| Despair | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| Written by | Tom Stoppard (screenplay) Vladimir Nabokov (novel) |
| Starring | Dirk Bogarde Andréa Ferréol Klaus Löwitsch Volker Spengler |
| Music by | Peer Raben |
| Cinematography | Michael Ballhaus |
| Edited by | Reginald Beck[1][2] Juliane Lorenz Franz Walsch |
| Distributed by | Filmverlag der Autoren (West Germany) New Line Cinema (USA) |
Release date | 1978 (West Germany) 1979 (USA) |
| 120 | |
| Country | West Germany |
| Language | English |
| Budget | 6 million DM ($2.6 million[3]) |
Despair is a 1978 film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and starring Dirk Bogarde, based on the novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov. It was Fassbinder's first English-language film and was entered into the 1978 Cannes Film Festival.[4]
Similarly to the novel, the tone of the film is ironic. The plot is mostly similar to the novel, although one of the key characters is significantly altered in the adaptation.
Plot[edit]
Hermann Hermann lives in Berlin during the Weimar Republic. A refugee from Soviet Russia, with a Baltic German father and a wealthy Jewish mother, he has inherited a business making chocolates. His wife Lydia, voluptuous but not intelligent, has an over-close relationship with her bachelor cousin, a painter called Ardalion. As the Great Depression bites and Nazi thugs start targeting Jewish businesses, with his firm becoming less profitable and Germany less hospitable, Hermann starts dreaming of escape. He already has moments of leaving his body, for example to watch himself making love to his wife, and consults a man he believes to be a Viennese psychiatrist. In fact it is a life insurance salesman, who sells Hermann a policy.
Title: Deep Despair + Soundtrack Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie, RPG Developer: BekkerDev Studio Publisher: BekkerDev Studio Languages: English, Russian Listed languages may not be available for all games in the package. View the individual games for more details.
After watching a film which features a doppelgänger, he sees an unemployed drifter called Felix, who he decides is his double. Felix, bemused because he sees no resemblance beyond height and age, goes along with the idea when Hermann promises him a job. The work, it emerges, is to act as Hermann's double for a substantial lump sum.
Hermann is now able to finalise his plan, which is to erase all traces of his unwelcome existence. After getting Ardalion to write a letter that demands money to leave Lydia and go painting in Switzerland, he shows the letter to the insurance salesman as evidence that he is being blackmailed. Then he tells Lydia that he has a troubled twin brother who is contemplating suicide. He will change clothes with his brother, so that the corpse is taken as his, and lie low in Switzerland. When Lydia has been paid the insurance money, she is to join him there.
Meeting Felix in the woods, they change clothes and Hermann then shoots him dead. Dressed as Felix and with Felix's passport, he goes to a Swiss hotel, where he learns from newspapers that the Berlin police are seeking the murderer and suspect it is him. Moving in increasing desperation from village to village, in the end he is spotted by Ardalion and armed police close in. To them he explains that he is an actor making a film and they must stand aside to let him go on. [5]
Cast[edit]
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- Dirk Bogarde – Hermann Hermann
- Andréa Ferréol – Lydia Hermann
- Klaus Löwitsch – Felix Weber
- Volker Spengler – Ardalion
- Peter Kern – Müller
- Alexander Allerson – Mayer
- Gottfried John – Perebrodov
- Hark Bohm – Doctor
- Bernhard Wicki – Orlovius
- Adrian Hoven – Inspector Schelling
- Roger Fritz – Inspector Braun
- Y Sa Lo – Elsie
- Armin Meier – 1st Twin/2nd Twin/Foreman
- Ingrid Caven – Hotel receptionist
- Voli Geiler – Madam
Production[edit]
The film was Fassbinder's first English language film and his most expensive to date, with a cost of $2.6 million, compared to his earlier films which had budgets below $300,000.[3]
Home media[edit]
Despair was released to region 1 DVD and Blu-Ray in 2011.[6][7]
References[edit]
- ^Some sources do not credit Beck's editing, but the listing submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for Academy Award consideration does include him as an editor. The listing does not include Franz Walsch, a pseudonym for Fassbinder, who is often credited as an editor, but it does include Fassbinder. See 'Index to Motion Picture Credits: Despair'. Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Archived from the original on 2015-10-01. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
- ^Le Cain, Maximilian (December 2003). 'Dreams of Fassbinder: An Interview with Juliane Lorenz'. Senses of Cinema (29).
