Theodor Körner (1912)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Theodor Körner |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1912 |
| length | 62 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Franz Porten Gerhard Dammann |
| script | Franz Porten Gerhard Dammann |
| production | Paul von Woringen |
| camera | Werner Brandes |
| occupation | |
Theodor Körner is a national patriotic, German silent film portrait from 1912 about the hero of the Wars of Liberation with Friedrich Fehér in the title role .
action
The film tells of the life of the poet Theodor Körner (1791–1813) and his brief but intense love for the Viennese actress Toni Adamberger , but focuses mainly on the anti-Napoleonic freedom fighter, whose vita traces this ambitious production in a pathetic and solemn tone. At the center of the action is Körner's participation in the Lützow Freikorps in the year he died in 1813. The heroic aspect, his overriding commitment to the “big picture”, for the liberation of Germany is always emphasized. The plot begins with Körner's light-heartedness as a student fraternity and his engagement to Antonie, known as Toni, in Vienna. But then he joined Major Lützow, and in 1813 there was a general uprising against the archenemy Napoleon Bonaparte.
The French opponent appears in the form of a forage division as a starving marauder who is plundering the villages and farmers - neither straw nor cattle are safe from him - hastily fleeing from the enemy who bravely pursues him: the Lützow rider. In front of them, a daring grain that does not fear death storms on a white horse. He had previously let the robbed peasant people describe the circumstances of their robbery and the escape route of the French packed with their booty. In the nearby forest, the Lützowers encounter the retreating enemy and ride one death-defying attack after the other against him. There was saber fighting, and once again the Prussians put the French opponents to flight, who had to leave their booty behind. This is followed by more fighting scenes, this time in the open, in which old Major Lützow himself falls from his horse once . At Gadebusch , Körner was seriously wounded and he died under an oak tree that was as picturesque as it was mighty. The final scene shows the solemn burial of the daring freedom fighter.
Production notes
Theodor Körner , with the subtitle From the cradle to his heroic death , was made in the Mutuskop film studio in Berlin-Lankwitz and in the summer of 1912 when the battle footage was being made at Osdorf . The film was censored on July 25, 1912 and had its German premiere on August 31, 1912. Before that, the film, as the Kinematographische Rundschau reported in its July 21, 1912 issue, was to be shown to the Crown Prince and Kaiser Wilhelm II. The premiere planned for Austria-Hungary was August 30, 1912. The film was three acts long and at 1136 meters was an astonishing length for the time. When it was re-censored on February 15, 1924, the film that was released for young people had to be cut to 953 meters.
The Freikorpsler costumes of the Lützow hunters were originals from the Berlin armory. Mutuskop boss Paul von Woringen had not only obtained their exemption, but also achieved that several squadrons of the 1st Guard Dragoons Regiment were allowed to take part in the filming. A total of around 300 mounted soldiers were used. The actors took a three-week riding course before the filming.
For the young cameraman Werner Brandes , who may have made his debut as chief photographer here, Theodor Körner was the first film in a three-part cycle of national patriotic material that he was responsible for camera technology shortly before the outbreak of the First World War on behalf of Deutsche Mutuskop und Biograph GmbH under the direction of Franz Portens . This was followed by the three-part film by Queen Luise and the nationalist edifice from the time around the Franco-German War , Aus Deutschlands Ruhmestagen 1870/71 .
The film attracted a great deal of attention across Germany. In addition to specialist publications such as the Lichtbild-Bühne , which Theodor Körner devoted four times (in issues 27, 30, 33 and 35) articles, in the first days of September 1912, shortly after the premiere, also non-film-specific newspapers such as the Berliner Börsen- Courier and the Münchner Neuesten Nachrichten reviews. In its issue of July 21, 1912, even the Austrian Cinematographical Rundschau provided a lengthy report on filming on page 6 under the title “Lützow's wild hunt in Osdorf”.
In 1932 a Theodor Körner sound film was made under the direction of Carl Boese . Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender embodied the freedom fighter there.
Temporal and political classification
The film is a typical product of the times of the end of Wilhelminism . In Germany and Austria-Hungary, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, it was the 100th anniversary of the liberation of Central Europe from Napoleonic occupation and war terror. As early as 1909, a rather amateurish short film was made about the Tyrolean freedom hero Andreas Hofer , four years later Carl Froelich staged a far more ambitious Hofer work entitled Tyrol in Arms . The Austrians remembered their fight against Napoleon in Tyrol with an elaborate film made from the summer of 1912 about the Hofer ally Josef Speckbacher under the programmatic title Speckbacher .
In 1912/13 there was a wealth of films with a patriotic choice of themes and an anti-French touch. Shortly after this Körner film, a large-scale, three-part, pathetic silent film about Queen Luise of Prussia under the title The Film from Queen Luise with Hansi Arnstaedt was made in the autumn of the same year . In 1913, under the direction of Körner actor Feher, a song of praise to Major Schill was created under the title Das Blutgeld, and in the same year the aforementioned film From Germany's Glory Days 1870/71 by Franz Portens .
Receptions
“The German Mutuskop- und Biograph-Gesellschaft has now taken up the plan to depict particularly gripping and dramatic episodes of the patriotic history in cinematography… This new“ cinema ”play… describes the life and death of our most famous freedom poet and hero from that time the Wars of Liberation. And since the centenary year of that great popular uprising and national rebirth will be celebrated all over Germany in the next year, this interesting and, for Germany, novel recording should arouse great interest. "
“And it [this film] will bring honor and fame to all those who have a share in the creation of such a grandiose work, like the Theodor Körner film and in it“ Lützow's daring wild hunt ”. But above all it will serve to honor cinematography, about which some of the current opponents will come to a completely different opinion. "
Individual evidence
- ^ Gerhard Lamprecht : German silent films, Volume 1903-1912, p. 399.