Viennese film

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One of the defining actors in Viennese film: Hans Moser

The Viennese film is a film genre that is essentially a combination of the genres comedy , romance , melodrama and period film . However, it can be defined as a separate genre by the fact that historical Vienna and its specific milieu always form the core element. Viennese film as a genre existed between the 1920s and 1950s, with the 1930s being its peak.

The Viennese dialect is considered to be the strongest trump card of Viennese film . The film critic Frieda Grafe once described the dialect as "German made fluent, where you can hear that language is a sonic matrix that generates meanings even before it becomes communication in the true sense of the word." The many ways of expressing yourself , the precision, speed and fluent formulation of the language come close to the unique wit of the American screwball comedies .

definition

The Viennese film always takes place in the past and achieves a high degree of emotionality by oscillating back and forth between hope and suffering, enjoyment and loss. Most of the films are set in Vienna at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the capital of the multi-ethnic monarchy Austria-Hungary achieved its greatest importance in society and culture. The people involved usually belong to different social classes, which makes the relationships between the people even more explosive. Concepts of honor and morals of that time are important for the plot. The Viennese film is almost always happy, life-affirming and exuberant. Music and singing play a major role, be it through orchestral and musician scenes or through vocal interludes by people themselves. Humor often arises from misunderstandings, mix-ups, mishaps and the resulting efforts to put everything back in order, which often triggers further clumsiness .

Dramaturgically, the Viennese film usually has several main actors and a few other secondary actors who appear again and again throughout the film and are involved in the plot. The people do not always know each other, but are linked by several parallel storylines. The plot mostly revolves around small and large love affairs and often has elements of the comedy of confusion . In most cases, the films are politically and socially irrelevant in terms of contemporary history.

historical development

The first films to be assigned to Viennese film were made in the 1920s, when film was still silent. However, the genre reached its peak with the beginning of the sound film era, through which the specific, own Viennese language melody , the linguistic wit and the Viennese insult could come into play, which made Viennese film popular in Germany as well. Willi Forst's production Leise lehen mein Lieder , a biography about Franz Schubert , was so successful that an English-language version was also produced. Willi Forst is considered the most important director of Viennese film because he knew best how to combine talent, professionalism and personality. In 1935 he also made the best film in Viennese film, on which film historians agree: Masquerade .

The success of the Viennese film also inspired Berlin to emulate this genre. The location was changed from Vienna to Berlin, instead of the Habsburg monarchy there was a Prussian court. The films were indeed quite successful in Germany, but with the departure from the Viennese milieu including its inhabitants and its language, they also lost the unique atmosphere that defines Viennese film. The best example of this is the UFA operetta Der Kongreß tanzt (1931) by Erik Charell . Max Ophüls proved that Viennese films can also be made outside of Vienna . With love he chose a classic Viennese material, which he staged in 1933 with Willy Eichberger and Magda Schneider as the main actors in Berlin. He cautiously captured the atmosphere of Vienna at the turn of the century, but at the same time took the wrong concepts of honor of that time into account.

During National Socialism , the popularity of Viennese film was exploited, which in many areas corresponded to the National Socialist ideas of the entertaining film that distracted from reality into a dream world. The Viennese film experienced an extension of its blooming phase, a kind of "late baroque". Between 1938 and 1945, some films acquired an anti-Semitic, anti-monarchist, and anti-democratic undertone. Most Viennese films , however, remained apolitical as always. In some productions, such as Willi Forst's masterpiece Wiener Blut , swipes were occasionally made at National Socialism.

After the end of National Socialism, after the Second World War, attempts were made to continue the Viennese film with all its characteristic features. At best, however, only average productions were achieved - most of it was just a bad copy of previous successes. Dr Volkmar Iro recognized the danger of the genre's finiteness as early as 1936: “With the real Austrian milieu alone, however, the possibilities of Austrian film are by no means exhausted, and there would be a certain danger for the further development of Austrian film production if the artistic tasks were to be considered of Austrian film saw above all in processing only Austrian film material or an Austrian milieu. Because, as mentioned earlier, one cannot overexploit a limited environment with impunity. "

subjects

In addition to affairs from the social life of the monarchy, the Viennese film also tells more distant stories. This usually happens when the biography of a historical personality, mostly important musicians and composers, is filmed. The genre, which seems to be purely fixated on light entertainment, also offers space for more intensive engagement with society in terms of history and politics. Such more serious subjects have rarely been taken up, but these works are all the more interesting and outstanding.

An example of this is “ … only a comedian ” (1935) by German director Erich Engel . Despite the anti-authoritarian act, the anti-fascism film escaped both Austrian and German censorship , presumably due to the fact that the film was set in the Rococo period .

Also in exile in Austria, Werner Hochbaum created “Vorstadtvarieté” in 1935, an extraordinary, time-related and political contribution to Viennese film . Acting on Prussian and Austrian characters, whose outlook on life clashed in a romantic drama shortly before the First World War, this work is one of the strongest Austrian films ever.

Walter Reisch succeeded in 1935 with “ Episode ” , another outstanding example of Viennese film , with which only a few other productions could compete. The film is characterized by the fact that the atmosphere of Vienna at the time of the economic crisis could be translated into a coherent psychogram of Viennese ambiguity thanks to Paula Wessely as a poor arts and crafts student. The film was the only Austrian production in which Jews were involved to obtain an exemption from the Reichsfilmkammer for showing in the Third Reich after the Nazis came to power in Germany.

The most outstanding Viennese films also include the masterpiece by Paul Fejos , “ Sonnenstrahl ” (1933), staged in the style of poetic realism , as well as several films by Willi Forst, above all his globally successful “ Masquerade ” (1934).

Great personalities

Some of the stars of Viennese film were Paula Wessely , Attila Hörbiger , Rudolf Carl , Fritz Imhoff , Leo Slezak , Magda Schneider and Willi Forst , who was important both as an actor and as a director. The best-known representatives of the comedian film were the opposing Hans Moser and Szöke Sakall . While Hans Moser often played his fellow actors against the wall through his linguistically and mimic unique, natural appearance, Szöke Sakall shone with an intellectually biting to sadistic-aggressive humor. By Richard Romanovsky still another comedian was among the acting greats of the early talkies. German film stars also found themselves time and again in Viennese films .

Willy Schmidt-Gentner and Robert Stolz were among the most sought-after composers for Viennese films .

Important Viennese films

See also

literature

  • Walter Fritz : The Viennese Film in the Third Reich. Vienna 1988
  • Walter Fritz, Gerhard Tötschinger: Masquerade - costumes of Austrian film; a myth. Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-218-00575-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted in: Thomas Kramer, Martin Prucha: Film in the course of time - 100 years of cinema in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Ueberreuter, Vienna 1994, p. 155
  2. ↑ Film magazine: The good film. 1936, fl. 195, p. 4