BD 98 István Szabó: Mephisto, Colonel Redl (Redl ezredes), Hanussen + short films

[Bikey]

"In what has been a banner year for Second Run, the label has truly surpassed itself with this outstanding blu ray box set, and it is an indispensable addition to the canon of home cinema for all devotees of Eastern European cinema." 5-star review from Blueprint Review

[Bikey]

"These films are not only important. They are necessary. [...] A towering achievement of European cinema, this trilogy charts ambition, complicity and moral collapse with a clarity that only grows more unsettling with time, and these new restorations finally allow Szabó’s most essential works to be seen with the gravity and beauty they demand"

Dave Lancaster reviews at Cinemas Online

[Bikey]

DVD Compare

[jbeall]

Just a tremendous set. I'd seen Mephisto back in 1998, in a class on "Eastern European" literature. (Most of the authors we read were decidedly central European: Hašek, Musil, Ionesco, Kundera, etc., but I suppose that in the decade after the fall of communism, it took a minute for universities to update their course titles.) I'm sure my professor chose to screen it because the allegory of the artist allowing himself to become complicit in Nazism was more accessible for undergraduates than films that required more explanation of the Austro-Hungarian context.

So I'd never seen Redl or Hanussen. Of the three, I think Redl is my favorite, but they're all excellent, and they really do make sense as a trilogy, even if Szabó didn't necessarily intend them that way. In the context of the boxset, Mephisto feels more central European than it does on its own. The films are also a great display of Brandauer's range as an actor, the tightly controlled Redl standing in stark contrast to the more ebullient Hofgen. I'm really glad I picked up Second Run's boxset rather than Kino's standalone releases of just the first two films.

[MichaelB]

Yes, I'm constantly wrestling with the central/eastern European thing. In particular, I'm careful not to refer to "eastern Europe" in a purely Czech context, as the Czechs will point out (with strong supporting evidence) that Prague is pretty much slap bang in the middle of Europe, and in any case it's west of both Berlin and Vienna.

Prior to the early 1990s (i.e. the reunification of Germany and the division of Czechoslovakia), it was much more straightforward, as Western and Eastern Europe were explicitly divided by an imaginary but all too ideologically real "iron curtain". So I have no problem with describing Czechoslovakia as "eastern Europe", not least because it extended further eastwards than it does now (and I don't think anyone would quibble about Slovakia being in eastern Europe).

When I first saw Mephisto, on its inaugural British telly screening in the early 1980s, I interpreted it as a German rather than a Hungarian film, but there was no particular reason for me to have done anything else: it was about a German subject and it was in German! The thing I most vividly remember about that inaugural encounter was that it was the first time I'd ever been absolutely transfixed by someone acting in a language other than English.

[Peacock]

Looks like I’ll be selling the Kino’s! Great set.

in any case it's west of both Berlin and Vienna.

Hmm… one of those is true anyway!

[MichaelB]

OK, "broadly similar latitude to Berlin".

Put it like this: if you looked at both on a map, you wouldn't immediately be inclined to say that Berlin was "central Europe" and Prague was "eastern Europe", as they're clearly in the same general ballpark.

[Peacock]

Ok that’s fair.

[jbeall]

Yes, I'm constantly wrestling with the central/eastern European thing. In particular, I'm careful not to refer to "eastern Europe" in a purely Czech context, as the Czechs will point out (with strong supporting evidence) that Prague is pretty much slap bang in the middle of Europe, and in any case it's west of both Berlin and Vienna.

Prior to the early 1990s (i.e. the reunification of Germany and the division of Czechoslovakia), it was much more straightforward, as Western and Eastern Europe were explicitly divided by an imaginary but all too ideologically real "iron curtain". So I have no problem with describing Czechoslovakia as "eastern Europe", not least because it extended further eastwards than it does now (and I don't think anyone would quibble about Slovakia being in eastern Europe).

That class introduced me to Kundera, who, for a 22-year-old finishing his undergraduate education in Athens GA, was mind-blowing. (Don't get me wrong; everything Dr. Spariosu assigned was terrific. I just had a special affinity for Kundera. Still do, despite Kundera's diminished reputation since then.)

In his essays, especially this one, Kundera distinguishes Central Europe from Eastern Europe in terms of its cultural heritage, specifically Roman Catholic religion vs. Eastern Orthodox. Generally speaking, this makes a lot of sense to me, though obviously nothing is simple in border regions where every inch of land has been contested at one time or another. However, Bratislava is only 67km./41mi. from Vienna, a distance that would make it a not-particularly-distant suburb by contemporary US standards! And the Poles saw themselves as part of the antemurale christianitatis, defending the "Christian" West from... whatever was to the East.

And that's what makes Central European lit and cinema so fascinating! Just look at Szabó's comments on Central Europe; it exists in this historically, highly contested space! I would probably classify Albanian, and Serbo-Croatian cultural production as "Eastern," even though Croatia also saw itself as part of the "bulwark of Christianity" that Poland did!

[Mr Sausage]

Don't get me wrong; everything Dr. Spariosu assigned was terrific.

You got me curious: what specific works did he assign?

[jbeall]

Paweł Pawlikowski’s new film Fatherland, about Thomas Mann's postwar return to a divided Germany and his strained relationship with his children Erika and Klaus, also features an appearance by Gustaf Gründgens, who was the inspiration for the character of Hendrik Höfgen in Klaus's novel Mephisto.