Coup De Grâce (1976 Film)
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''Coup de Grâce'' (
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
: ''Der Fangschuss'', French: ''Le Coup de grâce'') is a 1976 West German
drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...
directed by
Volker Schlöndorff Volker Schlöndorff (; born 31 March 1939) 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. He ha ...
. Adapted from the novel ''
Coup de Grâce A coup de grâce (; ) is an act of mercy killing in which a person or animal is struck with a melee weapon or shot with a projectile to end their suffering from mortal wounds with or without their consent. Its meaning has extended to refer to ...
'' by the French author
Marguerite Yourcenar Marguerite Yourcenar (, ; ; born Marguerite Antoinette Jeanne Marie Ghislaine Cleenewerck de Crayencour; 8 June 190317 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the Prix Femina and ...
, 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 Jean-Pierre Grumbach (20 October 1917 – 2 August 1973), known professionally as Jean-Pierre Melville (), was a French filmmaker. Considered a spiritual godfather of the French New Wave, he was one of the first fully-independent French filmmake ...
, for whom Schlöndorff had worked as an assistant director.


Plot

In 1919
Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...
, a detachment of German
Freikorps (, "Free Corps" or "Volunteer Corps") were irregular German and other European paramilitary volunteer units that existed from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. They effectively fought as mercenaries or private military companies, rega ...
soldiers is stationed in a country chateau, referred to as Kratovice, not far from
Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...
, to fight
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
guerrillas in the
Latvian War of Independence The Latvian War of Independence (), sometimes called Latvia's freedom battles () or the Latvian War of Liberation (), was a series of military conflicts in Latvia between 5 December 1918, after the newly proclaimed Republic of Latvia was invade ...
, one element of the much broader
Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
that followed the
Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...
. 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 190317 December 1987) was a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist who became a US citizen in 1947. Winner of the Prix Femina and ...
's ''
Coup de Grâce A coup de grâce (; ) is an act of mercy killing in which a person or animal is struck with a melee weapon or shot with a projectile to end their suffering from mortal wounds with or without their consent. Its meaning has extended to refer to ...
'' (1939), are narrated from the first-person point of view 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 used in radio, television, filmmaking, theatre, and other media in which a descriptive or expository voice that is not part of the narrative (i.e., non- ...
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 Margarethe von Trotta (; born 21 February 1942)Hans Helmut Prinzler, ''Chronik des deutschen Films, 1895–1994'' (Stuttgart and Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1995), p. 149. is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been ref ...
, 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 The terms off-screen, off-camera, and off-stage refer to fictional events in theatre, television, or film which are not seen on stage or in frame, but are merely heard by the audience, or described (or implied) by the characters or narrator. Off ...
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 was 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 2000. ...
, in his ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' 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 as Erich von Lhomond *
Margarethe von Trotta Margarethe von Trotta (; born 21 February 1942)Hans Helmut Prinzler, ''Chronik des deutschen Films, 1895–1994'' (Stuttgart and Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1995), p. 149. is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been ref ...
as Sophie von Reval * Rüdiger Kirschstein as Conrad von Reval *
Mathieu Carrière Mathieu Carrière (; born 2 August 1950) is a German stage and screen actor with strong French connections. He has appeared in around 250 films worldwide and in 4000 hours of television. Carrière is also a director and a writer and is known as a ...
as Volkmar von Plessen *
Valeska Gert Valeska Gert (11 January 1892 – c. 16 March 1978) was a German dancer, pantomime, cabaret artist, actress and pioneering performance artist. Early life and career Gert was born as Gertrud Valesca Samosch in Berlin to a Jewish family. She was the ...
as Aunt Praskovia * Marc Eyraud as Dr. Paul Rugen * Bruno Thost as Chopin * Henry van Lyck 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". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributo ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Coup de Grace 1976 LGBTQ-related films 1970s war drama films German LGBTQ-related films German war drama films West German films 1970s German-language films French LGBTQ-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 German-language war drama films