Before Sunset (1956)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Before sunset |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1956 |
| length | 103 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Gottfried Reinhardt |
| script | Jochen Huth |
| production | Artur Brauner for CCC-Film (Berlin) |
| music | Werner Eisbrenner |
| camera | Kurt Hasse |
| cut | Kurt Zeunert |
| occupation | |
| |
Before Sunset is a German feature film from 1956 based on the play of the same name by Gerhart Hauptmann . Hans Albers plays the leading role under the direction of Gottfried Reinhardt .
action
Privy Councilor Matthias Clausen is a lonely old man. He has just celebrated his 70th birthday and has been honored. But Clausen, a major industrialist and senior manager of an automobile company, feels himself surrounded by selfish “vultures” in his family, who all want to get the inheritance that is to be expected as soon as possible and treat it with falsehood and mendacity. Above all, the company manager Erich Klamroth by marriage, husband of his daughter Ottilie, and Wolfgang Clausen, the old man deeply distrusts. Only the young Egbert, who appears openly and unselfishly towards him, is a laudable exception. Shortly before his final sunshine in life, Mathias encounters great love again in the form of the young, fresh Inken Peters. She is entirely without falsehood and takes him as he is. The old Clausen then hires Inken as his private secretary, triggering a medium-sized family earthquake.
Because now the Clausens and Klamroths show their true faces. One is outraged that the old man is evidently thinking of walking on bare feet again. In the event of his soon-to-be-expected death, this would mean that the great inheritance could pass them by. Apart from Egbert, a phalanx of family opponents soon surrounded him. In order not to be booted out, the rest of the family decided to have the old man incapacitated and also accused Inken Peters of being a legacy sneak. The young woman is far less angry about this outrageous accusation than Matthias Clausen, who is so upset about it that his already ailing health is further damaged. Inken begs Clausen to leave this hotbed of envy and greed with him immediately. After a fit of weakness, old Clausen dies.
Production notes
Filming of Before Sunset began on January 20, 1956 and ended on March 30 of the same year. External shoots took place in St. Moritz and Vienna , the studio recordings were made in the CCC film studios in Berlin-Spandau . The premiere was on June 26, 1956 as part of the Berlinale . The cinema mass start was on July 6, 1956. The Austrian premiere took place on August 21, 1956. On July 2, 1989, Before Sunset was shown for the first time on television with the broadcast on ZDF .
The buildings come from Rolf Zehetbauer and Peter Röhrig , the costumes were designed by Maria Brauner. Otto Meyer assisted director Reinhardt, Klaus Werner was camera assistant under head cameraman Kurt Hasse . Wilhelm Sperber was in charge of production.
While leading actor Albers was considered set from the start, there was a wealth of alternative actors for the other roles in the planning stage of this film. CCC documents from 1955 show five suggested casts for the Inken part alone (which later went to Annemarie Düringer ): Marianne Koch, Gertrud Kückelmann, Ruth Niehaus, Ulla Jacobsen and Sonja Sutter. Later, Maria Schell was also briefly in conversation.
For Gottfried Reinhardt, returning from Hollywood, Before Sunset was the first German film. The same material was filmed for the first time in 1936/37 with a Nazi tendency under the title Der Herrscher with Emil Jannings in the Albers role by Veit Harlan .
Awards
- In the public vote , the film was awarded the Golden Bear at the 1956 Berlinale .
- Hans Albers, Annemarie Düringer and Claus Biederstaedt were nominated for the Silver Bear for their performance .
- Before sunset , along with four other films, won the Golden Globe in 1957 .
Reviews
“In this rather oily, but effective Gerhart Hauptmann film (director: Gottfried Reinhardt), the title of the drama was taken very carefully: Sunsets in the mountains and on the plains illuminate the late love affair of the industrial ruler Mathias Clausen all too symbolically. But the young girl's selfless inclination towards a wealthy old man - a delicate dream of the 70-year-old captain - became the most natural occurrence thanks to the cast. Annemarie Düringer as Inken Peters has the delicately eccentric, which also explains the strangest liaison. Hans Albers, who plays Clausen, is as handsome and winning as ever, even as a very old death row inmate. "
“This time freed from ideological tendencies and more similar to the accusation, with Albers, who is more insistent in character parts than as a lover, surrounded by selected opponents. With moderate use of the poet's words, dignified. "
“It's not just criticism of how Gerhart Hauptmann's stage dramas are cannibalized into films with a frown. “The rats”, “Before sunset”, “Fuhrmann Henschel” have passed us by. "Rose Bernd" will follow. Some things - for example Hans Albers as Privy Councilor Clausen - appealed to the audience, the film audience. But criticism -: it always rebukes the fact that a subject is not transferred true to scale from one genre to the other, that it is rubbish with the rank and name of a poet. "
“The same material was filmed with Emil Jannings in the role of the privy councilor during the Nazi era. While the “Führer principle” was particularly emphasized at the time, only the purely human side of the conflict was considered in the new version. In this film, Hans Albers played a major role in the "age subject". "
"With two remakes of two Emil Jannings classics," The Last Man "and" Before Sunset ", which were too sentimentally slipping , Albers proved himself to be a respectable character actor."
“The film adaptation of Hauptmann's stage play, relocated to the 1950s, staged conventionally and with theatrical stylistic devices. Little differentiated in the character drawing, the symbol-laden film is at best noteworthy in the acting, although there, too, there is in places a heavy weight of meaning. "
Web links
- Before sunset in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Before sunset at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Letter from Horst Wendlandt to Artur Brauner
- ↑ Brauner memo
- ^ Prize winners on the Berlinale website
- ↑ Before sunset. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .