THE CONDEMNED OF ALTONA


US/Italy, 1962, 114 minutes, Black and white.
Sophia Loren, Maximilian Schell, Frederic March, Robert Wagner, Francoise Prevost.
Directed by Vittorio de Sica.

The Condemned of Altona is based on a play by French existentialist author, Jean- Paul Sartre. It is Sartre’s perspective on World War Two and the consequences, especially for Germans as well as his condemnation of Nazism. The play was adapted for the screen by television writer, Abby Mann, who had success on the big screen the year before with Judgment at Nuremberg. He wrote a number of interesting films during the 1960s including Ship of Fools and The Detective. However, he returned to television with writing for his character, Kojak.

The film was directed by Vittorio de Sica who had emerged after World War Two as one of Italy’s greatest neo-realist directors with such films as Bicycle Thieves and Shoeshine. During the 1960s he directed Sophia Loren to her Oscar in Two Women (1961) and made a number of comedies with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni including Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. He was to win another Oscar in 1972 for The Garden of the Finzi- Contini, returning to World War Two themes and their consequences in Italy.

The plot concerns a Nazi officer hiding out in his father’s house in Altona, Hamburg. He is played with great vigour by Maximilian Schell, who had won the Oscar the year before for Judgment at Nuremberg. He is visited by Sophia Loren (who had won her Oscar also the year before for Two Women). His parents are played by Frederic March and Francoise Prevost and his brother by Robert Wagner.

The film highlights the German memories of the war, the effect of the war on Germany and its post-war reconstruction. However, the family have shielded their son from the fact that the war has ended and, memorably, at the end of the film, he leaves the house thinking that there is still a war still raging, is shocked to find that there is peace. He enters a theatre where a play is being performed with an actor playing Hitler – whom he salutes.

The film is a serious version of the kind of story that was used more comically in Goodbye Lenin where a woman is shielded from the fact that the wall has come down in Berlin and East Germany and West Germany are to be united.

1. Meaning of the title? that it was based on a play by Sartre? His pessimistic outlook? His involvement in the war and French and German guilt? Did this give an important basis for this film? Critics attacked the film as eliminating Sartre’s issues and it being a poor film. Do you agree?

2. How was this family in Altona meant to represent the guilt of Germany, of the world, humanity? Was this communicated in the film? What picture of Germany did the film give? The contrast between Germany in war, Germany in recovery? As focused in the mind of Franz?

3. Sartre is interested in hell and humans being their own hell. People are enclosed in themselves. How was Franz in his room a representation of hell? His father? What was his hell?

4. How pessimistic was this film? The overall view of life? The view of the war and Germany’s recovery? Its faith in human beings? Cruelty? Their love? The ultimate meaning in life being death? Was there any hope in this film?

5. The significance of death in the film? The belief that Franz was dead? He might as well have been dead. His killing people during the war? the war dead? the final death of Franz and his father its meaning, lack of meaning?

6. How important was the character of Gerlach? Was he central to the film? His role as father in the family, influence, his love and lack of love? His power in industry? His wealth and capacity for manoeuvring? His relationship to Franz and his relationship to Werner? What was the impact of his confrontation with his son? Did it change him? Could Joanna change him? What did he realise when Franz comes out of his room? Did he accept guilt and reality? Was his death meaningful or not?

7. How central to the film was Werner? The young modern German? The new generation? His pleasant personality end the change because of industry and his father’s hold over him? His relationship to Joanna and her influence on him? Werner as a victim of modern recovery and industry? His toying with power and its influence on him? His relationship to Franz? He survived - in whet kind of world? Would he turn into his father?

8. Franz and all that was encapsulated in his character about the Nazi past? In prison in his room? As mad? The fact that he was being concealed in the modern world? The truth and falsity of his view of himself? His sister’s explanation of him? His relationship with Joanna and her seeking the truth, his lying to her? The significance of his speeches and his continued trying of himself for justice? The impact of his death? Had he accepted his guilt by going out of the room and confronting his father? What had he discovered about the modern world compared with Germany in ruins? The impact of his final words on tape?

9. Joanna as a catalyst? How important? Her love for her husband? Her curiosity about Franz, her relationship to Gerlach? Her discovery of the truth about Franz? Her reaction to Werner’s changing? Was there any hope in her character?

10. The character of Leni? And her role within the household? Why did she tell Joanna the truth? Her hold over Franz?

11. What did the film have to say about guilt, reparation, atonement? How is atonement made for crimes against humanity and society?

12. What did the sequences in the theatre add to the film? The influence of Brecht?

13. The visualising of the images of industry? The plant, the city, modern Germany, the sequence of Franz’s discovery of the modern world and its style of photography?

14. How important were the themes in this film for the modern world? In relation to the success of the way they were filmed?