Description

Willy Loman has spent his entire life believing he and his family are bound for greatness. Struggling day to day as a traveling salesman, Willy begins to lose touch with reality and drifts away into the past. Meanwhile his family, including wife Linda and sons Biff and Happy, attempts to cope with Willy's self-destruction and the still-lingering ghosts of the past. Arthur Miller's timeless Pulitzer Prize-winning play is brought to the screen with a powerhouse performance by Academy Award-winner Dustin Hoffman, who earned Emmy and Golden Globe Awards for this role. The stellar supporting cast features Kate Reid, Charles Durning, Stephen Lang, and in his first breakout role, John Malkovich as Biff, all guided by internationally-acclaimed director Volker Schlondorff (The Tin Drum) and a haunting score by legendary composer Alex North (Spartacus). ... Read more

Reviews (26)

A Stunning Realization of Miller's Masterpiece
This 1985 film of DEATH OF A SALESMAN, directed by Volker Schlondorff, recreates Arthur Miller's original casting ideas for the three principal characters. Miller had originally envisioned Willy Loman, the unsuccessful traveling salesman of the title, as a physically small man with a big wife and two big, strong sons; in this film, that is exactly what we get: Dustin Hoffman as Willy, Kate Reid as Linda, John Malkovich and Stephen Lang as Biff and Happy. Whereas the original Willy on Broadway, Lee J. Cobb, was large and imposing, Hoffman's Willy is a ridiculous little man with impossibly high ideals. His is a humorous and pathetic rather than a tragic interpretation, but this is perfectly valid - there is, after all, more than one way to "be" Willy Loman. And viewers should keep in mind that Miller himself praised Hoffman's characterization, naming him among his three all-time favorite Willys (the other two being Cobb and Warren Mitchell, the British actor who played in an acclaimed London revival).
Kate Reid gives a strong performance as Linda, Willy's loving and suffering wife. She is vicious in her defense of Willy to her sons, especially at the end, when she orders them to "get out of this house...get out of my sight." John Malkovich, with his soft-spoken voice and timid manner, might seem unsuited to Biff, the "all-American football hero" - but I don't think so. To me, Malkovich's halting delivery suggest a confused young man who thinks deep thoughts but lacks the education to be able to articulate them well. Malkovich's performance is a revelation in many ways: in the restaurant and final "confrontation" scenes, for example, we sense that Biff now sees Willy realistically for the first time in his life, and is therefore able to act more fairly towards him. The tragedy, of course, is that Willy is still unable to see reality and Biff is unable to MAKE him see it.
Stephen Lang is unobtrusively excellent as Happy, Biff's neglected younger brother. Charles Durning also does an excellent job as Willy's prosperous neighbor, Charley, who has no illusions about Willy (I always laugh when Willy sneaks a look at Charley's cards during the card game scene, and Charley, without a word, turns the cards over so that Willy can see them.). Joseph Polito is fine as Charley's successful son, Bernard. The small roles are all done well, particularly Tom Signorelli as Stanley, the waiter in the restaurant and an old family friend of the Lomans ("Sure, you look...all right."). Schlondorff's direction is great, with so many telling and memorable moments. The hotel-room confrontation between Willy and Biff is affectingly done: Malkovich is touchingly vulnerable, his last cry to Willy of "You fake!" heartrending. The final confrontation between the two was filmed in several "takes," making the viewer feel that he/she is caught right in the middle of a terrifying family argument. Last but not least, Alex North's musical score, based on his score for the original Broadway production, adds much to the drama.

Willy Loman - a common man like most of us
Seeing the filmed version of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman left me with an intense feeling of sadness. It is a real-life story without any "decorations." It a story about the choices we sometimes make and their consequences.
Willy Loman is a common, fallible man, who realizes that in spite of his high hopes and efforts he has not achieved anything real in life. His sons are not what he wanted them to be, especially Biff. Willy made some major wrong choices and he is definitely not the "winning-type" of a man but he loves his family.
I personally saw something of my father in Willy Loman, and probably that is why it was so appealing for me. But I do not think I can see the movie again. I will simply not be able to.
Volker Schlondorff did a wonderful job, in my opinion. The actors' playing is more than excellent. I think Willy Loman's role is the best one Dustin Hoffman has ever played. John Malkovich also makes a remarkable performance as well as all the other actors

Superb
This is a great 2 act and a requiem play, and Dustin and the cast do a superb job. However, it still doesn't equal Lee J. Cobbs' portrayal of this delusional salesman and his last years of justification of his life. I would like to see the version with Frederic March as Willy. I am sure this scenario about the trials and tribulation of Willy Loman are carried out in the real world, more times than we really know. Overall, a fantastic story by Arthur Miller and worth 5 stars all the way.

Death of a Salesman
I watched the movie for a class in college.

When I first started watching the movie I was less than enthusiastic about it. I wasn't a big fan of movies based on plays, or Dustin Hoffman. Watching a movie about a guy losing his mind just didn't seem like it could be a good movie. However after getting involved in the movie and really seeing what it's about, I think it is a brilliant movie. Dustin Hoffman plays Willy Loman's part perfectly-couldn't have been any better. He does such a great job, you forget your watching a movie-everything seems so real. The way Willy gets involved in his delusions, most of them about him becoming a 'failure' in life and what he did wrong, really add a different perspective. Also, the way that the movie is done in a play like style with basic backgrounds really makes you pay attention to the acting. I think this is an excellent movie, with a brilliant plot and exceptionally talented actors.

"Nobody blame this man... a salesman is got to dream, boy".
The title of this review is quote of what Charley said at Willy's funeral and he is absolutely right. It is true that Willy's deluded and unachiavable dreams lead to his miserable downfall, but it is also true that it is that exact illusions and dreams that keep Willy alive in the first place. They are his only weapon against the toisome reality that surrounds him. As Hap mentions just before Willy comes to the restaurant, Willy is never as happy as when he is looking forward to something. What he is constantly looking forward to is the fulfilment of his dreams.
In his essay "Tragedy and the common man" Arthur Miller says that each tragic hero is characterized by a 'tragic flaw'. It is the desire of that character to oppose what he does not like and this leads to his decline. Willy does not act "act agains the things that degrade" (Miller, Tragedy and the Common Man) him, he dreams against it.
I very much enjoyed this movie, because it reaches deep into the mind and the soul of a common person just like me. All of Willy's innner struggles are more or less something we all have to go through in one form or another. Willy's experience can be a lesson to all of us, the common people. ... Read more

Description

Based on the classic novel by Gunter Grass, this drama of a young boy who beats a tin drum to combat his feelings of desperation and anger during the rise of the Third Reich is as dark and disturbing as it is utterly compelling. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. ... Read more

Reviews (32)

Amazing!
I saw this movie back in 1983. I was only 9 years old but the movie to this day left an indelible impression on me. It was sad, yet humorous. Some parts make you go a little bug-eyed but that's all part of the surrealism of this movie. The young actor who played Oskar was amazing. Obviously you could tell he was just a child but I could actually see him as an adult as the movie goes on. I'm not in the habit of seeing foreign language films. In fact, I can honestly say that I've seen only a handful of them. This was my first German language film and I can safely say it was my favorite. Buy this video. You will not regret it. Its that amazing.

