Testimony (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Testimony |
| Original title | Testimony |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1988 |
| length | 157 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Tony Palmer |
| script | Tony Palmer, David Rudkin |
| production | Tony Palmer, Michael Henry, Grahame Jennings , Michael Kustow , Maureen Murray |
| music | Zeljko Marasovich |
| camera | Nicholas D. Knowland |
| cut | Tony Palmer |
| occupation | |
| |
Witness testimony is a biography film from 1988 and has the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich under Josef Stalin on the subject. It is based on the composer's memoirs edited by Solomon Volkov.
action
The film begins with Shostakovich's funeral and tells the composer's life as a flashback from his point of view.
Dmitri Shostakovich is an established composer in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era and writes symphonies and film music. But after the performance of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk , he falls out of favor with Stalin and has to live in fear of his arrest. Shostakovich rehabilitates himself by composing his Fifth Symphony . After the outbreak of World War II , his Leningrad Symphony was a success. But with his Ninth Symphony he disappointed the Soviet leadership, who had expected a victory symphony and a masterpiece like Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony after the war . After the Zhdanov reports in 1948, he was prosecuted again.
In 1949, despite a ban on his works, Shostakovich represented the Soviet Union at the World Peace Congress in New York on the orders of Stalin. There he has to face critical questions in relation to the People's Party's criticism of formalism of his music and the music of other Soviet composers such as Sergei Prokofiev and Aram Khachaturian . Shostakovich is personally commended by Stalin.
Stalin dies in 1953. Shostakovich is relieved to be able to bring his works to the public, which he previously had to compose for the drawer. In his 13th Symphony , composed in the early 1960s , Shostakovich deals with anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. Shortly before his death in 1975, Shostakovich grappled with the question of whether Stalin made his music what it is.
Awards
In 1988, director Tony Palmer won the Critics Award at the São Paulo International Film Festival and the EuropaCinema Platinum Award at the EuropaCinema Festival in Viareggio .
synchronization
The German version of the film has the following voice actors :
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Dmitri Shostakovich | Ben Kingsley | Hans-Michael Rehberg |
| Nina Shostakovich | Sherry Baines | Susanne von Medvey |
| Glasunov | Peter Woodthorpe | Michael Habeck |
| Zhdanov | John Shrapnel | Reinhard Glemnitz |
| Stalin | Terence Rigby | Hans Korte |
| Tuchaschewsky | Ronald pickup | Helmut Griem |
| Vsevolod Meyerhold | Robert Stephens | Harald Leipnitz |
Reviews
“A film carried out by an outstanding leading actor, which poses the question of the social responsibility of art and the artist, both perfectly formed and eager to experiment, and explores the tension between cultural workers and dictatorial state power. The historical verifiability is neglected in favor of a general human tragedy. "
Web links
- Testimony in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Testimony. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous file , accessed on October 18, 2018 .
- ↑ Testimony. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 18, 2018 .