July
3, 2021
Mephisto – Hungary, 1981
There must be something addictive about the arts. How else can you explain the arts’ ability to make the sane irrational and the struggling obstinate? Of course, these same qualities can be viewed romantically, as implications of one’s dedication to and pure love of a craft. Sleeping in your car is thus a sign of an actors’ commitment. Living with five people in a one-bedroom shack becomes just the first act in a rags-to-riches story. Just how, though, can you explain the actions of such celebrated figures as Emil Jannings, Sessue Hayakawa, G.W. Pabst, and Elia Kazan, people who used their art as a justification for either turning a blind eye to or actively engaging in propagandist actions? Did they fully embrace the policies of the dictators and governments their work aided, or were they simply unable to conceive of a life without the stage and the applause of the audience?
Istvan
Szabo’s 1981 film Mephisto is about
one such man. It tells the tale of a struggling actor named Hendrik Hoefgen
(Klaus Maria Brandauer, here giving an absolutely amazing performance) who fancies himself as one of theater’s undiscovered
treasures. He is a believer in Cultural Bolshevism, which he interprets to mean
bringing art to the masses. In one scene, he envisions using every inch of the
theater during a performance; this, he explains, will make the theatrical
experience more inclusive. He also wants to use the stage to the explore the struggles
of average people and to confront politics head on, views that were not
generally shared by the National Socialist Party that would come to power just
a few years later.
Mephisto unfolds in three
parts. In the first, Hoefgen is a pugnacious actor, frustrated by others’
inability to recognize his talent and the public’s rejection of serious
theater. In the second, he leaves the company that he’s made a name for himself
with for the prestige of working on the Berlin stage. There, despite signing a
contract that pays him less money and offers him no say as to the roles he’ll
play, he is soon playing to packed house and earning thunderous ovations,
partly due to his portrayal of the Devil’s agent Mepistopheles in Faust. The final act details the choices
he makes after the election of Adolph Hitler and the rise of the National
Socialist Party, about whom Hoefgen remarks, “I don’t have a lot of friends
among them.”
Of
these three parts, the first feels the most rushed. Other than Hoefgen, few of
the characters are fully fleshed out. This includes a director who recognizes Hoefgen’s
talent, a fellow actor with whom he is staging a “Bolshevist” play, and his first
wife, Barbara (Krystyna Janda), who has a better understanding of where Germany
is heading that Hoefgen. A fellow actor with National Socialist affiliations is
equally undeveloped, so much so that when he reappears later in the film, it
took a moment for me to remember his relevance. Plays begin and end at dizzying
speeds, and before we know it, Hoefgen is, if not renowned, gaining in fame.
Fortunately,
the film slows down when Hoefgen arrives in Germany, even as the women in his
life remain afterthoughts to both he and the film’s screen writers, Peter
Dobai and Szabo. It is then that Hoefgen begins to slowly lose his moral
grounding. Early in the film, we see him stand up for the Jewish owner of a
restaurant he and his friends frequent; later, he witnesses thugs beating up a
Jewish man and merely looks away. He hears of writers being banned and directors
being arrested and doesn’t know how to respond. When asked to participate in a
protest performance, he replies, “I’d rather stay out of this now.” On a film
shoot abroad, he is encouraged to flee. He doesn’t. Offered another opportunity
during a trip to France, he simply says, “What could I do here?” See, there he’s
a star.
Interestingly,
Hoefgen is never a sympathetic character. We first see him staring at himself in
the mirror screaming, apparently because he’s not on stage. Soon we see him
dancing rather joyfully with his girlfriend, Juliette (Karin Boyd), yet their happiness
devolves into a messy encounter, made all the more awkward by Hoefgen’s
recitation of a Shylock-inspired monologue as foreplay and the pair’s constant hurling
of insults (i.e. “You are but a comical bit of misery.”) at each other. Their subsequent
attempts at wild passion are a dismal failure. In fact, throughout the film, Hoefgen
never meets a woman he doesn’t then cheat on, and his relationships with his
fellow actors are equally strained. He’s the kind of person you’d probably
enjoy working with, but conveniently forget to invite to a cast party after a
performance.
Indeed,
Hoefgen is Faust, a man who sells his soul in pursuit of fame and opportunity.
His Mephisto is the German General (played exceptionally by Rolf Hoppe) who after
taking a liking to Hoefgen’s performance, decides to use him in his crusade to rid
Germany of Cultural Bolshevism and sell the Nazi Party to the public. It’s quite
a turnaround, one made complete in late scene in which Hoefgen publicly states
to the general, “we love you as a master.” We can easily envision him later
starring in the kinds of anti-Semitic productions that Jannings made. All in
the name of doing what you love. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino)
3
and a half stars
*Mephisto is in German with English
subtitles.
*The film was awarded Best Foreign Language Film of 1981.
*In
reviewing Mephisto, Roger Ebert
described Brandauer’s work in the film as “one of the greatest movie
performances I’ve ever seen,” and I see no reason to disagree.
There must be something addictive about the arts. How else can you explain the arts’ ability to make the sane irrational and the struggling obstinate? Of course, these same qualities can be viewed romantically, as implications of one’s dedication to and pure love of a craft. Sleeping in your car is thus a sign of an actors’ commitment. Living with five people in a one-bedroom shack becomes just the first act in a rags-to-riches story. Just how, though, can you explain the actions of such celebrated figures as Emil Jannings, Sessue Hayakawa, G.W. Pabst, and Elia Kazan, people who used their art as a justification for either turning a blind eye to or actively engaging in propagandist actions? Did they fully embrace the policies of the dictators and governments their work aided, or were they simply unable to conceive of a life without the stage and the applause of the audience?
*The film was awarded Best Foreign Language Film of 1981.
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