Till Eulenspiegel (1975)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Till Eulenspiegel |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1975 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Rainer Simon |
| script | Rainer Simon, Jürgen Klauß (collaboration), Christa and Gerhard Wolf (film count) |
| production | DEFA , KAG "Babelsberg" |
| music | Friedrich Goldmann |
| camera | Claus Neumann |
| cut | Helga Gentz |
| occupation | |
| |
Till Eulenspiegel is a German film satire by DEFA directed by Rainer Simon from 1975.
action
Even as a child, Till Eulenspiegel loved to make faces. Now, as an adult, he rides around on his donkey in times of the peasants' uprising . He shows no respect for the robber baron Kunz, whom he fries and serves a cow dough in an inn after an ambiguous request. Kunz then invites him to his castle, but sets the dogs on him, which Till Eulenspiegel distracts with a cat dressed as a rabbit. He is then allowed to stay with the robber baron, who, however, can hardly celebrate robbery successes. When Kunz tries to lure the young raisin into his bed shortly before their wedding, Till slyly saves her and falls in love with her. A little later he challenges Kunz to fight on a bridge, but he falls into the river due to the lack of wooden planks.
Till Eulenspiegel, disguised as a monk, collects money for an alleged relic, which can only be donated by local women who are virgins or who have never cheated on their husbands. The donations flow and a little later Eulenspiegel is out on his donkey again. He uses a trick to acquire a white horse and is mistaken for the new painter who is supposed to paint one of the palace rooms in the court of a prince. Till Eulenspiegel sets two conditions: Nobody is allowed to disturb him at work for the next six months and he receives plenty of food and drinks. His work, on the other hand, can only be understood by those who live in right faith. Together with his assistant, Till Eulenspiegel spends the next few months lazy and sluggish. Shortly before the end of the working period, he simply throws paint on the walls. The prince and his entourage praise him as a great artist.
Till Eulenspiegel wanders on and is addressed in beggar's clothing by the emperor himself, who gives him his coat. A little later Eulenspiegel becomes the emperor's new court jester. For a long time he lets him go with his sayings and disrespectful actions. Till Eulenspiegel skillfully rescues farmers and his lover Raisin from death several times. However, when Till Eulenspiegel brings the emperor into a society that is of the opinion that in a new era all including emperors must work for their prosperity, Till Eulenspiegel falls into the emperor's disfavor. The court jester is ignored and finally sentenced to death together with the man Paukerjäcklein. Paukerjäcklein is said to have spread that the emperor had the epidemic of lust - this information is said to come from Till Eulenspiegel.
At the place of execution, Paukerjäcklein asks for the salvation of his soul, while Till Eulenspiegel asks the emperor to make a non-financial request that the emperor grants him. Till Eulenspiegel then asks that the emperor and his entourage come to the gallows over the next seven days and kiss his bare bottom. Thereupon the emperor releases both men and banishes them from the city. Till Eulenspiegel appears in front of the city gates with close-cropped hair; The word "END" was shaved on his head.
production
Till Eulenspiegel was filmed in 1974 at Quedlinburg Castle , in the Drübeck Abbey Church in the Harz Mountains and at Albrechtsburg Castle in Meißen . The film premiered on May 22, 1975 in the Berlin cosmos and was shown in GDR cinemas the following day. On May 11, 1977, the film was shown for the first time on DFF 1 on GDR television and was also shown in German cinemas from February 1989.
DEFA had filmed the Eulenspiegel story for the first time in 1956 in a French co-production with Die Abenteuer des Till Ulenspiegel . Rainer Simons Till Eulenspiegel is based on both the folk book and a film narration by Christa Wolf and Gerhard Wolf . The film story Till Eulenspiegel was published in 1973 and was a two-part film adaptation. For economic reasons it had to be shortened and rewritten by Simon. "Apparently the literary model, which comprised 215 printed pages, was too complex to be realized by DEFA," assumed Renate Holland-Moritz in 1975.
Simon was known at DEFA for his unconventional film adaptation of fairy tales and had previously worked with How do you marry a king? and Sechse come through the world already two fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm filmed.
