''Coup de Grâce'' (
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
**Ger ...
: ''Der Fangschuß'',
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
: ''Le Coup de grâce'') is a 1976 West German film directed by
Volker Schlöndorff.
Adapted from the novel ''
Coup de Grâce'' by the French author
Marguerite Yourcenar
Marguerite Yourcenar (, , ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the ''Prix Fem ...
, the war film explores passion amid underlying political tones. The title comes from the
French expression, meaning "finishing blow". An opening title dedicates the film to
Jean-Pierre Melville, for whom Schlöndorff had worked as an assistant director.
Plot
In 1919
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
, a detachment of German
Freikorps
(, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European military volunteer units, or paramilitary, that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenary or private armies, regar ...
soldiers is stationed in a country chateau, referred to as Kratovice, not far from
Riga
Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...
, to fight
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
guerrillas in the
Latvian War of Independence, one element of the much broader
Russian Civil War
, date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
that followed the
Bolshevik Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolsheviks, Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was ...
. The soldiers, led by Erich von Lhomond, are welcomed with open arms by the mansion's inhabitants, including Countess Sophie von Reval, her half-senile Jewish aunt Praskovia, and some servants. The chateau, it turns out, is the home of the soldiers' leader, Konrad von Reval, Sophie's brother. Erich had also been a childhood friend of Konrad and Sophie, and she now finds herself falling in love with him. There are hints through the earlier scenes that Erich is in love with Konrad, but that is not confirmed for some time.
Sophie has contacts with the nearby Bolshevik forces, especially with Jewish tailor Grigori Loew, from whom Sophie borrows some Bolshevik reading materials. Early on, one German war veteran who is now fighting for the Bolsheviks is captured, questioned, and summarily executed by a firing squad. In the meantime, Sophie and her aunt try to keep up appearances, holding dinners and providing entertainment for the officers as best as they can, with their supplies of food and drink dwindling. From time to time, Erich or some of his men go to their headquarters in Riga or elsewhere, sometimes returning with food or treats.
Erich, like others under his command, has joined the Freikorps due to lacking any other prospects or purpose in life following Germany's defeat in World War I. Although he loosens up at times with Konrad and Sophie, he generally maintains an air of military professionalism and emotional detachment (such as scolding Sophie for smoking). Sophie's own apparent free spirit is belied when the medic tells Erich how she had been raped some time previously by a drunken Lithuanian soldier. She attempts several times to attract and even seduce Erich, but he rebuffs her advances, usually passively but sometimes with anger, as when he publicly slaps Sophie under the mistletoe at Christmas after she provocatively kisses an old friend of Erich's from school. Frustrated, she turns to other men in the unit, having sex with them while Erich is aware. She also willingly exposes herself to danger, riding on horseback and opening blackout curtains.
Over time, some of the men with whom Sophie has been intimate die during battles or soon after their return. It is already clear to Erich and others that the uneasy anti-Bolshevik coalition is falling apart. After being informed that no reinforcements are coming and all German troops are expected to withdraw by the New Year, Erich leads an offensive that results in the loss of the only medic. After the incident at Christmas, Erich's childhood friend tells Sophie of Erich's attraction to Konrad. Sophie leaves to join the Bolsheviks.
Konrad is killed in the withdrawal. While ambushing the retreating soldiers, Grigori is killed and Sophie is captured. Erich offers to take Sophie to Germany; Sophie steals Erich's cigarettes. The train to Germany is delayed due to attack so everyone has the rest of the night to steel themselves. In the morning, when Sophie's time to be executed comes, she demands that Erich shoot her. Erich shoots her in the head with his pistol, poses with his men for a group photo, and boards the waiting troop train, all in summary fashion.
Adaptation and film style
The events of the novel,
Marguerite Yourcenar
Marguerite Yourcenar (, , ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 1903 – 17 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the ''Prix Fem ...
's ''
Coup de Grâce'' (1939), are narrated from the
first-person point of view
A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-teller ...
of the soldier Erich von Lhomond. In the film, some
voice-over
Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non-Diegetic#Film sound and music, diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, th ...
comments from Erich come at the beginning and end and in a few other scenes. However, the film's narrative structure and visuals make central the character of Sophie von Reval, played by
Margarethe von Trotta, who co-wrote the screenplay. P.J.R. Nair comments, "Schlöndorff has, in fact, reconfigured the point of view within the narrative situation: Sophie turns into Erich’s co-protagonist. . . . instead of an officer and his memories, a woman moves to the forefront along with the conflicts of her emotions, her epoch, and her environment. In the adaptation process, Schlöndorff has set up an unusual narrative structure. On one hand, he is taking a book that features a male point of view and evokes the genre of the war film––a genre usually characterized by a male point of view. On the other hand, the shift away from a first-person male narrator represents here a subverting of the war film’s usual masculine perspective."
