Karl May (Film)
- Helmut Käutner: Karl May
- Käthe Gold: Klara May
- Kristina Söderbaum: Emma May
- Rudolf Fernau: lawyer Bredereck
- Attila Hörbiger: Writer Dittrich
- Lil Dagover: Bertha von Suttner
- Mady Rahl: Pauline münchmeyer
- Willy Trenk - Trebitsch: Rudolf Lebius, Journalist
- Rudolf Prack: Saxon Minister of Justice
- Rainer types of rock: young Adolf Hitler
- Leon Askin: lawyer Klotz Sello
- Peter Chatel: Horace heart fields
- Alexander Golling: Furniture Dealers Fischer
- Harry Hardt: Court Chairman Wessel
- Wolfgang Büttner: Criminal Court Chairman Ehricke
- André Heller: Robert Müller, Chairman of the akadem. association
- Rudolf Lenz: Casella
- Rudolf Schündler: confectioner Kreutzkamm
- Guido Wieland: Attorney Bernstein
- Peter Kern: George Grosz
- Marquard Bohm: Lawyer About Horst
- Erwin Faber: Napoleon Krügel
- Fritz von Friedl: Coroner Larrass
- Penelope Georgiou: Penelope
- Stephan Paryla: Dr. Euchar Schmid
- Egon von Jordan: Wiener in Sophiensaal
- Peter Moland: Sascha Schneider
- Hans -Joachim Schmidt: Attorney Dr. Blue
- Peter Branoff: District Judge Dr. Hermann
- Peter P. Jost: Attorney Seyffert
- Bruno Tost: secretary
- Heinz Moog: Oskar Gerlach
Karl May is a star-studded, German biopic from 1974 by Hans -Jürgen Syberberg. The title role is played by Helmut Käutner.
Action
Germany turn of the century. The writer Karl May is planning a world tour. In schools he reports his alleged, previous trips through the American continent and the Orient. And always he will lay claim to have experienced all of the written down by him adventure itself. Its popularity has reached such unprecedented heights, numerous fan letters reach him from the people he has inspired with his stories. Problems gets May but especially with the widow Pauline münchmeyer and the radical journalist Rudolf Lebius, the massive fights him, slandered and wants to put his writings on the Index.
May still starts his world tour, which will take him to Cairo to India and Ceylon and Sumatra. Postcards to publishers and friends to prove that he actually visited these places. But it 's no good - he is considered a braggart and a liar. Man accused of May, have not experienced the adventure narrated in his writings themselves, but have otherwise plagiarized. It also revealed that May texts wrote under a pseudonym. In addition to Lebius widow münchmeyer, which is particularly active in this matter, as the driving force turns. As May reach the allegations from the home, he breaks off his world tour. But the publisher fisherman knows of Mays wrote under a pseudonym Kolportagen and tried to set the Saxon author under pressure. An avalanche process begins.
Lebius however does everything possible to destroy Karl May's reputation completely by attempting to disclose its past. In a process is subject Lebius, but he does not let up in his battle against May. In a series of processes Mays past is dragged in detail to light and used against him. Privately, Mays gets life in severe turbulence. He divorces his wife Emma to marry his secretary Clare Plöhn. Emma is also a childhood friend of Pauline Münch Meyers, with whom she now joins forces in the battle against her ex- husband. As a result of the processes it comes to house searches in May, in which Mays Testament as well as contracts and receipts are brought to light.
Between the various processes May writes a new book with the programmatic title " Et in terra pax" ( " And peace on earth "). However, the publisher, who has a national and colonial history to the glory of Germany in mind, is extremely dissatisfied with the work. He can write it from an anonymous permanent co-authors to an end. With the painter Sascha Schneider May A special friendship. May feels with him a kindred spirit, and this paints the covers of his books. After many years May wins its processes, and his worst enemy, Rudolf Lebius is sentenced at the end 1911. Shortly before his death in May holds the Vienna Sophiensaal a lecture entitled " Empor into the realm of noble men." Fans, awed, among them a certain Adolf Hitler. A little later, May dies in his native Saxony.
Production Notes
Karl May was filmed from April 4 to May 17, 1974 in Vienna and premiered on 18 October 1974 in Munich.
The film was nominated as the most valuable. On television, Karl May was in two parts. Part 1 ran with the subtitle Dark Bloody Grounds, Part 2 The soul is a vast country to which we flee.
In Karl May, a group of former UFA film stars and other top artists of the German Reich film is summoned to 1945, as they never had the German film before and never after. In addition to Helmut Käutner legendary mime act with hundreds of years of stage and screen experience with how Lil Dagover, Käthe Gold, Kristina Söderbaum, Rudolf Fernau, Mady Rahl, Attila Hörbiger and Rudolf Prack.
Nino Borghi designed the impressive Belle Epoque Filmbauten, for which he was awarded a Film Award. The structural designs took over Syberberg itself Theo Nischwitz cared for the optical special effects. Bernd Eichinger was production manager of the film.
The total cost amounted to 1.1 million DM, of which the coproduzierende ZDF contributed 700,000 DM.
Criticism
The mirror dissected Syberberg expansive staging in its issue 38 dated 16 September 1974, page 131 in detail: "His " Karl May, " gleefully extended to three hours to offer something completely different: a kind of dream match for the poet's psyche, in the Syberberg, rightly perhaps, a relay station of the German national soul suspected. A German national melodrama, a May- just that it should be. And that he thereby comes up with veterans from further Ufa - time [ ... ] the evidence just by cineastes Syberberg logic. After all, he says, Karl May was indeed an ancestor of Ufa and his biography without this " a real Ufa substance" was - hence the echoes of Greater Germany " Robert Koch" Art: hollow booming the pathos in the courtroom, prophetically words for " Préludes " fanfare, of a different type böhmelnd the evil, this time of course a breakfast fascist who " this ulcer " Karl May, " this poison for the German people " panting against. Syberberg loves such bonds, he copied, parodied and quoted, he takes out what he needs degree. Also from the panopticon, it profits like to the " archaic cinema, as Karl May came from the fair ." And smart it sets the Orient travelers May in a Classic Film just " dream Stamboul ", in a faded studio paradise. ".
Kay Weniger The great people lexicon of the film looked in Syberberg Opus " a bulky three hours length portrait of the controversial folk poets" and felt the film as " a very tough and lengthy lesson about historical and social contexts. But instead, as intended, to decouvrieren Wilhelmine Muff and to grant Mays insights into the German soul and feeling life and definitions of Germanness on the person to Syberberg resulted in langatmigem pathos and had thus counterproductive against its own intentions. "
The lexicon of the International film ruled: "For the mythical colored psychological drama highly stylized film that develops the heroic myth of Karl May's famous fictional characters of his own purification process and understands himself and his work as a message nationally German ideals and soul dreams of mankind. From Syberberg staged with critical irony against the Wilhelmine period mind as elaborate entertainment and interesting occupied with an impressive ensemble of actors. "