Another Veit Harlan film seen on the big screen from a fine 35mm print, and I am more and more in awe of Harlan's cinematic sensibilities. His films seem made for the cinema and he is an incredibly visceral visual artist. Of course it helps having one of the best cameramen of your time at your disposal. Bruno Mondi's cinematography produces many special moments that had me in their grip from the beginning. If he shows close-ups of faces (think Hollywood of the 30s combined with Eisenstein) or makes one of his tremendous tracking shots (equally effective in enhancing the dynamics on the battle field or zooming in on people). His super-impositions, montage-sequences or the combination of both, like in the incredible closing images of Friedrich's eyes over a rotating windmill. Mondi can't go wrong, and enhances every acting performance – he must have been loved by his actors. Harlan shows his prowess in the combination of different modes of realism and abstraction (for example the Soviet-style montage-sequences) and his vision is never less than monumental while never forgetting that it's the monumentality of moments of human emotions that are at the center of his art. Lots of the scenes are goose-bump inducing, similar to the finale of Jud Süß (1940) when Ferdinand Marian's character gets punished by the evil townsfolk.
As for propaganda: it clearly shows that the film had been made under the Nazi dictatorship, in particular during some brief moments in speeches or dialog by Friedrich the Great. BUT - and this is a huge but - I would argue that the film includes much less war-mongering than could be expected, and one could hardly find a film as ambivalent or dialectical made with propaganda ideas in the (political) background, coming from the Soviet Union, England or the United States in 1942. The film as a whole is in my opinion not a piece of Nazi or militarist propaganda, but could actually also be said to have an anti-war message. At least I think it lets the audience decide what to make of the events and the people depicted.
What I took from it were horrible and cruel depictions of the evil that is war, focusing on an embittered, isolated and deeply flawed monarch who remains a controversial figure until the end. Otto Gebühr who played King Friedrich II. in over a dozen films from the early 20s onwards, culminating in this film, gives a masterful performance as the titular anti-hero, who can only let his true emotions come into play when he is alone. Positioned between what he sees as the duty to his people and the duty to his ideals, he loses everything he loves in the sacrifice for the Prussian nation. A tragic fate. In the end the film is an honest and depressing tale in the vein of old Shakespearean drama, where good and evil, right and wrong are often difficult to unravel.
Surely one of the best films of the decade from one of the best directors. Pompous, self-indulgent, melodramatic, operatic and therefore full of many condensed truths of life, Harlan depicts male characters that are ambivalent to the core. Maybe a forerunner of sorts of masculine angst-fueled films like Gibson's Braveheart, "The Great King" is an existentialist depiction of historical events that directly relates to the times when it was made. In the middle of all the shenanigans, Kristina Söderbaum, Harlan's wife, placed as a seemingly unnecessary addendum, but clearly showing the torment women had to go through in a society that left little space for them. Much could and should be written about such a film (and similar works), but this is only a short commentary born out of the moment.
For a glimpse into Harlan's aesthetics I recommend the first minutes of the film uploaded on YouTube where it isn't essential to understand the dialog.
As for propaganda: it clearly shows that the film had been made under the Nazi dictatorship, in particular during some brief moments in speeches or dialog by Friedrich the Great. BUT - and this is a huge but - I would argue that the film includes much less war-mongering than could be expected, and one could hardly find a film as ambivalent or dialectical made with propaganda ideas in the (political) background, coming from the Soviet Union, England or the United States in 1942. The film as a whole is in my opinion not a piece of Nazi or militarist propaganda, but could actually also be said to have an anti-war message. At least I think it lets the audience decide what to make of the events and the people depicted.
What I took from it were horrible and cruel depictions of the evil that is war, focusing on an embittered, isolated and deeply flawed monarch who remains a controversial figure until the end. Otto Gebühr who played King Friedrich II. in over a dozen films from the early 20s onwards, culminating in this film, gives a masterful performance as the titular anti-hero, who can only let his true emotions come into play when he is alone. Positioned between what he sees as the duty to his people and the duty to his ideals, he loses everything he loves in the sacrifice for the Prussian nation. A tragic fate. In the end the film is an honest and depressing tale in the vein of old Shakespearean drama, where good and evil, right and wrong are often difficult to unravel.
Surely one of the best films of the decade from one of the best directors. Pompous, self-indulgent, melodramatic, operatic and therefore full of many condensed truths of life, Harlan depicts male characters that are ambivalent to the core. Maybe a forerunner of sorts of masculine angst-fueled films like Gibson's Braveheart, "The Great King" is an existentialist depiction of historical events that directly relates to the times when it was made. In the middle of all the shenanigans, Kristina Söderbaum, Harlan's wife, placed as a seemingly unnecessary addendum, but clearly showing the torment women had to go through in a society that left little space for them. Much could and should be written about such a film (and similar works), but this is only a short commentary born out of the moment.
For a glimpse into Harlan's aesthetics I recommend the first minutes of the film uploaded on YouTube where it isn't essential to understand the dialog.