When do we get the Tin Drum part 2 ?
I was attracted to this film (DVD version) having read the book. Inevitable the movie cannot accurately portray every aspect of the book and particularly this book with it's masses of minor detail and it's continuous stream of consciousness.
It does have it's moments though and the movie is as true to the book as a movie can be. Thankfully, unlike Hollywood the German moviemakers don't add syrrupy touches or a happy ending. I particularly liked the scene where Oscar's drumming hilariously disrupts the Nazi party rally. The scene begins with a miniature Nuremberg rally and culminates with the assembled storm troopers waltzing the blue Danube !
My only criticism of the overall thrust of the movie is that the rise of the Nazis and their early persecutions against the Jews are portrayed rather mildly. There is hardly any tension or any feeling of menace. Was this the intention given that the narrators and principal characters were all Germans (alongwith the moviemakers themselves) ?
My major disappointment was with the ending. We are left with a short narrative bemoaning the fate of the Kasubians "too German for the Poles, not German enough for the Germans", and then nothing. For a non-German audience details like this need some explanation. The Kasubians spoke a German dialect and were the descendents of early German settlers and Germanised Poles. In 1939 there were app 250,000 Kasubian speakers in the Danzig / East Prussia region. Grass mentions the "changing of names" by neighbours in Dog Years (no 3 in the Danzig trilogy). These people were literally making themselves become more German in the certain expectation of a Nazi victory. After the defeat the Germans of Danzig alongwith the Kasubians were forced westwards to make room for Polish newcomers.
We do not see any of Oscars's post war adventures, for me this was the best part of the book. A Tin Drum sequel is required (and at least another two and a half hours !).

One of the supreme jewels from the german cinema!
Bitter metaphor abou Oskar a three years old who decides by himself not to grow anymore just when the Nazis take the power in Germany . He beats in his drum and cries in a fierce loud crashing the windows every time he's in an anger mood. Gunter Grass literally broke the walls about the dark shadows about Germany's literature . That thought was in the mind of too many people after finnishing the WW2.
Therefore this novel reveals not only a deep conviction about the role of the artist in the world but it became a big slap in the face to many people .
The artistic movement after the WW2 in Germany was born with the guilty's syndrom . Think in music , literature and cinema world .
Karl Heinz Stockhausen, Heinrich Böll , Fassbinder , Alexander Kluge and Wolker Schlöndorff among other important voices and artists had to carry that weight on his shoulders and his mind .
However the art reacted in a brave way and gave important statements about their spiritual wounds.
This film deserved widely the Academy Award as best foreign film , being the first german movie that got it . Besides this work won the Palm'd or prize in Cannes Festival 1979 .
Add to this long list of triumphs, the splendid acting of the twelve years old actor David Bennent and countless reflections all along the film .
Simply mesmerizing!

Fantastic acting
is about all I can say in favor of this film. David Bennent, the child star, in particular gave a magnificent performance. Unfortunately, the film itself left a bad taste in my mouth.

To those reviewers who keep claiming that Oskar deliberately chose to stop growing in protest to Hitler and his Nazis, what film were YOU watching? It seems to me that people are grasping at straws to come up with the idea that Oskar was staging some sort of heroic, idealistic protest, when he did nothing of the sort. He was a sociopath. More than once during the movie, I kept thinking of Children of the Corn, or Chucky. Oskar was a creepy, sinister character, and it amazes me how people will persist in ignoring the facts and convincing themselves that he was a bright, innocent hero, just because he was a small child with big eyes.

The film had its charms and I can truthfully say that I was fascinated by it, but in the end I can't say I've gained anything from it but disturbing images and nausea. Just when you think you can't be phased by anything anymore, considering all the violence and sex in the media these days, you come across a movie like this. It seems like the director's gone out of his way to come up with things so disgusting, your mind would never have been able to imagine it on its own. And to add insult to injury, I still can't begin to fathom a meaning behind it all. If I'm going to be shown such things, I'd at least like them to have a point; in the Tin Drum, a lot of the more disgusting scenes seemed purely gratuitous.

I have a hard time believing this movie won an Academy Award. Either the competition was truly horrible, or it's come to the point where bizarre and grotesque = high art. I realize that some people think art should be subtle and cryptic, but at the same time, slapping an artsy label on something doesn't make it acceptable.

Brilliant Cinematic Experience!
Oscar Matzerath has prenatal memories as he can recollect how his grandmother and grandfather met and how his mother was born. When Oscar is born in 1924 in the free city of Danzig, based on the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the only thing that prevented him from crawling back into the safety of the uterus was hearing the promise of a tin drum on his third birthday. When Oscar's third birthday arrived he discovered adult pretense and lack of responsibility. Oscar refuses to embrace this hypocrisy as he stages an accident that prevents him from growing up. Stuck in the body of a three-year-old Oscar observes the world continue to grow mad to which he raises his objections by glass-cracking screams and frenetic drumming. Tin Drum cleverly depicts notions and ideas through allegorical visualizations such as the the drum, dead horse heads with eel and Oscar's mother overeating on fish. Many of the visual representations in the mise-en-scene are simply brilliant as they enhance the aesthetics as well as augment the intuitive thinking of the audience. However, it is the story itself that is captivating as it offers a philosophical view of mankind and history through Oscar's eyes and his constant drumming for attention when something was about to go wrong. Schlöndorff directs a brilliant film that elevates the audience's worldly awareness and forces the audience to ponder actions in regards to family, society, and the world. ... Read more

Reviews (38)

thought provoking reading and viewing
I taught this particular novel and showed the movie in my AP senior lit and comp class several years ago. After I made the decision to teach the book, I read a review in The English Journal by another teacher who had taught it. She raved about it. My students said the same things hers did..."Why did you save the best until last?" I lent my video to a student who lent it to a friend. I never got it back. The book and the movie force us all to examine how we view women...how we view women in the church...how we view women in society. They force us to examine the separation of church and state. The book is not the product of a bored, sick mind, but rather the product of a contemporary feminist author whose work routinely asks us to reexamine ourselves. The video is a good representation of the book, bringing to life events portrayed. The book is better, but the video is certainly worth watching. And for the love of God, let's not let the USA become Gilead.

a decent film of a better book
the environment--these are the facets of a bleak existence and the movie holds true to that. There are flashes of joy, mostly in the well-played interaction of the main character and her best friend, but these are few and far-between. This isn't a complaint, but fair warning.
A worse flaw, for me, were the changes made to the main character, who moves from a more honest passive character in the novel to an active, at times brave/heroic character in the film. Perhaps they thought it would have been too dark, perhaps they thought the audience wouldn't react well to a passive main character. But it robs the story of much of its truth. As does the ending, which without giving any details, is much less ambiguous than in the story.
If you've read the book it's worth seeing but be prepared for some disappointment. If you haven't read it, it's even more worth seeing, especially today when aspects of our lives like the Taliban and the Patriot Act make the story reverberate more, but don't expect to have a bunch of friends over for a laugh-fest.

An absolute insult to such a thorough and compelling book
I have recently studied this book in my AS year at college and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have so much admiration for Margaret Atwood in writing such an imaginative, yet horrifying, book. The film version does the novel no justice at all, even my lecturer said it was 'absolute bobbins.' We gain no insight into the atrocities of the Republic of Gilead and the mental/physical effects it has on the women. I would admire anyone who successfully films a version of the novel!

An Insult to Margaret Atwood.
A cheesy, thoughtless rendition of one of my favorite books. The book contains some of the most beautiful narrative told in Atwood's unmistakable prose... the movie replaces ALL of her work with this with some talentless hollywood hack's shallow after-school-special dialog... and that's just the tip of the iceberg. I'd recommend "Volcano" before I'd recommend this trash.

Very poor adaptation of an excellent novel...
I first read Margaret Atwood's book The Handmaid's Tale for a women's studies course at my local community college and I enjoyed it very much. It is a very important work, much in the same vein as Orwell's "1984," but more hopeful, and told from the perspective of a woman. However, the movie was a huge disappointment and loses much of Atwood's message.

