Karl May

West Germany

1974

187 Min

Color

German

Currently 4.1/5 Stars.
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SCR Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Karl May

CAST Helmut Käutner, Kristina Söderbaum, Käthe Gold, Attila Hörbiger, William Trenk, Mady Rahl, Lil Dagover, Rudolf Prack, Rainer von Artenfels, André Heller, Peter Kern

This ethereal, three-hour biopic is the middle film in Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s “German Trilogy” on the mythological foundations of the Third Reich. By fusing theater, music, and cinema, Syberberg conjures up Karl May (1842-1912), the immensely popular German author, who set many of his adventure novels in an idealized version of the American Wild West. His tales of the cowboy and the Ubermensch alike were beloved by many, including (Our) Hitler, who supposedly ordered his generals to read May works after defeats in the Russian campaign. Helmut Kautner won a German Film Award for his portrayal of May, as did Nino Borghi for the impressionistic production design.

Director

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

For Syberberg, cinema is a form of Gesamtkunstwerk. Many commentators, including Syberberg himself, have characterized his work as a cinematic combination of Bertolt Brecht’s doctrine of epic theatre and Richard Wagner’s operatic aesthetics. Well known philosophers and intellectuals have written about his work, including Susan Sontag, Gilles Deleuze and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe.

In 1975 Syberberg released Winifried Wagner und die Geschichte des Hauses Wahnfried von 1914-1975 (English title: The Confessions of Winifred Wagner), a documentary about Winifred Wagner, an Englishwoman who had married Richard Wagner’s son Siegfried. The documentary attracted attention because it exposed Mrs Wagner’s unrepentant admiration for Adolf Hitler. The film thus proved an embarrassment to the Wagner family and the Bayreuth Festival (which she had run from 1930 until the end of the Second World War). Winifred Wagner objected to the inclusion in the film of conversations she did not know were… read more