Missing (film)

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Movie
German title Missing
Original title Missing
Country of production United States
original language english and spanish
Publishing year 1982
length 122 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Constantin Costa-Gavras
script Constantin Costa-Gavras, Donald Stewart and Thomas Hauser (book)
production Edward Lewis and Mildred Lewis
music Vangelis
camera Ricardo Aronovich
cut Françoise Bonnot
occupation

Missing (Original title: Missing ) is the Golden Palm excellent feature of the Greek - French director Constantin Costa-Gavras from the year 1982 with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek in the lead roles.

The drama is based on the authentic case of the US journalist Charles Horman , who was kidnapped and murdered by the military government there after the 1973 coup in Chile . The template for this event was the non-fiction book The Execution of Charles Horman: An American Sacrifice (1978, also re-published in 1982 under the title Missing ) by Thomas Hauser . The film was produced by the film studios PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and Universal Pictures .

action

South America, in the early 1970s: American author and idealist Charles Horman gathers information about the unscrupulous machinations of the military government during the coup . After a visit to Viña del Mar, the supporter of the anti-establishment movement and his friend Terry returned late to his wife Beth in Santiago , where the two became aware of mass killings by the military and they were surprised by the military coup . In Viña del Mar, Charlie and Terry met many US military personnel, including Army Colonel Sean Patrick and a marine engineer, who were believed to have been involved in the coup and who informed them of a search and punishment operation in the capital, Santiago. Scared by Charlie's late arrival, Beth asks her husband to take the quickest possible route to leave the country of emergency . On the advice of a journalist, Charlie decides to leave the house with Beth and go to a hotel. While Beth is still visiting friends, Charlie and Terry, who will be leaving the country the next day, check into a hotel. Charlie says goodbye to Terry to catch up with Beth. However, Beth does not manage to return home in time due to the nightly curfews. She spends the night on the street and returns to her home the next day. As Beth finds out from a friend, the house was devastated by soldiers. Charlie has disappeared without a trace.

Charlie's father Ed Horman, a successful businessman from New York's Upper East Side and the Christian Science ( Christian Science ) attached, then travels to South America, while his wife remains in the US. In Santiago he meets his daughter-in-law Beth, who blames Ed for the disappearance of his only child. His son, whom he always viewed as a failure, was reportedly abducted by soldiers on the afternoon of September 16, according to neighbors. During the first conversation with the US ambassador, Beth reacts harshly to the attempts by the US government to help her father-in-law and her find Charlie. A witness who happened to be driving behind the truck in a taxi reports that Charles Horman was taken to the national sports stadium. While looking for his son, Ed, who first suspects the friendship with Terry is a secret affair, learns more about his son and daughter-in-law. Both were "fed up with seeing the world through the New York Times " and wanted to travel. Charlie and Beth traveled all over Latin America and eventually got stuck in Santiago. Ed's son was working on a cartoon for children, wrote scripts and translated articles for a left-wing newspaper, according to US diplomats.

Ed and Beth learn what happened at the National Stadium through a friend of Charlie's, David Holloway. Holloway and his friend Frank Terrucci, who was also a friend of Charlie, were kidnapped from their apartment by armed soldiers and taken to the sports stadium. While David was very afraid and witnessed how Chilean soldiers undressed and executed the people there, Frank was optimistic and believed that as a US citizen he would soon be free again. When a soldier took him away, Frank joked that they would soon meet in New York, but David never saw Frank again. According to the official accounts of the military, Terrucci is said to have been picked up during the night curfew, taken to the stadium and later released. He should be safe in the USA.

Ed and Beth go through all the hospitals and mental hospitals with the US Consul Phil Putnam, but there is no reference to a Charles Horman in any register. He learns more about his son from the open Beth, u. a. that he often played the country and western singer for fun and was very interested in astronomy and that he made regular notes of all his observations. The military finally lead Beth and Ed to the sports stadium, where they call Charles over a microphone. Ed thinks he recognizes Charles in the crowd, but Beth makes it clear to him that he was wrong. While searching the various embassies in Santiago, they met a former police officer of the overthrown government at the Italian embassy, ​​who reported that Charlie had been interrogated and tortured at the Ministry of Defense in the presence of an American official.

Later, while searching for Charlie, Ed and Beth are led into the catacombs of the National Stadium, where they encounter a myriad of corpses. Beth discovers the body of Frank Terrucci in a room in which there are still unidentified dead. Charlie's boyfriend is said to have been found dead in the streets after he was released. This contradicts the earlier official announcement that Terrucci had left for the USA. The search for son and husband welds the initially stubborn and patriotic Ed and the courageous Beth together. Ed learns from an employee of the Ford Foundation in Santiago that his son was allegedly executed at the National Stadium on September 19, three days after his arrest, a month earlier. Ed tries desperately to find out the name of the contact, but the agent does not reveal it. Shortly afterwards, Ed learns at the US embassy that his son is said to have gone to safety in the north of the country. However, Ed does not believe the diplomats and mentions the possible involvement of the Americans in the military coup. His compatriots then reveal to the father that his son was a snoop and, so to speak, had burned his hands on the fire. When Ed returns to the hotel, he meets Beth, who is about to be taken away by two Chilean inspectors. Ed is allowed to accompany Beth for interrogation after a call to the US Embassy. A little later at the Ministry of Defense, Ed receives a message from the diplomats that his son has been unequivocally identified and has actually been executed in the national stadium.