In addition, the war is only a vague backdrop in the novel but has a more significant presence in the film. However, its effects are often seen only after the fact and the most violent battle scenes often take place
offscreen or in visually distanced vignettes. At one point, the Bolshevik forces shell a trench surrounding the Kratovice estate. Sophie has accompanied Erich to this battle line and flinches when mortar shells explode nearby, but we see only portions of the bodies of the men who were hit as she and Erich retreat. Earlier in that scene, we share Sophie's physical point of view as she looks across the battlefield through Erich's rangefinder and is startled to realize that Grigori is a member of the opposing force as they retreat with a wounded comrade.
When Erich is told that Sophie herself had been raped by a sergeant before his group's arrival, his typically dispassionate response highlights the gap between the stated event and his military mindset. The deaths of some key characters become known only when we see their dead or wounded bodies being transported by their comrades. Even the death of Sophie's dog, named Texas, killed by digging up a grenade, is revealed only when Erich opens the closet where Sophie had placed the dog's body.
Hans-Bernard Moeller and George Lellis remark that "One can argue that Schlöndorff assembles an array of alienating strategies that operate subtly and scrape against the grain of a superficially realist narrative. This movie’s narrative contains many gaps and ellipses, as well as many places where, with characterizations developed only through externalized behavior, motivation is implicit or ambiguous; all of these require an alert viewer to fill in what is missing." Similarly,
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
, in his ''
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 ...
'' review, calls ''Coup de Grâce'' "an extremely studied, sorrowful movie, photographed in a fine, chilly black and white that has the important effect of removing the story even further away from our emotions. We don't respond to it viscerally. We contemplate it with a certain amount of detachment . . .
In addition to deliberately muted performances by the actors, distancing effects are also enhanced when scenes often break off abruptly, cutting directly to another time or setting without revealing the outcome of conversations and encounters in the prior scene. Some scenes are deliberately stylized visually, notably when an enemy airplane appears above the manor at night. An even more abrupt change of style occurs when we see the car with soldiers returning from an "
R&R" trip to Riga. The soldiers' behavior, music, and camera framing present the scene as though it were from a musical comedy.
Cast
*
Matthias Habich
Matthias Habich (born 12 January 1940) is a Germans, German actor who has appeared in more than 110 film and television productions since 1965. Habich was born in Danzig (present-day Gdańsk, Poland) and lives in Paris. In the 2001 film ''Enemy ...
as Erich von Lhomond
*
Margarethe von Trotta as Sophie von Reval
* Rüdiger Kirschstein as Conrad von Reval
*
Mathieu Carrière
Mathieu Carrière (; born 2 August 1950) is a German actor.
Life
Carrière grew up in Berlin and Lübeck; he attended the Jesuit boarding school in Vannes, France, a school which had previously been attended by the director of Carrière's firs ...
as Volkmar von Plessen
*
Valeska Gert as Aunt Praskovia
*
Marc Eyraud
Marc Eyraud (1 March 1924 – 15 February 2005) was a French film actor. He appeared in 60 films between 1956 and 1995.
Partial filmography
* ''Plucking the Daisy'' (1956) - Un photographe (uncredited)
* ''The Man in the Raincoat'' (1957) ...
as Dr. Paul Rugen
* Bruno Thost as Chopin
*
Henry van Lyck
Henry van Lyck (born Rüdiger Leberecht; 15 January 1941 in Cologne, Germany) is a German actor.
Selected filmography
* ''Freddy and the Millionaire'' (1961)
* ''Snow White and the Seven Jugglers'' (1962)
* ' (1965, TV miniseries)
* ''Go for It, ...
as Borschikoff
* Hannes Kaetner as Michel
* Franz Morak as Grigori Loew
* Frederik von Zichy as Franz von Aland
* Alexander von Eschwege as Blankenberg
* Maria Guttenbrunner as Mutter Loew
* Stephan Paryla as Sergeant
References
External links
*
*
*
''Coup de grâce''an essay by Hans-Bernhard Moeller and George Lellis at the
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinep ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coup de Grace
1976 LGBT-related films
1970s war drama films
German LGBT-related films
German war drama films
West German films
1970s German-language films
French LGBT-related films
Films directed by Volker Schlöndorff
Films set in Latvia
Films set in Riga
French black-and-white films
Russian Civil War films
Films set in 1919
Films based on works by Marguerite Yourcenar
Films produced by Anatole Dauman
Films scored by Stanley Myers
1976 drama films
1976 films
1970s French films
1970s German films