A quick overview of the story: Offred is a Handmaid in a futuristic, dystopian society known as Gilead. The birthrate in Gilead is very low due to severe toxic pollution, and so the remaining fertile women are selected to be Handmaids whose sole purpose is to become pregnant by the upper class men (called Commanders). As soon as they provide their Commander with a child, they are packed off to another household to do it all again. If they are ever unable to bear more children, they will more than likely be labeled "Unwomen" and shipped away to a work colony to die. Handmaids are not allowed to read, and can only leave the house with permission. The book consists mostly of Offred's thoughts about her former life and her current position. There are hints of a resistance movement, but no one in this world can ever be sure that anyone else is trustworthy. Offred does not know what is real, or what is safe, and lives in constant fear. The regime has made it illegal for a man to be termed infertile, so if a Handmaid has no children, it is blamed on her without question. Offred's Commander is obviously incapable of fathering children, and she faces relocation to the colonies if she does not conceive. As her time runs out, the suspense builds to a crescendo of urgency and terror.

The film does not capture the full horror of the world Offred, the story's main character, lives in. In the movie she appears to have almost unrestricted freedom of movement, able to wander about the house and even leave it without permission (for example, she just trots off to the Red Center one day and spends the night - this never happened in the original story), whereas in the book she was monitored constantly. There is also absolutely no reference to the Handmaids not being allowed to read, so a viewer that has not read the book would likely wonder at the significance of the scene where the Commander presents Offred with a magazine as a gift. Offred also smiles quite often in the movie, and there are no allusions to her frequent thoughts of suicide, which are readily apparent in the novel.

My biggest disappointment with the movie, however, was the altered ending. Atwood's book leaves us wondering, and actually gives the reader the task of creating the end of the story themself through the way they choose to live their life. The movie, however, provides us with a very neat, tidy, pretty little ending that allows the viewer to forget all about the characters without a twinge of conscience - they're obviously ok, right? So what's that got to do with my life? The movie ending does nothing to make the viewer think or realize that if we aren't careful right here and now in our own lives, everything might not turn out so prettily. There is no lesson, or moral to the story, when Atwood very plainly intended for her work to pack a real punch.

I really don't think the novel is even a good candidate for adaptation into a movie, because the book is very slow, centering mostly around Offred's thoughts. She cannot do much, so most of the time she just sits in her room, and it is her contemplations during this time that make up the bulk of the writing. It would be very hard to accurately represent the novel in film without making the movie boring. The director of this film obviously realized this and so he spiced it up and tried to make it into an action movie. It just doesn't work.

To make matters worse, the acting in the film is very wooden. Natasha Richardson, who plays the main character, is particularly unconvincing. It is hard to feel for the characters because they just don't seem real. The whole atmosphere of the film is stiff and unnatural.

Nevertheless, before I close, I would like to point out the few things I actually did like about the movie (and hence why I'm giving it two stars rather than just one):

The scene depicting the monthly "ceremony" is particularly moving. It is rather hard to watch, but I believe it really captures the event as described in the novel. I particularly liked the fact that the camera focuses for a moment on Serena Joy at the end of the scene, showing her emotions as the Wife - something we don't get so much of in the novel.

The movie also does a good job of showing the relationship between Offred and the Commander. The viewer can easily see that the Commander sees Offred as a pet - something fun to play with and indulge, but nothing he really cares about. She is like a toy for him, and one that can easily be replaced, just as Offred has replaced the Handmaid before her.

Overall, though, I would not recommend this movie to anyone. It just doesn't convey the message that Atwood intended, and it's not even very entertaining in and of itself. Read the book instead. You'll get so much more out of it. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Ute in Concert, Double the Pleasure?
This DVD contains two separate Ute Lemper concerts.

The first is a 1992 concert filmed for French TV which consists of her highly regarded interpretations of Kurt Weill's work. She sings Weill's work in its original language; thus, the songs from "Threepenny Opera" and early Weill are sung in German, songs from Weill's (brief) Paris period are sung in French, and late Broadway Weill is sung in English. A booklet is provided with English translations; however, no on-screen subtitles are supplied. (Why? Why? Why?). Ms. Lemper's performances run the gamut from serious to vivacious and funny. This part of the disc (about 1.5 hours) is superb and highly recommended for all audiences.

The second concert is also from 1992 and was filmed by famed German director Volker Schlöndorff ('The Tin Drum', 'Lost Honor of Katerina Blum'). But forget that, the direction is subtle, almost opaque and ultimately not important to the concert. The focus here is on the music. The concert consist solely of Michael Nyman's music, with texts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (yes, WORDS by Mozart), Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Celan. Nyman's art songs definitely won't be everybody's cup of tea. This is 'SERIOUS ART,' self-consciously so. Some will enjoy; other will find it pretentious and a bore. It's about an hour.

Since this is a double feature, this is quite a bargain. If you enjoy Ute Lemper's Weill interpretations, by all means take a chance on this disc. You may or may not enjoy the Nyman concert; even if you don't consider it a freebie tossed onto a great, great Kurt Weill recital.

The sound quality is quite good, and the picture quality is above average. The format is 4:3; this disc is not enhanced for 16:9 sets. ... Read more

Amazon.com

A striking examination of the power of the police and excesses of themedia, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum grows more pertinent every day.When the police burst into Katharina Blum's apartment, they fail to find thesuspected terrorist they've been tracking and arrest Blum for harboring afugitive. Immediately she becomes a media sensation; between the ruthlessinterrogation of the police, the even more invasive muckraking of a notorioustabloid, and harassment from the sensation-hungry public, Blum's ordinary lifeis turned inside out until she has to lash out to defend her own sanity. AGerman film made in 1975, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum could havebeen made today in the U.S. Angela Winkler gives a compelling performance asKatharina, but the entire movie is superbly realized: suspenseful,compassionate, and shot through with dark humor. --Bret Fetzer ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Great novel. Horrid adaptation.
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Volker Schlondorff, 1975)

Schlondorff (The Handmaid's Tale, Homo Faber, Swann in Love, etc.) directs his and Margarthe von Trotta's adaptation of Heinrich Boll's novel, and in the process shows us a treatise on how not to make a crime film.

Katharina Blum (The Tin Drum's Angela Winkler, perhaps the only good thing about the film) suddenly finds herself pursued by the police and tabloid journalists after being linked to a terrorist (Jurgen Prochnow, who has so little screen time he never really gets a chance to act). They think she's in league with him; she claims he was a one-night stand. The movie's tension turns on the basic question of which one of them is telling the correct tale, and how much harassment Katharina is going to take before snapping.

The wonder of Boll's novel is that it takes this premise (which should be familiar to readers of Kafka's The Trial) and turns it on his head; the novel opens with the climax, then takes us back to the preceding events to make us understand how she got there. The film ignores this opening, putting the climax at the end. In order to increase the mystery factor, I guess. Problem is it doesn't. All it does is confuse the picture, so we have little idea one way or the other what's going on through most of the film. (The film is also much clearer about the question of Katharina's innocence/guilt, which takes much of the fun out of it all.)

Winkler is a fine actress, and the one thing that might make this worth watching again; everything else about it is quite pedestrian. **

Love scrutinized by ruthless media...
Lost Honor of Katharina Blum is a contemporary love story about Katharina and Ludwig who fall in love at first sight at a party. After the party Ludwig spends the night with Katharina and when Katharina wakes up in the morning the police barge into the apartment in order to arrest Ludwig who is a wanted terrorist. The police are unsympathetic to Katharina's needs and rights as they discover that Ludwig has evaded the long arm of the police. This becomes the initial step towards a long humiliating suffering for Katharina as the press and media drag her reputation through the gutter. This film is a tribute to democracy as it displays the importance of information distribution and the responsibility that the press and media carry. Lost Honor of Katharina Blum is an intricate story where love drives the plot and engages the audience. However, the simplicity of the story steers the audience toward several subplots and cerebrally engaging notions, morals, and values. This results in a brilliant cinematic experience that will keep the audience mesmerized.

a great film and an excellent dvd
What a transfer! I am really enjoying this DVD, and I highly recommend it. An example of 1970s New German Cinema, that still holds up today. Angela Winkler's silent and steady performance is so good it will rattle your bones!

