"Ungeheures, sonderbar zugerichtetes geistiges Erbe". Modernità e storicismo nel film sull’esempio di Der junge Medardus

Abstract

Arthur Schnitzler’s historical play Der junge Medardus was first staged in 1910. Thirteen years later, it was made into a film by the Hugarian director Mihály Kertész, more commonly known as Michael Curtiz. The present paper questions how history is represented in these works. While using Lukács’s theory of true and false historical fiction as a conceptual framework, the analysis shows that the two versions of Medardus elicit historical awareness by drawing the audience’s attention to the specific qualities of theatre and film rather than to the psychological, economical or ideological causes of historical facts. Using Hofmannsthal’s film theory and Benjamin’s philosophy of history, the implication is made that modern media move away from representing history as a long Hegelian process while concentrating the past in a meaningful metaphor or in a image that have an urgent reference to the present.