"Eulenspiegel is the most extreme figure in this colorful, differentiated and vital ensemble of characters in these films, who postulate a new, a priori perspective and attitude for DEFA [...]: the plebeian as the power, cunning, fun and anger of the people, the anarchic as a defense against eternal and omnipresent order from above, the naivety of dreams. "
Werner Bergemann created the costumes , while the buildings were designed by Gerhard Helwig . The learned professors in the film were portrayed by Konrad Schwalbe and Gerhard Henne, who taught at the Babelsberg film school. The role of the third professor took over with Jürgen Klauss Simons assistant director, who had also worked on the script.
criticism
Contemporary critics wrote that the production design, costumes, masks and music help to create “a colorful, hearty painting of the times and morals without falling into naturalism. This film certainly makes certain demands on the viewer, especially from an aesthetic point of view. However, it documents a remarkable directorial performance by Simons, which testifies to a pronounced handwriting, imagination and the ability to lead all those involved to a cohesive ensemble performance. " In addition to his wide range of linguistic, facial and gestural expression, there are also the artistic abilities that are indispensable for this role. He knows how to make the fine line between life and death, on which Till is constantly moving, visible and unobtrusively encourage the viewer to think along and think further. "
Other critics found that the film "cannot be received with enthusiasm or absolute rejection". Simons Eulenspiegel seems “to be born as a provocateur of his time and only works by virtue of his own intention. All too loosely connected to the historical movements of the people, he plays a dangerous game with power, whereby his goal is unclear. ”By removing the historical and social background in the film, Eulenspiegel becomes“ just an enigmatic outsider, his historical appearance is transformed into a mystery. ”“ The visually powerful staging, which also does not shrink from coarseness, is hindered in its cinematic narrative flow by a dramaturgy and music processing that emphasizes the dialectic of the story, ”wrote the film service .
Renate Holland-Moritz called the film tasteless, so "in the direction of Rainer Simon [...] every possible opportunity for faecal, sexual and cruel excesses is played out with voluptuous meticulousness". Images of decapitated, running chickens, a crushed mouse and the stabbing of a horse turned into a “shock orgy that could be used for special treatment methods in psychiatry.” Cinema also found that the story by Christa and Gerhard Wolf “Till und his time extremely coarse [shows] and [...] not with political ambiguities and religious tastelessness [saves]. Conclusion: freedom of fools in terms of taste ”.
On the other hand, scientists have recently worked out that the film is one of the highlights of DEFA: "With Till Eulenspiegel , Rainer Simon and his team have presented a film that is still today in terms of performance, narrative, film technology and film aesthetics can still easily meet high demands (...). The (...) film, which is a feature film essay due to distancing strategies and a sound and image as well as their interaction related counterpoint, leads into a feature film essay in the early 16th century The world that is settled, despite its high level of referentiality and reliability, is nevertheless an art world. This film world compiles historical-factual and literary-fictional things and also takes up developments, constellations and problems from the following centuries that extend up to the present day makes that the film is not a historical film or the like, and it causes the film to be with en three thematic complexes aiming at political-social, institutional-ideological and cultural-artistic matters, in part also as a parable on the history of the GDR and its reality in the mid-1970s can be seen and heard. "
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 612-613 .
- Günter Helmes : Rule and rebellion against God and the world in Rainer Simons feature film essay Till Eulenspiegel (1975). In: The time, the world and the self. On the cinematic work of Rainer Simon, ed. by Michael Grisko . Potsdam 2016, pp. 66–90.
Web links
- Till Eulenspiegel in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Till Eulenspiegel at filmportal.de
- Till Eulenspiegel on progress-film.de
- Till Eulenspiegel at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Till Eulenspiegel . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2012 (PDF; test number: 132 291 V).
- ↑ F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 613 .
- ↑ Till Eulenspiegel . In: Renate Holland-Moritz: The owl in the cinema. Movie reviews. Eulenspiegel, Berlin 1981, p. 138.
- ^ Klaus Wischnewski: Dreamers and Ordinary People 1966 to 1979 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 227.
- ↑ Renate Biehl: Enlightenment pranks of Till Eulenspiegel . In: Filmspiegel , No. 13, 1975, p. 8.
- ↑ Hans-Jörg Rother: The desperation of the outsider . In: Forum , No. 12, June 1975.
- ↑ Till Eulenspiegel. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Till Eulenspiegel . In: Renate Holland-Moritz: The owl in the cinema. Movie reviews. Eulenspiegel, Berlin 1981, p. 139.
- ↑ See cinema.de
- ^ Günter Helmes: Rule and rebellion against God and the world . In: Michael Grisko: The time, the world and the self. On the cinematic work of Rainer Simon. DEFA Foundation, Berlin 2019, p. 89.