Ed and Beth then leave Chile and fly to the USA. Ed Horman later files lawsuits against eleven government officials, including US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger . The body of Charles Horman was not brought home until seven months later, so that an autopsy that would have clarified the circumstances of the death beyond any doubt was no longer possible. Classified as state secrets, the files remained locked, so Charles Horman's father's lawsuit was dismissed. The costs and fees of the transfer were billed to the surviving dependents.

reception

Individual reviews

  • “ I wish the film had equally been brave enough to risk a clear, unambiguous, consistent presentation of its convictions instead of getting lost in an overloaded mishmash of stylistic excesses. This film would have been really huge if it had jumped over its shadow. "( Roger Ebert , Chicago Sun-Times )
  • “ […] 'Missing' is Mr. Costa-Gavras 'most beautifully executed political melodrama to date, a tense, cinematic thriller, played with immeasurable authority by Jack Lemmon as Charles Horman's father, Ed Horman, and Sissy Spacek as Charles' wife, Beth . "( New York Times )
  • [...] Jack Lemmon plays this Horman, and his familiar, a hundred times proven average face becomes a mirror of all the emotions that the story stirs up - he is the ideal embodiment of the innocent, slightly clumsy, yet imperturbable normal American who goes deeper and deeper in a foreign country gets into an incomprehensible mess. […] Costa-Gavras […] has once again found exactly the right story in "Missing", the right perspective and the right moment to stir up political affects […] what is more frightening are certain images that Costa-Gavras contrasts without comment: On the one hand, there are foreign embassy buildings in whose corridors and gardens hundreds of asylum seekers are squeezed together, and on the other hand there are the polished corridors and immaculate lawns of the American embassy, ​​where no one has sought refuge from the new rulers. In the pointed emptiness of these images, the cool cinema rhetorician Costa-Gavras shows what the "American presence" looks like in the Third World. ( Mirror )

Awards

In 1983 (official census 1982), Missing was one of the extended favorites at the Academy Awards with four nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor. The political thriller, u. a. In 1982, together with the Turkish film Yol - The Path was awarded the Palme d'Or in Cannes, but could not prevail against Richard Attenborough's biopic Gandhi . Sissy Spacek and Jack Lemmon had to admit defeat in the categories Best Actress and Best Actor Meryl Streep ( Sophie's decision ) and Ben Kingsley ( Gandhi ) respectively. Only Constantin Costa-Gavras and Donald Stewart were able to prevail against the competition with their script, but the Greek director was absent from the award ceremony and was unable to personally receive the only Oscar of his career to date.

Costa-Gavras' and Stewart's screenplay also won the British Academy Film Award and the awards from the London Film Critics Association and the Writers Guild of America .

Oscar 1983

  • Best adapted script

Nominated in the categories

  • Best movie
  • Best Actor (Jack Lemmon)
  • Best Actress (Sissy Spacek)

British Academy Film Award 1983

  • Best script
  • Best cut

Nominated in the categories

  • Best movie
  • Best director
  • Best Actor (Jack Lemmon)
  • Best Actress (Sissy Spacek)
  • Best script

Golden Globe Awards 1983

Nominated in the categories

  • Best film - drama
  • Best director
  • Best Actor - Drama (Jack Lemmon)
  • Best Actress - Drama (Sissy Spacek)
  • Best script

Further

Cannes International Film Festival 1982

  • Golden Palm as the best film
  • Best Actor (Jack Lemmon)

London Critics Circle Film Awards 1983

  • Film of the year
  • Director of the year
  • Screenwriters of the Year

1983 Writers Guild of America Awards

  • Best Adapted Screenplay - Drama

See also

literature

  • Missing . [Toluca, Calif.]: Film Analysis Series, 1981.
  • Hauser, Thomas: Missing . New York: Avon, 1978. ISBN 0-380-49098-6
  • Dan Georgakas, Lenny Rubenstein: The Cineaste Interviews: On the Art and Politics of the Cinema . Lake View Press, Chicago 1983, ISBN 0-941702-02-2 .
  • Charles Derry: The Suspense Thriller: Films in the Shadow of Alfred Hitchcock . McFarland Classics / McFarland, Jefferson NC 1988, ISBN 0-7864-1208-9 , pp. 138–142 ( excerpt from Google book search)
  • Robert Brent Toplin: History by Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past . University of Illinois Press, 1996, ISBN 0-252-06536-0 , pp. 103-124 ( excerpt from Google book search)
  • Robert Niemi: History in the Media: Film and Television . ABC-CLIO, 2006, ISBN 1-57607-952-X , pp. 333–335 ( excerpt from Google book search)
  • Lori A. Lammert: Film Reviews: Missing . Chasqui, Volume, Issue 1, May 2009, pp. 226–227 ( JSTOR )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roger Ebert : Missing (PG). In: rogerebert.suntimes.com. January 1, 1982, accessed on October 7, 2008 (English): “I wish the movie had been even braver, brave enough to risk a clear, unequivocal, uncompromised statement of its beliefs, instead of losing itself in a cluttered mishmash of stylistic excesses. This movie might have really been powerful, if it could have gotten out of its own way "
  2. ↑ Vincent Canby : Missing (1982). In: The New York Times . February 12, 1982, accessed on October 7, 2008 (English): "" Missing "is Mr. Costa-Gavras's most beautifully achieved political melodrama to date, a suspense-thriller of real cinematic style, acted with immense authority by Jack Lemmon, as Charles Horman's father, Ed Horman, and Sissy Spacek as Charles's wife, Beth "
  3. ↑ Urs Jenny: Cannes Film Festival: Screenplay by the CIA . In: Der Spiegel . No. 21 , 1982 ( online ).