''Circle of Deceit'' (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

title: ''Die Fälschung''; French title: ''Le Faussaire'') is an anti-war film directed by

Volker Schlöndorff Volker Schlöndorff (; born 31 March 1939 Friday) is a German film director, screenwriter and producer who has worked in Germany, France and the United States. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s ...

and internationally released in 1981. An

international co-production A co-production is a joint venture between two or more different production companies for the purpose of film production, television production, video game development, and so on. In the case of an international co-production, production companie ...

, it was an adaptation of

Nicolas Born Nicolas Born (31 December 1937 in Duisburg – 7 December 1979 in Lüchow-Dannenberg) was a German writer. Nicolas Born was – together with Rolf Dieter Brinkmann – one of the most important and most innovative German poets of his generatio ...

's novel of the same name, which had appeared in 1979. The film follows a German journalist sent to

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

to report on the

Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...

, which had begun in 1975.

Cast

Bruno Ganz Bruno Ganz (; 22 March 1941 – 16 February 2019) was a Swiss actor whose career in German stage, television and film productions spanned nearly 60 years. He was known for his collaborations with the directors Werner Herzog, Éric Rohmer, Franc ...

as Georg Laschen *

Hanna Schygulla Hanna Schygulla (; born 25 December 1943) is a German actress and chanson singer associated with the theater and film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. She first worked for Fassbinder in 1965 and became an active participant in the New German ...

as Ariane Nassar *

Jerzy Skolimowski Jerzy Skolimowski (, born 5 May 1938) is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist and actor. A graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź, Skolimowski has directed more than twenty films since his 1960 début ''Oko wyk ...

as Hoffmann *

Jean Carmet Jean Carmet (25 April 1920 – 20 April 1994) was a French actor. Life and career Jean Carmet began working on stage and then in film in the early 1940s becoming a very popular comedic actor in his native country. He is best known internatio ...

as Rudnik *

Gila von Weitershausen Baroness Gila von Weitershausen (; born March 21, 1944) is a German actress. Born in Trebnitz (today Trzebnica), Lower Silesia, Germany (today Poland) into an aristocratic family, she has three brothers and two sisters and is the great-granddaugh ...

as Greta Laschen * Khaled El Sayed as Progressive Officer (uncredited)

Story

Journalist Georg Laschen (

) is sent to Beirut, where he is supposed to report on the local

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. His feelings about this mission are influenced by the fact that his marriage to his wife Greta (

) back home is dysfunctional, and the conflict in

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

remains incomprehensible to him. He feels that his comments and his own problems to understand the situation don't really count because violence sells anyway. Subsequently he feels that his reports aren't real journalism and by pretending to be that they can downright be considered deceit (or in German: Fälschung). After a fling with a local lady named Arianna (

) he happens to kill a man. He realises how relatively easily one's moral standards can be corrupted in a violent environment and how hard or even impossible it is to remain unbiased as a journalist.

Production

The film was shot on location in

. The

, which began in 1975, would continue until 1990. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' remarked that it was "filmed in 1980 under remarkable conditions: with its crew confined to "safe" portions of Beirut while the fighting went on elsewhere, but with ubiquitous evidence of real warfare everywhere."

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

, ''

'', 11 February 1982
Circle of Deceit (1981): 'CIRCLE OF DECEIT,' WAR CORRESPONDENT IN BEIRUT
/ref>

Reception

'' described it as "a balanced, thoughtful, extremely moving vision of wartime tragedy."

Awards

The film was nominated for the César Award for Best Foreign Film in 1981.

won the Best Supporting Actor Deutscher Filmpreis in 1982, for his role as the war photographer Hoffmann.

Discography

The original soundtrack music composed by Maurice Jarre for ''Le Faussaire'' was released on CD in 2013 by Canadian label Disques Cinemusique
More information here.

References

External links

* *

{{Authority control 1981 films 1980s war drama films Anti-war films Films about journalists Films about war correspondents Films based on German novels Films directed by Volker Schlöndorff French war drama films German war drama films 1980s German-language films Lebanese drama films Lebanese Civil War films West German films Films produced by Anatole Dauman 1980s political drama films 1981 drama films 1980s French films 1980s German films