1,473 words
Part 2 of 2 (Part 1 here)
Harlan’s film, unlike Mendes’, was an enormous box office success,[1] and it is said that concentration camp guards and the SS were shown this film to remind them of their duties. It is fast-paced, and Harlan shows things: the oppression of Süß’s decrees, Theodora’s corpse, the angry mob, and the people fighting for their rights. Sturm’s calm, civil demeanor is contrasted with Süß’s slick manipulation and George’s overbearing yet sensual Karl. (more…)
2,943 words
Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
I’ve reviewed Munchhausen and Grosse Freiheit Nummer 7, films produced in the Third Reich that avoided discussing National Socialist philosophy regarding Jews. Which films from that era did? There was Der ewige Jude, Hitler’s favorite film on this subject given its depictions of Jews in caftans and beards, visually compared with rats scurrying down a drain. “That’s what I want to see,” Hitler said to Goebbels. “That’s what we need.” (more…)
1,847 words
Die goldene Stadt
Directed by Veit Harlan
Starring Kristina Söderbaum, Eugen Klöpfer, Rudolf Prack, & Paul Klinger
1942
Die goldene Stadt (The Golden City) premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 1942, where it won the Best Actress award as well as a special award for direction. It was an enormous commercial and critical success across a Europe that was undergoing the most brutal war in its history. (more…)
4,843 words
Der Herrscher (The Sovereign) is a fascinating film for a variety of reasons. The popular idea of cinema in the Third Reich is that is that every film was rife with propaganda. In fact, most films of the period were purely escapist fare, with minimal propaganda content. When propaganda was present, it often took the form of allegory (as in Kolberg), rather than speechifying or preaching. (more…)
7,194 words
Many people consider F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise: Song of Two Humans (1927) to be the greatest film of the silent era. But most are unaware that it was remade under Hitler as Die Reise nach Tilsit (1939), and directed by the notorious Veit Harlan.
Both films were based upon a novella – titled Die Reise nach Tilsit (The Journey to Tilsit) – by Hermann Sudermann. (more…)
Kristina Söderbaum in “Opfergang”
Kristina Söderbaum in “Opfergang”
6,105 words
1. Introduction
I learned about Opfergang from an unlikely source: a documentary on the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. In one segment he is shown browsing in Kim’s Video in Manhattan (at its old location on St. Mark’s Place). As he does throughout the documentary, Žižek engages in a kind of frantic monologue, and at one point he names his three favorite films: King Vidor’s The Fountainhead (this really surprised me), Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible, and Veit Harlan’s Opfergang. (more…)
by Veit Harlan was commissioned by Goebbels in 1943, when it could already be foreseen that the war might not be won.