Taking Sides - The Furtwängler Case
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Taking Sides - The Furtwängler Case |
| Original title | Taking sides |
| Country of production | France , Great Britain , Germany , Austria |
| original language | English , Russian , French , German |
| Publishing year | 2001 |
| length | 110 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | István Szabó |
| script | Ronald Harwood |
| production |
Yves Pasquier Jeremy Isaacs Maureen McCabe Rainer Mockert Jacques Rousseau Rainer Schaper Michael von Wolkenstein |
| camera | Lajos Koltai |
| cut | Sylvie Landra |
| occupation | |
| |
Taking Sides - The Furtwängler Case is a 2001 film by the Hungarian director István Szabó based on the 1995 play Taking Sides by the British author Ronald Harwood about the question of whether and how much the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler knew about the National Socialist crimes. The English expression “Taking Sides” means in German something like “take a stand, take sides”.
action
Shortly after the end of the Second World War , the German star conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler was banned from practicing his profession and questioned by American Major Steve Arnold about his career in the Third Reich as part of the denazification process . Arnold tries to prove Furtwängler complicity with the National Socialist regime. David Wills, whose German-Jewish family fled Hitler and who is now a lieutenant in the US Army , and the young Emmi Straube as secretary attend the interrogation . Wills, an ardent admirer of Furtwängler, is shocked by the severity with which Major Arnold conducts the interrogation of the sensitive artist. Emmi, whose father was part of the resistance against Hitler, agrees. Furtwängler sticks to his point of view that art and politics have nothing to do with each other and asserts that he was never a member of the NSDAP and that he employed persecuted Jews in his orchestra to save them from deportation . Major Arnold, “an art bogeyman”, remains extremely suspicious and wants to accuse Furtwängler at all costs in a show trial as a Nazi collaborator .
Reviews
“With his renewed dissection of an artist's fate during the Nazi era, István Szabó raises many important questions, and he convincingly demonstrates how impossible it can be to take a clear side. In doing so, he neglects to delve deeper into the artist's overriding culpability. "
“The opportunist , who was next to himself in the Third Reich, and the justice fanatic who is unable to differentiate - Szabó positions both on thin ice. The film consistently refuses to answer until the end; instead, he prefers to dismiss the viewer with the questions that a white handkerchief can ask, wiping over a hand in slow motion. "
“The Hungarian director Szabó stages the embarrassing questioning as a subtle, psychodramatic chamber play. Furtwängler has little more to oppose his inquisitor than his idealistic concept of art. In the face of political responsibility, he wants to withdraw on his calling to higher things. A view of the world in suspicious proximity to the master-man myth that Szabó encounters with unexpected partisanship. "
“Stellan Skarsgård, Harvey Keitel, Moritz Bleibtreu and Birgit Minichmayr shed a fascinating light on the tragic conflict in which the denying opportunist as well as the zealous justice fanatic get caught. The portrayal of the Soviet cultural officer Alexander Dymschitz by the 66-year-old Oleg Tabakow is a pure annoyance . The highly educated, highly cultivated Germanist Dymschitz [...] not only became natural allies like Bertolt Brecht and Walter Felsenstein as a friend and helper against Stalinist administrators, he also wanted, out of sincere respect for German culture, to offer less burdened Nazi fellow travelers like Furtwängler a chance to start over. István Szabó, however, lets the fine mind degenerate into clumsy Russian boobies who drink to the limit. Obviously certain clichés have to be followed these days. And be it at the price of historical truth. "
Awards
- The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.
- Stellan Skarsgård was nominated for the European Film Awards in 2001 for best actor .
- Stellan Skarsgård and István Szabó received the Actor Award and the Award for Best Director at the Festival Internacional de Cine de Mar del Plata in 2002 .
Web links
- Taking Sides - The case of Furtwängler in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Taking Sides - The Furtwängler case in the online film database
- Taking Sides - The case Furtwängler at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Taking Sides - The Furtwängler case at filmportal.de
- Review of the film from the Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Age rating for Taking Sides - The Furtwängler case . Youth Media Commission .
- ^ A b Renate Holland-Moritz : Heaven, Hell and questionable geniuses. Cinema review of the 52nd International Film Festival in Berlin . In: Eulenspiegel , 48./56. Vol. 04/02, ISSN 0423-5975 , p. 62 f., Here p. 63.
- ↑ Taking Sides - The Furtwängler Case. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Tamara Dotter Weich: A question of responsibility ( Memento from July 25, 2003 in the Internet Archive ). In: Nürnberger Zeitung , March 20, 2002.
- ↑ Manfred Müller: The Stockhausen Syndrome . In: Der Spiegel of March 8, 2002, accessed on May 28, 2012.