Woman's life is destroyed by ruthless tabloid stories
This is one of a handful of German productions of the 1970s critically acclaimed by world cinema. "Die verlorene Ehre der Katerina Blum" tells of the seemingly innocent love affair of a young woman with a man who turns out to be a fugitive bank robber. Twisting and turning the story to make it more "readable" a tabloid reporter shamelessly destroys the woman's reputation, even leading to her arrest as an "accomplice" to the crimes committed by her "boyfriend".

The film shows in detail how the situation impacts many people, including Katerina's employers, neighbors, family memebers. All speak highly of her, yet the newspapers always manage to print distorted facts, embellishments and outright lies. The ending, though unexpected and shocking, will satisfy the viewer, who by now completely empathises with the title character who had been "railroaded" by the press for no other purpose than to sell more papers. A five star classic!***

BEWARE VIGILANTE PRESS AND POLICE
Although first released in 1975, THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM (Criterion) grows more relevant every day. Adapted from a political parable by Nobel Prize for literature winner Heinrich Boll (1917-1985), The Lost Honor Honor of Katharina Blum is a searing examination of the power of the Press and the State to persecute.

On the morning after a one-night stand, the police burst into Blum's apartment looking for her lover, an alleged terrorist. He is gone and Blum is arrested for aiding and hiding a fugitive. The media focus, the ruthless interrogation by the police and the greed driven feeding frenzy of the tabloid press turns Blum's life upside down. Angela Winkler gives a bold and compassionate performance as the put-upon Katharina Blum who finally explodes in defense of her own sanity. This great film, tense and meaningful, is laced with dark humor.

Extras include a new video interview with directors Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta and master cinematographer Jost Vacano. Also, excerpts from a 1977 documentary on German author and activist Boll. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Description

From internationally acclaimed director Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum) and starring Academy Award® winner Jeremy Irons(Reversal of Fortune, Dead Ringers) comes Swann In Love, a tale of obsessive love set against the colorful backdrop of Paris in the 1890s. Swann (Irons) falls in love with a young courtesan, and soon finds himself tormented by his unrelenting sexual desire. Based on the novel by Marcel
Proust, Swann in Love is a visually stunning film, bursting with life, love, and passion.
... Read more

Reviews (6)

For Proust fans
It seems Marcel spent a great deal of time writing "Remembrance..." and I spent almost as much time reading it-but it was worth it. As difficult as the novel is to read, one doesn't have to get too far into it to realize that the author was a genius with words. I think to have any appreciation for the movie and for Jeremy Irons performance, it's best to have read the book. Otherwise you might find Charles Swann completely insufferable and the movie boring. But for those who have read it, I think you will find Irons performance maddeningly perfect. Ornella was beautiful,and I agree with the reviewer that the movie, at the very least, gives one an idea of the fashion and style that made up the early years in young Marcel's social life.

an erotic sensual classic
This is one of my favorite films. I prefer period films in a beautiful setting, with a sophisticated sexuality & sensuality dripping in every scene! It is full of erotic beautiful scenes which are unforgettable. Jeremy Irons, who seems to always play this type of character (I don't want to give any of the plot away) does an awesome job & Ornella Muti is perfect as his gorgeous temptress, one of the most beautiful women ever filmed!

Boring only iluminated by Muti's eyes
It's a slow boring film, where nobody shines. Not even the beautiful Ornella Muti, who barely shows a little of her beauty in this film. Wouldn' watch it again.

Surprisingly thought-provoking, though deeply flawed
I rented this video because I had discovered Ornella Muti in the small role of Mercedes in the recent French miniseries of The Count of Monte Cristo and wanted to see more of her. The movie is well-worth seeing for her alone. She is amazingly beautiful, although in playing Odette de Crecy she combines powerful sensuality with a slight vulgarity that seems appropriate to the character she is playing, even though it detracts a little from her beauty.

One of the reviews jokingly suggested that seeing this movie would allow you to pretend that you had read the novel. I strongly disagree. I suspect that anybody who has not read the novel would find this movie pretty hard to follow and even harder to like. It's probably true that Proust is an essentially unfilmable writer. But, having conceded that, it is surprising how much subtlety and insightful reading is displayed in this movie. I am generally a pretty careful reader, but in watching this movie I had the experience several times of seeing things that I thought were changes from the novel and then, when I went back to the text I found that they were there all along and I had simply missed them.

This is mostly true in Muti's portrayal of Odette, which is not only much more sympathetic, but also much more complex than the view of her I remembered from reading the book. In fact, for me, the subtlety of Muti's performance has opened up a whole new possibility of interpretation of the role in the Proust novel of a character who is normally treated by readers with the same kind of contempt with which she is regarded by many of the novel's characters, including (most of the time) Swann himself.

Now, on the negative side: I found the portrayal of Swann much less successful. The problem is not so much with Jeremy Irons' performance, which more than adequate, but what the screenplay leaves out in his case. Apart from Swann's jealosy and longing, which are fully in evidence here, Swann's character in the novel is presented mainly through his interest in art -- his unfinished writing on Vermeer and, most of all, his very complex responses to music.

Therefore, the treatment -- or, rather, mistreatment -- of music is the most serious failing in this movie. One Amazon.com reviewer said that the music in the movie was by Cesar Franck. I only wish it were so. If that is what he heard, he must have listened to a completely different sound track from the one that I heard. According to the credits, Hans Werner Henze was responsible for the music, and three other contemporary composers are also credited, but Cesar Franck is not mentioned, and the music I heard sounded like a bad imitation of Debussy. But, in addition to the poor quality of the music, the movie is completely unsuccessful in conveying the central importance it has in the novel. And, to make matters worse, when the music is for piano, it is played on pianos that are grotesquely out of tune, as if the director thought that having the pianos out of tune added to the period authenticity of the movie!

Notwithstanding all of that, this is a movie I would gladly watch again. It is thought-provoking and it has one truly great performance -- that of Ornella Muti.

"I'm not a museum piece"
A reasonable effort by Volker Schlondorff to film the unfilmable. It's valuable mainly for giving a reader of Proust some idea of the costumes, houses, and mannerisms of late 19th-century Paris. Ornella Muti fits Odette's character perfectly, and the dapper Alain Delon gives a face and figure to Baron Charlus. Helpful extended criticism of the film can be found in Roger Shattuck's "Proust's Way: A Field Guide to 'In Search of Lost Time'". He provides some insights into Jeremy Iron's performance that those who don't speak French will find illuminating. I enjoyed the movie before I read the novel although it was a bit confusing, but the confusion impelled me to attempt Proust if only to find out what was going on. I hope it's reissued on DVD soon. ... Read more

Amazon.com

With a foreigner's revitalizing influence, German director Volker Schlondorff turns this standard potboiler (based on the novel Just Another Sucker by British pulp writer James Hadley Chase) into a beguiling exercise in genre classicism. Woody Harrelson stars as a former journalist, just released from serving two years on a trumped-up charge, who is drawn into a troublesome mock-extortion scheme by the scheming wife (Elisabeth Shue) of a dying Florida millionaire. The movie's got style to spare and plenty of humid Florida atmosphere, but it's built on a series of improbable developments and is too low-key to generate riveting momentum. But Schlondorff occupies this tawdry territory with a keen sense of necessary mood and pace, maintaining adequate internal logic and awareness of the story's vintage roots. Subplots involving Shue's stepdaughter (Chloë Sevigny) and Harrelson's girlfriend (Gina Gershon) provide enjoyable distractions from the story's implausibilities. The movie's better suited to the fertile pulp mills of cable TV. But with an absurdly twisting plot to hold your interest, it's fun to watch how Schlondorff builds a bridge between traditional film noir and a more contemporary approach to sultry intrigue. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Description

West Germany; the early 1990s. A terrorist gang bursts into a bank. "Hi guys, we're the robbers," says Rita Vogt, "We're nationalizing the economy." As they flee, Rita stops to give money to a street-person. These are not your average bank robbers. After a series of complications, these anti-capitalist revolutionaries are forced to disband, but Rita decides to take refuge in East Germany under a false identity, and this former socialist activist begins to encounter some of the drab and discontented reality of a Communist state. Volker Schlondorff (The Tin Drum) directs this striking political thriller set in the later years of the Cold War. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Not much Germany during the Terrorism years
First, I need to correct the editor's information. The terrorism of this group at the beginning of the film is NOT in the early 1990s, but in the late 1970s. Rita and her group are operating in the late 1970s as a terrorist cell (similar to RAF, June 2 and Bader-Meinhoff Gang). The film then leads up to the time when the "wall" falls in Berlin (02 October 1989) and the fate of Rita who decided not to leave the GDR when offered the chance to go to Beirut (in the early 1980s).
This film deals mostly with the East German government's reaction to West German terrorists. Another excellent film (though not available on Amazon.com) is "Lost Honor of Katherina Blum" (also directed by Schloendorff).

