Veit Harlan by Noack Frank

Author:Noack, Frank
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2016-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

17

Frenzy

Joseph Goebbels had mixed feelings about Opfergang (Path of sacrifice). He found it, according to a diary entry dated July 24, 1943, “extraordinarily well executed color-wise…. Unfortunately its narrative is, like that of Immensee, a bit over the top. Harlan makes too much use of mysterious choirs, and his dialogue is also a bit too sentimental and obvious. I will have to take Harlan to task on occasion. He is moving towards a path that seems not to promise much success. He has to be brought back to reality again.”1 The German release of Roberto Rossellini’s film Un pilota ritorna (A pilot returns) at Berlin’s Capitol am Zoo would take place only two days later. The myth of neorealism’s anti-Fascist roots notwithstanding, Fascistera film critics in both Italy and Germany had appreciated the unique qualities of Rossellini’s approach, particularly his use of unknown actors or nonprofessionals and his rejection of traditional narrative. In September 1941, when Harlan had nothing to offer at Venice that year, Rossellini’s La nave bianca (The white ship) caused a sensation. Among German propaganda films, Karl Ritter’s Stukas and Günther Rittau’s U-Boote westwärts (U-Boats westward), both begun in 1940 and released in 1941, came close to Rossellini’s semidocumentary approach and lack of pathos. Harlan’s operatic style was in danger of looking old-fashioned. Like his wife, he was popular with the masses but derided by more discriminating audiences. The delay in releasing Opfergang had less to do with possible artistic flaws than with the recent opening of Immensee. For commercial reasons, it was advisable not to present Opfergang before the summer of 1944. Overexposure was bad for any artist’s image. Not although but because audiences loved Immensee, they had to wait a bit longer for the couple’s next film.

Work on Kolberg continued throughout 1944. On both February 7 and June 12, Goebbels wrote about excerpts presented to him.2 Although Kolberg is one of the most-written-about films ever, the making of it is in fact poorly documented, with too much gossip and too little firsthand research. It was not until 2011 that historian Ulrich Gehrke, a Kolberg-based youth when the film was made, published a precise study that corrected false information taken for granted as facts for decades. The film did not cost 8.5 million RM but “only” 7.6 million.3 Above all, the myth of 187,000 extras needs correction because even Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960) used only 8,000. Harlan may really have used the 5,000 Wehrmacht soldiers he claimed to have had at his service, but he could not have recruited 4,000 sailors from the Kolberg Submarine School because, as Gehrke has found out, that school could host only 1,000 pupils.4 Some film historians even absurdly claim that divisions of the Wehrmacht were taken off the Eastern front—something no military historian can confirm. Alone among scholars, Susan Tegel has questioned the available data.5 The town of Kolberg was used as a location, but for most scenes it was reconstructed at Staaken near Berlin, and the town of Treptow

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.