular with the film and cinema industry, which was behind most of the other film magazines. In the 1920s, these competing media were in particular Der Filmbote (1918–1926, owned by the Association of Austrian Cinema Industrialists) and Das Kino-Journal (1920–1939, owned by the “Association of Austrian Film Theater”). In magazines like this, all the films discussed were only rated positively, mostly with excessive superlatives (Bernard called this " the popular system of announcements in superlatives that are opposed to qualities moving in opposite directions. ") The selection of the films again depended very much from the advertising business, a large part of these magazines consisted of partly full or multi-page advertisements, while Paimann's film lists were only financed by its subscribers. Film magazines such as Die Filmwelt (1921–1925, owned by the Reichsbund der Kinofreunde Österreichs or the Verlag Universale ) were only rarely able to assert themselves, and they were at least partially able to find critical tones in the evaluation of new films.

In particular, the Association of Austrian Cinema Manufacturers, often flanked by the Association of Austrian Film Theaters, tried with all conceivable means to withdraw Paimann's film lists from circulation (daily newspapers that introduced film reviews in the early 1920s were also heavily criticized and attacked, however were Paimann's film lists, measured in terms of frequency and intensity of the attacks, the primary, since probably the most destructible, target). The reviews by Paimann and Bernard were seen as damage to business, the film was seen as a pure commodity. After verbal attacks and denigrations were apparently unsuccessful, the Association of Austrian Cinema Industrialists called for a boycott of Paimann's film lists through its official organ, the Filmboten . This call appeared under the heading “Parasites” and contained, among other things, the following statement: “ The film industry also has such a parasite: It is the film criticism. “In the opinion of the cinema industrialists, objective film criticism is not possible and film criticism should therefore be generally rejected, as it can ultimately cost film producers and distributors“ millions ” in the event of bad reviews , while the film critic is not at risk. Therefore, the " plague of commercial film criticism should be exterminated ". In the course of these disputes, Bernard repeatedly took a stand for " free film criticism " and "film as a product of art" and contrasted the claim of the film producers to understand film as a commodity with the " most unpleasant consequences " of this logic, namely that a customer has the right to return goods if they do not meet the promised expectations. These disputes continued for many years, partly in court , due to defamation and insults on the part of the Filmboten or his successor, Österreichische Film-Zeitung .

The publication of Paimann's film lists was temporarily suspended in March 1943 due to a lack of raw materials - the film lists are likely to have continued to be sent to subscribers, at least temporarily, in the form of letters. The magazine was officially re-published on February 7, 1946.

The Vienna Library in the City Hall started to compile a general register some time ago, which is now available up to and including the year 1931.

Content and evaluation scheme

Each film description contains information on the manufacturer, distributor, genre, length, expected premiere, censorship result as well as brief synopsis and ratings.

The films were "graded" with Roman numerals until the autumn of 1918, after which a more differentiated system prevailed, which assessed the central aspects of a film using adjectives such as "fabric", "photos", "game" and "scenery" and finally provided an overall judgment that allowed the following gradations:

  1. First class hit
  2. Bat
  3. excellent
  4. very good
  5. pretty good
  6. Well

From no.269 on May 26, 1921, the scheme was changed as follows:

  1. First class hit
  2. Bat
  3. Exclusive picture
  4. excellent
  5. very good
  6. mediocre

Notes: The term "hit" is to be understood in the sense of a box-office hit , the exclusive picture category should be used for films of first-class quality that do not necessarily promise to be box-office hits .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Ludwig Gesek (Ed.): Small Lexicon of Austrian Films. In: Filmkunst , 1959, No. 22–30, p. 15 f .; quoted from: Paolo Caneppele (Ed.): Materials on Austrian Film History 8: Decisions of the Viennese Film Censorship 1922–1925. Filmarchiv Austria publishing house, Vienna 2002, p. XVI
  2. ↑ Caneppele, p. XVII
  3. ↑ a b work of art or goods? To the dispute about free film criticism. In: Paimann's Filmlisten, No. 367, April 20, 1923, o. S .; quoted from: Caneppele, S. XXVII
  4. ↑ For the publication periods cf. Walter Fritz: In the cinema I experience the world - 100 years of cinema and film in Austria. Verlag Christian Brandstätter, Vienna 1996, Appendix: “Zeitschriften, Almanache und Programmhefte”, p. 294; on the owners cf. the heads of the respective magazines, any issue.
  5. ↑ Der Filmbote, April 7, 1923, No. 14, pp. 5 f .; quoted from: Caneppele, p. XXIII
  6. ↑ cf. Caneppele, pp. XXXIII
  7. ↑ Paimann's Filmlisten, No. 269, May 26 - June 1, 1923, o. P .; quoted from: Caneppele, S. XVII

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