Subtitles in the VHS version are not always accurate, but close enough. This review refers to the VHS edition.

Survival is just another word for nothing else to lose.
Early in this story, Rita tells another young, female terroist that she got in it because she loved one of the terroist leaders. As a result, she spends the rest of her life living under assumed names, never being allowed to sustain relationships, worrying about being "discovered," and certainly having no freedom to be herself.

This story is an eye opener about the lives of those, who during their early, idealistic years, make decisions that will forever dictate the rest of their lives. This film portrays one such person, very caring, needing of a real life, who will never get to have one. Very provocative! Should be required viewing for all 17 year olds. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

The Ogre
This film is a surperb piece of psychological drama set during War World 2 in Nazi Germany. I found Mr. Malkovich performance to be outstanding in his protrayal of Abel. The symbolism of hope and innocent is evident in this film. This is a story about a loner who has few friends, one being killed in the fire. Abel does seem to be part stone and part compassionate! The blending of the two adds an interesting conflict. The movie seem to be more focas on this individual and the people around him.

The Ogre is good!
This film is a surperb piece of psychological drama set during War World 2 in Nazi Germany. I found Mr. Malkovich performance to be outstanding in his protrayal of Abel. The symbolism of hope and innocent is evident in this film. This is a story about a loner who has few friends, one being killed in the fire. Abel does seem to be part stone and part compassionate! The blending of the two adds an interesting conflict. The movie seem to be more focas on this individual and the people around him.

Children of Light, Children of Darkness
Is a man's character forged at birth, in his genes---or is it determined by his experiences, by his loves, by his ambitions, by his will? What is the difference between a man and a child? Why is the dreamworld common to a child's playtime any more---or less---real than the often nightmarish, brutal 'reality' common to grown-ups?

These are questions that Volker Schlondorff's fine, haunting, surreal and compulsively watchable "The Ogre" spends a great deal of time with, though Schlondorff is far too subltle and skilled a craftsman to beat the viewer over the head with these things---at least, until the movie's final minutes, which felt oddly ham-handed (given what had preceded them) and grafted on to a film that devotes itself to the mysteries, secret fantasies, and occasional horrors of childhood.

"The Ogre" mixes a very modern evil, Nazi Germany, with a very ancient one, the legend of the Ogre (known in Germany as the Erl-Konig, the horrible "Erl-King"), stirs them together in Schlondorff's black cauldron, and produces a potent, visually haunting witche's brew indeed. The movie chronicles the short, bizarre, and strangely happy life of Abel Tiffauges(played brilliantly by John Malkovich), a Frenchman who strikes up easy friendships with children, chiefly because he himself is in many ways a child: innocent, simple but not simplistic, drawn to myths and fairy tales and ripping yarns of adventure in the Canadian wilderness---and especially the silly faces and scary spook voices that endear him to his young friends and, as "The Ogre" progresses, his charges.

Wrongfully accused of attacking a young girl, Abel is spared prison by the outbreak of World War II, and agrees to join the army to fight the Germans. His brief military career is brought to a halt when his command unit, blithely sipping champagne and discussing the use of carrier pigeons on the front, is captured by German soldiers. Abel is sent East on a prison train, and it is at this point "The Ogre" slips into high gear---and takes a decidedly surreal turn.

While Abel's companions plot everything from escape to using Abel's pigeons to convey information back to the doomed French High Command (they ultimately eat the pigeons, causing Abel, in his fanciful way, to renounce the Motherland forever), Abel sees his imprisonment, ironically, as a doorway to freedom. He gazes upon the passing German countryside he glimpses from the slats in his boxcar, and imagines his dream: a cabin, smoke curling up from the chimney, deep in remote woods.

Interned at a German prison camp, while his comrades toil to build a landing strip, Abel wanders off into the nearby woods, discovering the cabin of his dreams---and a moose, "The Ogre", who roams the surrounding wilderness. Rather than plot escape, Abel returns to his prison camp, but makes weekly visits to the cabin in the woods, and ultimately encounters the keeper of the estate, Hitler's Chief Forrester, who takes the simple man under his wing and transfers him to SS Reichmarshall Hermann Goerring's hunting lodge, where Abel begins his slow, strange transformation into a procurer of young boys for nearby Nazi Kaltenborn Castle and Hitler Youth training camp, and into the Legend itself: the Ogre, eater of children.

There is far too much to "The Ogre" to describe in a brief review; it is a masterful, compelling, gorgeously shot film, and from Goerring's opulent hunting lodge, to the medieval castle that is the SS redoubt, to the sublime carnage of the hunt, to the sequences in which Malkovich pursues terrified boys through a darkening forest on a black horse with snarling dogs at the leash---every shot, every sequence tells. The acting is also excellent, from Volker Spengler's childish, impudent Goerring to the deranged eugenicist played by Dieter Lasser; particularly important are the child actors, all of whom turn out utterly believable, naturalistic performances.

But this is Malkovich's movie, and his Abel is no simpleton, but rather a grown child, which is why he is so good with children of all ages himself, and ultimately so much more innocent than the young SS footsoldiers he recruits from the surrounding countryside. Malkovich plays the role with restraint and with a childlike, affable quality which underscores why so many decent minds could have been ensnared by Nazi Germany, and this touches on the film's underlying notion of childhood: Nazi ceremonies, with their dark pageantry, their torchlit marches and ceremonies, their pounding drums, were calculated to appeal to the mind of the youth, the adolescent, the dreamer of dreams. Even the wicked, depraved Goerring is himself an easily distracted child, and is soothed by Abel in a moment of pique, dipping his fat hands into a bowl of gem stones to calm himself.

"The Ogre" is shot as a dark fairy tale, from Abel's rambles in the woods, to Hermann Goerring as the reincarnation of Abel's sensual childhood friend Nestor (look at Malkovich's face when the eugenicist praises an SS youth's "Nestorian" nose), to shots of Malkovich riding out through haunting forests straight out of the Brothers Grimm, to the image of Jews, fleeing concentration camps in the final days of the dying Reich, viewed as "legions of the dead" marching past Castle Kaltenborn.

There are some missteps, particularly the ending, which strikes me as completely out of character for Malkovich's Abel; Mueller-Stahl also phones in a performance in which his lines are so mumbled that you need subtitles to decipher them. But that is quibbling. "The Ogre" is an amazing movie, one that requires repeat viewings to unlock its treasures. Darkly fanciful, hoplelessly tragic, it is a deeply rich study of the Children of Light and Darkness.

Masterpiece
_Pace_ the anonymous Los Angelino who dismissed this film on the basis of a few morbid/vaguely scatalogical moments, this is one of my favorite movies.