But I learned editing that night… We really created the film anew in one night because Rainer had an English editor, Reginald Beck, who started the editing but they didn't get along. I took it over and we created a new story.
- ^ ab'Pressman, Now In California, Sets Six Features For Release'. Variety. May 31, 1978. p. 38.
- ^'Festival de Cannes: Despair'. festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-05-12.
- ^http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/cteq/despair/
- ^Despair(DVD (region 1))
|format=requires|url=(help). Olive Films. 2011. OCLC722924420. Restoration by Bavaria Media in co-operation with Cinepostproduction. - ^Despair(Blu-Ray (region 1))
|format=requires|url=(help). Olive Films. 2011. OCLC800429901. Restoration by Bavaria Media in co-operation with Cinepostproduction.
Deep Despair: Soundtrack Movie
Further reading[edit]
- Lopate, Phillip. 'A Date with Fassbinder & Despair'. lingo 6. A personal essay related to the author's first viewing of Despair in 1979.
- Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed. 2005) pp 95–96.
External links[edit]
- Despair on IMDb
- Despair at AllMovie
Abyss of the Sacrifice is now up for pre-order on Switch. In Japan, the title is priced at 3,192 yen, which is a special discount. The game will be bumped up to 3,990 yen shortly after launch. The game also launches worldwide on Dec. 17th, 2020, and is priced at $32 for those who pre-order, but will get bumped to $40 after launch.
A soundtrack sampler for the game has been released, which you can check out above. You can find some screens for the title here, and full details on the experience below.
Five girls meet in an isolated underground city. As they slay and betray each other, what fate awaits them at the end of their journey? Hope? Or despair? Enjoy an immersive story, fully voiced and boasting multiple endings!-A suspenseful adventure merged with an intense escape game!
Follow along as the earnest young characters engage in a story of labyrinthine suspense, while the escape gameplay challenges even the most seasoned of gamers!
-Seek hope but find despair with changing scenarios and characters!
The stages develop along with each character. The same stage can have different puzzles and endings depending on the path you've chosen--changes that may mean the difference between life and death for the young girls!
-The Story
Deep underground lies an immense living facility: Foundation.
When was it built, and why? Who, or what, brought its residents there? The truth has faded with the years, and its history has sunk into the ocean of time. No one within knows of the surface. To the people of Foundation, the underground facility is their entire world.
Deep Despair: Soundtrack Torrent
Then, calamity strikes, changing the fate of five young girls.
Deep Despair: Soundtrack Cast
Deep Despair: Soundtrack Movie
Further reading[edit]
- Lopate, Phillip. 'A Date with Fassbinder & Despair'. lingo 6. A personal essay related to the author's first viewing of Despair in 1979.
- Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed. 2005) pp 95–96.
External links[edit]
- Despair on IMDb
- Despair at AllMovie
Abyss of the Sacrifice is now up for pre-order on Switch. In Japan, the title is priced at 3,192 yen, which is a special discount. The game will be bumped up to 3,990 yen shortly after launch. The game also launches worldwide on Dec. 17th, 2020, and is priced at $32 for those who pre-order, but will get bumped to $40 after launch.
A soundtrack sampler for the game has been released, which you can check out above. You can find some screens for the title here, and full details on the experience below.
Five girls meet in an isolated underground city. As they slay and betray each other, what fate awaits them at the end of their journey? Hope? Or despair? Enjoy an immersive story, fully voiced and boasting multiple endings!-A suspenseful adventure merged with an intense escape game!
Follow along as the earnest young characters engage in a story of labyrinthine suspense, while the escape gameplay challenges even the most seasoned of gamers!
-Seek hope but find despair with changing scenarios and characters!
The stages develop along with each character. The same stage can have different puzzles and endings depending on the path you've chosen--changes that may mean the difference between life and death for the young girls!
-The Story
Deep underground lies an immense living facility: Foundation.
When was it built, and why? Who, or what, brought its residents there? The truth has faded with the years, and its history has sunk into the ocean of time. No one within knows of the surface. To the people of Foundation, the underground facility is their entire world.
Deep Despair: Soundtrack Torrent
Then, calamity strikes, changing the fate of five young girls.
Deep Despair: Soundtrack Cast
Their world is suddenly deserted. Quakes assail the underground halls, walls and ceilings collapse, and food and water begins to run out. Five girls, the final survivors, must find a way to pull through these dire conditions.
Deep Despair: Soundtrack Full
Foundation is on the verge of collapse, and the girls face their longest and final trial...