These moments are few and mild compared both to the original book _Roi des Aulnes_ by Michel Tournier (where I'd agree that they are overdone, without disputing the critical consensus that this is a rather great modern novel) and to the director's earlier film "The Tin Drum". Here Schlondorff should be congratulated for his restraint. He seems determined to tell a story with beauty and artistry-- portraying the charms of Nazified Germany not in alien black and white but in the beguiling living color with which its citizens actually had to contend-- rather than depending upon shock value.

Abel, the protagonist, combines three images from literature or folklore: ogre, Erlkoenig, and Saint Christopher. Similar to a pied piper, the Erlkoenig is a mysterious horseman who entices and carries children away from home, described in a poem by Goethe and in one of Schubert's most famous songs. (The film also alludes to the pied piper himself with a scene in which Abel plays a pipe to seven boys before bringing them into the castle). The ogre is a man-eating monster who is stupid and almost blind but has a keen sense of smell. Saint Christopher, the flip side of the Erlkoenig, was also known for carrying a child-- but in this case valiantly. The salient characteristics of all three figures are reflected in many details in the film.

With regard to the title figure, however, little in either the screenplay or Malkovitch's characterization suggets that Abel is feeble-minded. He is a reader, a skilled auto mechanic, and comfortably bilingual. Herein lies the clue, as I see it, to the message that our Angeleno can't find. Abel's stupidity and blindness were primarily moral, and it is a fact of history that this same failing afflicted millions of intelligent people in the presence of Nazi ideology. As Count Kaltenborn observed, for a long time Abel, along with hundreds of normal boys, was intrigued by the flags, torches, and nocturnal ceremonies designed to appeal to weak minds. The Nazis co-opted and twisted the history and culture of which the Germans were justly proud: genealogy, chivalry, romance, legend, even traditional Christian symbolism. They also co-opted and twisted both Kaltenborn (the ancient aristocrat) and Abel (the admiring newcomer), shrewdly appealing to their particular tastes, desires, and sense of self. In return Abel tells us "this school felt like home... I was happy with my new mission." The realization dawned on him slowly that, despite doing what he loved and did best, and with the best of intentions, he was aiding and abetting an evil and catastrophic regime. But once it penetrated, his behavior, far from trivial, became heroic while remaining completely true to himself. I'd like to hear this critic's suggestions as to how anyone in his situation could have done better.

In one sense this story was a fairy tale. In another, it was quite real: it happened to an entire nation. As the historian John Lukacs said, understanding history depends on self- understanding. Only if we viewers realize how we might succomb to the same blandishments can we prevent such a disaster from befalling us.

Fantasy obsessions of a playwright
* has repulsive and gross scenes at the movies start including
the young "Ogre" licking blood and mud from a injured soccer
players knee - young "Ogre" wiping the butt of his friend
Nestor because Nestor is too fat to reach it himself - Goerings
excesses and his manic depression esp. during a "hunting" party
where him and his fiends wantonly slaughter every creature that
draws a breath in Goering's forest (shown in vivid detail)

* these scenes (all made up via the director's/writer's minds)
have nothing to do with:
* furthering the plot (of which there is none)
* showing you ANYTHING truthfull or incitefull of the Nazi's

* the supposed scene of the "Ogre's redemption" is trivial

* the message? None.

* the price of the movie? Not worth your money.

If you want to view something REAL on the Nazi's of World War II,
then, if you can affor it, pick up a copy of:
* SHOAH by Claude Lanzman
* Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr ... Read more

Description

At an Austrian boys’ boarding school in the early 1900s, shy, intelligent Törless observes the sadistic behavior of his fellow students, doing nothing to help a victimized classmate—until the torture goes too far. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

a film that is hard to watch
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

"Young Törless" or "Der Junge Törless" as it is called in Germany is Volker Schlöndorff's first feature length film. It is based on a novel by Robert Musil and depicts a student at a military school in pre World War I Austria-Hungary. It takes the idea of bullying at school to an extreme even by today's standards.

I found it difficult to watch as it reminded of how I was bullied when I was a student. Although it never reached the level depicted in this film, it did bring back memories.

Some of the scenes were nice and it was interesting to see how a film made in the 1960's depicted a European boarding school of the 1910's.

The DVD has some nice special features also.

There is an interview with the film's director, a theatrical trailer, a stills gallery of behind the scenes photos, and a presentation of the film's musical score.

This is a good film to bring awareness of bullying in school and should be seen by school administrators.

Schlendorff's First is a Masterpiece
Robert Musil's "Confusions of Young Törless" was published in 1906, the twilight of 19th century certainties (Freud published "Studies in Hysteria" in 1895, "Interpretation of Dreams" in 1900; Franz Wedekind's "Spring Awakening" was published in 1890, first produced in 1906, and banned in 1908; Einstein's General Theory was less than a decade away), in Austria-Hungary, a semi-faux empire taking too long to rot away. The greatness of Musil's work lies in its distillation of the zeitgeist into a relatively simple narrative about an incident of abuse in a boys' academy.Once on paper, the novel (at times a meditation) transcends time and place, and makes astatement about adults and children dealing with passion, knowledge, order and justice, while trying to grasp within themselves that which in themselves they can neither control nor fully understand (ergo the metaphoric use of discussions about imaginary numbers) finally resorting to rationalization, dogma and discipline. Törless, his companions, his teachers and the school chaplain struggle in darkness, deluding themselves as having been truly enlightened in some fashion by experience, whereas each in their own way, seeks only to quiet internal turmoil and restore comprehensible order. Whatever else, the work is extremely ironic, nowhere more than in its title, as "Confusions" are not limited to Young Törless but to the whole world around him.Musil was 26 when it was published.

Schlendorf's film captures all of this.With one important caveat, it is an extremely faithful rendering of the novel and its spirit. The austere black and white photography, the faithfully sparse setting, the economical dialogue, strip the film to bare essentials: nothing distracts from its core. It is excellently acted. The caveat is sex. Sex is a pervasive and disruptive force throughout Musil's novel. At one point, Törless is sexually aroused when witnessing abuse. Beineberg, Reiting and Törless individually, albeit differently, use Basini sexually. Basini uses his sexuality to press his case with Törless; Törless rationalizes his own acquiescence. All four use the town whore. Part of Törless "confusions" is his intellectualization of his own sexual turbulence: does he act this or that way because what he thinks, or do his feelings shape his thoughts which then rationalize his actions? It is not a question of sexual identity as one would face in early 21st century, but an awareness of the disruptive power of passion within him. Schlendorff does not betray Musil, but, other than with the whore, sexuality is handled through cursory dialogue and inference, less centrally and pervasively than in the novel.The film was made in 1966; perhaps today it would be made differently, the challenge remaining to make it at least as well. Another, if unintended, irony about a work published sixty years before the masterful film was made.

The thoroughly anachronistic score by Hans Werner Henze reinforces the universal and timeless predicament the film depicts. Neither I nor, I think, Schlendorff see a premonition of Nazism in Musil's novel; such inference obscures meaning, deflects relevance and diminishes the work. What was true and relevant in the 1906 text remains true and relevant today."Confusion" can still be apt description for humankind: arguably, the delusions, contradictions, and self-righteousness in contemporary America provide a good example. In the end, there is a touch of smugness to the irony with which Young Törless concludes, a detachment in both Musil and Schlendorff, which translates as apprehensive harbinger of our expanding awareness of ourselves, of what we can do, and of the absurdly infinite capacity and recondite ways we find to grant ourselves absolution. "Yes we can..." a frightening thought indeed.

The Criterion CD, again, as in all their editions, is pristine; truly a product of high quality.

A cult movie!

Based on a Robert Musil's novel Die Verwirrungen des Zoglings Torless was the source for this allegorical German film. Somehow this film was the real leap to this raisng and promising actor: Mathieu Carriere, who plays Torless, a student in a costly boarding school during the glory days of the Hapsburg Empire. While at school, Carriere is a bystander to the sadistic behavior of fellow students Alfred Dietz and Bernd Tischer. Torless watches with sinister fascination and admiration but does nothing to intervene or to help his classmates' hapless victims. When Tolrless finally does blow the whistle on his friends, it is he who is "invited" to leave the school. This is the formal solution: to delegate in others your own guilts: It's a real exorcism moral without scandal. You know: public virtue, hidden vices.

It's more than obvious the parallels in Young Torless to the Nazi years, then you aren't watching very carefully, and you will obtain an enormous satisfaction, due the smart dialogues, the horror sense and the atrocities who will degrade the human soul to unthinkable limits.

Think in a real jewel film filmed just nine years later, Reinhard Hauff's The brutalization of Franz Blum in which we will obeserve the slow process of adaptation in the hostile jail and you will be able to understand the inner demons of this generation of German filmmakers of the Post War, trying to cathartize themselves the sins and the sordidness of the previous generation.

The Origin of Evil - A Disturbing and Cerebral Journey...
Notions of the origin of evil have caused many philosophers to ponder the dilemma about its whereabouts.Some suggest that evil is taught as children are born with minds that bring to mind blank slates.Despite the thoughts that children are blank slates at birth, children can accomplish great evil without any formal training.All that has to be present is a situation that allows the child to express their unkind cruelty.Thus, evil could be found in the moments when a child lets their imagination run amok.Maybe, imagination is the source to evil, especially when boredom sets in.In any case, Young Törless visualizes the moment when evil arises within a group of teenagers at a military academy in a dreary countryside to which only the finest families send their sons.

The film opens at the Neudorf railway station where the parents of the young teenager Törless request that his peers will take good care of him.The parents' pleading for safety of their son becomes slightly overwhelming, yet it depicts how much they love their son.It is essential to understand how sheltered Törless has been while his parents have raised him.This illustrates how innocent Törless is to the cruelty of the world into which he soon is about to be initiated.

The group of teenagers that waived to Törless' parent returns to the small town, which gives further depiction of the teenager's socioeconomic standing in the society.They walk whereever they want without a care in the world, as if they owned the world.The teenagers visit a local inn where they buy wine and gamble without much consideration for the aftermath.Nothing seems to affect them, as they proceed to the military academy where they attend school to become people of high ranking in society.

The story is based on the first novel written by the utopian novelist Robert Musil, which takes place in the Austro-Hungarian kingdom in 1906.The director Volker Schlöndorff's adaptation stays fairly close to the novel, as it illustrates the students at the military academy finding the nature of power through self-discovery.The power that these students discover leads them to humiliate, bully, and torture a fellow student that has stolen some money from one of the other students.The main character, Törless, at first wants to report the theft, but is convinced by two other students to delivery the punishment by themselves.

Törless struggles with the dilemma of evil, as he finds himself going against the moral values that he has been brought up to respect.Instead he begins a cerebral journey while he studies the degrading behavior of his two peers.Ideas of how evil and good coexist within the person begins to baffle Törless, as he struggles with his desire to further his understand of the evil nature within him.He continues to flirt with evil while trying to stay on the good side, yet eventually he comes to a more clear understanding of what is right and wrong.

Many issues seem to affect Törless, as he dwells on the evil within him.Some of these issues that he ponders affect several aspects of his life such as trying to understand his sexuality, women, and their anatomy.Törless' curiosity for women has an obvious connection with his mother, as he seems to look for maternal love in women.This is even suggested by a prostitute performed by Barbara Steele.Strong macho-sadistic tendency in the school triggers Törless' boyish curiosity to further investigate what it truly entails.It almost suggests, on occasion, that Törless might be gay, yet it is never clear as he still seems to try to find his own way to his own identity.

Several comparisons have been made in regards to the Nazi regime through Young Törless, which are evidently present through the structure of the students psyche at the academy.The sadistic elements that dehumanize the student in the way that they bully him are the strongest elements that depict this notion.The strong autocratic control that they exercise over the young thief in the military academy elevates the notion of fascism.In retrospect, this military academy served as a breeding machine for new generations of young extremists, bigots, and callous hypocrites, which viewed themselves above others while lying about their own desires and behaviors.

Young Törless was Volker Schlöndorff's first feature film that brought him into the world of cinema.The film is not technically advanced, but the way he told the visual story through many suggestive shots and cinematic moments is breathtaking.The shot where Törless and Beineberg are sitting in a café where Törless is studying the waitress' neck and arm is wonderful.However, this scene is followed by an even better shot, where Törless and Beineberg stare at each other in silence for a good 20 seconds until the waitress drops a glass on the floor.These shots are good examples of how well directed Young Törless is, as it leaves the audience with a highly contemplative cinematic experience.

Not For Everyone
This mid-1960s film was one of the first German movies to explore a touchy topic: why Germans so widely acquiesced in the savagery of the Nazi regime.The film is based on Robert Musil's 1906 novel about a young man at an Austrian military academy before the First World War.The novel was extraordinarily prescient in diagnosing some deep and ultimately tragic flaws in Austrian and German society.The film follows the novel fairly closely.

The story is simple: two cadets institute a gradually escalating campaign of humiliation and torture directed against another boy (Bassini, incidentally played by a Jewish actor), while Tőrless looks on, repulsed and yet on some level intrigued.The violence is real but not especially graphic (at least by contemporary standards).The real theme is Tőrless's incapacity to understand the torture on other than an abstract intellectual level -- like the mathematical imaginary numbers that are one of the movie's few strong metaphors.

This story became far more powerful after the Second World War.Volker Schlöndorff's black-and-white widescreen filming is extraordinarily bleak; the academy sits on an essentially featureless plain.The Criterion restoration is excellent; even the original score has been recovered.

Not everyone will respond to this film, I admit.But those who do are likely to find it impossible to forget. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Passion and politics collide with tragically bleak results in Le Coup de Grace. Dedicating his film to French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville, director Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum) emulates Melville's fascination with themes of war, adapting (with his wife and star, Margarethe von Trotta) the novel Der Fangschuß by Marguerite Yourcenar, set in Latvia in 1919 after the end of World War I. While sporadic fighting continues in the Baltic states, naive countess Sophie (von Trotta) seals her fate by falling in love with Erich (Matthias Habich), a Prussian soldier who secretly desires Sophie's brother (in one of several vaguely handled subplots). She retaliates by supporting the Communists and, when captured, demands that Erich be her executioner. Like the repressed emotions of its characters, the drama's power is nearly subdued by Schlondorff's murky ambiguity; it helps to be familiar with the film's historical context, but Le Coup de Grace is still a worthy companion to Schlöndorff's The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, and a hauntingly atmospheric tale of wartime self-destruction. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Complex tale of love and war
Le Coup de Grace takes us to Latvia after World War I. A small force of German soldiers is attempting to hold a village against partisans of the Russian Revolution. At the center of the story is a German countess, Sophie, and her family. Sophie is deeply in love with a German officer, Erich, who spurns her advances. Erich appears conflicted sexually, but we must make inferences about his deepseated confusion about who he is and what he wants.

Sophie's frustration over her inability to interest Erich in her as a lover prompts her to develop casual sexual relationships with other members of the German officer corps. Erich has contempt for Sophie and actually slaps her at a Christmas party when she becomes too familiar with a fellow officer. Viewers are unlikely to see a more complicated love story than Le Coup de Grace. Without giving away the ending, the title of the film describes well both the end of the war for the Germans and the end of the affair of Sophie and Erich.

The war between the Germans and Russian partisans is as confusing as the love story of Sophie and Erich. We are never told why the Germans are in this small village in Latvia and we are never certain who the enemy is, other than Russian communist partisans. The actual battle sequences are confusing, as is perhaps appropriate in a partisan operation. We do know that the Germans are finally ordered to leave Latvia and it is at the end of the film that the most graphic battle sequences take place.

Le Coup de Grace was filmed in black and white and this seems appropriate for this dark and somber tragedy. The performances are uniformly excellent, particulary Sophie, played by Margarethe von Trotta. The director, Volker Schlondorff seemed unable to coordinate the action in this complex story. Additionally, the pace is often painfully slow. If that was Schlondorff's intention, he has succeeded. I recommend this film with the reservations noted. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A BEAUTIFUL MOVIE
This is a very poetic, thoughtful, human, often funny, and altogether well-done movie. I highly recommend it. There is hardly any violence in it, and still it is about violence and discrimination in Louisiana in the 70s. Also, it is a good adaptation of Gaines' novel, A GATHERING OF OLD MEN. I haven't the faintest idea why a person would compare this movie with Ed Wood stuff (see review below) - incredible.

There's nothing like the truth.
Anyone who doesn't appreciate the effectiveness of this movie has never lived in Louisiana. The complicated relationships between the races is perfectly depicted in the characters of Candy, Mathu, Sheriff Mapes, and the Boutans. The book upon which this movie is based is an outstanding work of reality disguised as fiction. The film version does a creditable job of transferring literature to the screen--that is, until the ending. The movie's conclusion is not as effective as that in the book (A GATHERING OF OLD MEN, by Ernest J. Gaines). All-in-all, however, this one is worth seeing!

Makes Plan 9 look like Gone with the wind
I rented this movie(if thats what you want to call it) years ago because of the actors. I've never laughed so hard watching anything like this in my entire life. Words like laughable, unbelievable, putrid, horrible come to mind every time I think about this turkey. Even Ed Wood would have been embarressed. Don't buy it, you should be paid to take it! ... Read more

Description

Based on the classic novel by Gunter Grass, this drama of a young boy who beats a tin drum to combat his feelings of desperation and anger during the rise of the Third Reich is as dark and disturbing as it is utterly compelling. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. ... Read more

Reviews (32)

Amazing!
I saw this movie back in 1983. I was only 9 years old but the movie to this day left an indelible impression on me. It was sad, yet humorous. Some parts make you go a little bug-eyed but that's all part of the surrealism of this movie. The young actor who played Oskar was amazing. Obviously you could tell he was just a child but I could actually see him as an adult as the movie goes on. I'm not in the habit of seeing foreign language films. In fact, I can honestly say that I've seen only a handful of them. This was my first German language film and I can safely say it was my favorite. Buy this video. You will not regret it. Its that amazing.

When do we get the Tin Drum part 2 ?
I was attracted to this film (DVD version) having read the book. Inevitable the movie cannot accurately portray every aspect of the book and particularly this book with it's masses of minor detail and it's continuous stream of consciousness.
It does have it's moments though and the movie is as true to the book as a movie can be. Thankfully, unlike Hollywood the German moviemakers don't add syrrupy touches or a happy ending. I particularly liked the scene where Oscar's drumming hilariously disrupts the Nazi party rally. The scene begins with a miniature Nuremberg rally and culminates with the assembled storm troopers waltzing the blue Danube !
My only criticism of the overall thrust of the movie is that the rise of the Nazis and their early persecutions against the Jews are portrayed rather mildly. There is hardly any tension or any feeling of menace. Was this the intention given that the narrators and principal characters were all Germans (alongwith the moviemakers themselves) ?
My major disappointment was with the ending. We are left with a short narrative bemoaning the fate of the Kasubians "too German for the Poles, not German enough for the Germans", and then nothing. For a non-German audience details like this need some explanation. The Kasubians spoke a German dialect and were the descendents of early German settlers and Germanised Poles. In 1939 there were app 250,000 Kasubian speakers in the Danzig / East Prussia region. Grass mentions the "changing of names" by neighbours in Dog Years (no 3 in the Danzig trilogy). These people were literally making themselves become more German in the certain expectation of a Nazi victory. After the defeat the Germans of Danzig alongwith the Kasubians were forced westwards to make room for Polish newcomers.
We do not see any of Oscars's post war adventures, for me this was the best part of the book. A Tin Drum sequel is required (and at least another two and a half hours !).

One of the supreme jewels from the german cinema!
Bitter metaphor abou Oskar a three years old who decides by himself not to grow anymore just when the Nazis take the power in Germany . He beats in his drum and cries in a fierce loud crashing the windows every time he's in an anger mood. Gunter Grass literally broke the walls about the dark shadows about Germany's literature . That thought was in the mind of too many people after finnishing the WW2.
Therefore this novel reveals not only a deep conviction about the role of the artist in the world but it became a big slap in the face to many people .
The artistic movement after the WW2 in Germany was born with the guilty's syndrom . Think in music , literature and cinema world .
Karl Heinz Stockhausen, Heinrich Böll , Fassbinder , Alexander Kluge and Wolker Schlöndorff among other important voices and artists had to carry that weight on his shoulders and his mind .
However the art reacted in a brave way and gave important statements about their spiritual wounds.
This film deserved widely the Academy Award as best foreign film , being the first german movie that got it . Besides this work won the Palm'd or prize in Cannes Festival 1979 .
Add to this long list of triumphs, the splendid acting of the twelve years old actor David Bennent and countless reflections all along the film .
Simply mesmerizing!

Fantastic acting
is about all I can say in favor of this film. David Bennent, the child star, in particular gave a magnificent performance. Unfortunately, the film itself left a bad taste in my mouth.

To those reviewers who keep claiming that Oskar deliberately chose to stop growing in protest to Hitler and his Nazis, what film were YOU watching? It seems to me that people are grasping at straws to come up with the idea that Oskar was staging some sort of heroic, idealistic protest, when he did nothing of the sort. He was a sociopath. More than once during the movie, I kept thinking of Children of the Corn, or Chucky. Oskar was a creepy, sinister character, and it amazes me how people will persist in ignoring the facts and convincing themselves that he was a bright, innocent hero, just because he was a small child with big eyes.

The film had its charms and I can truthfully say that I was fascinated by it, but in the end I can't say I've gained anything from it but disturbing images and nausea. Just when you think you can't be phased by anything anymore, considering all the violence and sex in the media these days, you come across a movie like this. It seems like the director's gone out of his way to come up with things so disgusting, your mind would never have been able to imagine it on its own. And to add insult to injury, I still can't begin to fathom a meaning behind it all. If I'm going to be shown such things, I'd at least like them to have a point; in the Tin Drum, a lot of the more disgusting scenes seemed purely gratuitous.

I have a hard time believing this movie won an Academy Award. Either the competition was truly horrible, or it's come to the point where bizarre and grotesque = high art. I realize that some people think art should be subtle and cryptic, but at the same time, slapping an artsy label on something doesn't make it acceptable.

Brilliant Cinematic Experience!
Oscar Matzerath has prenatal memories as he can recollect how his grandmother and grandfather met and how his mother was born. When Oscar is born in 1924 in the free city of Danzig, based on the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the only thing that prevented him from crawling back into the safety of the uterus was hearing the promise of a tin drum on his third birthday. When Oscar's third birthday arrived he discovered adult pretense and lack of responsibility. Oscar refuses to embrace this hypocrisy as he stages an accident that prevents him from growing up. Stuck in the body of a three-year-old Oscar observes the world continue to grow mad to which he raises his objections by glass-cracking screams and frenetic drumming. Tin Drum cleverly depicts notions and ideas through allegorical visualizations such as the the drum, dead horse heads with eel and Oscar's mother overeating on fish. Many of the visual representations in the mise-en-scene are simply brilliant as they enhance the aesthetics as well as augment the intuitive thinking of the audience. However, it is the story itself that is captivating as it offers a philosophical view of mankind and history through Oscar's eyes and his constant drumming for attention when something was about to go wrong. Schlöndorff directs a brilliant film that elevates the audience's worldly awareness and forces the audience to ponder actions in regards to family, society, and the world. ... Read more