靡菲斯特

Hungary’s Oscar BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM winner, directed by István Szabó, one of the country’s most eminent filmmakers, unlike most pictures depicting a pre-WWII Germany from the standpoint of the dreaded persecuted, like Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s DESPAIR (1978), MEPHISTO skews it to an squeaky-clean Caucasian German specimen, Hendrik Hoefgen (Brandauer), an apolitical theater actor in Hamburg, who is first seen yowling hysterically in his dressing room in the wake of prima donna Dora Martin (Kishonti)’s triumphant curtain call, handling peer pressure is a tricky business.

Contending for a successful career, Hendrik creates a Bolshevik theater to gain more work, marries Barbara Bruckner (Janda), a production designer hailed from a posh family, and finally makes his mark by playing Mephisto in a Faustus play, the incarnation of demon. A role is also much to the liking of the General of the Third Reich (Hoppe) - a role modeled on Hermann Göring -, when Nazi party comes to power. Barbara and many of his friends and colleagues flee from Germany, but Hendrik returns after being given amnesty for his flirtation with avant-gardism, thanks to actress Lotte Lindenthal (Harbort), who happens to the lover of the General.

Step by step, Hendrik is promoted to be the head manger of the National Theater in Berlin under the auspice of the General, who simply calls him “my dear Mephisto”, yet his apparent rising-through-the-ranks cannot save his black mistress Juliette Martens (Boyd) from being deported to Paris (although it is to his credit that she is delivered from annihilation), or the life of his friend Otto Ulrichs (Andorai), his marriage with Barbara is naturally dissolved, actress Nicoletta von Niebuhr (Bánsági), the best friend of the latter, comes as a low hanging fruit as a rightful wife, with the blessing of the General.

First and foremost, MEPHISTO’s wow factor primarily rides on Klaus Maria Brandauer’s profound proteanism, who deliriously basks in Hendrik’s time-serving complexity as well as his theatrical antics, alternately haughty, histrionic, spontaneous, heartfelt, childish or earnest, it is a career-defining tour-de-force that among the best ever. Veteran actor Rolf Hoppe (who just passed away a little more than one month earlier) also laudably impresses us with the General’s acrimonious mutability, and a plucky Karin Boyd defies any exploitation (both of her skin color and rangy body) to hold it on her own, her pas-de-deux with Brandauer in the buff demonstrates the fleeting but coruscating outburst of free spirit, soon will be submersed under the pall of smothering foreboding.

Art vs. reality, the metaphor of Mephisto can be fairly alluded to the Nazi party itself, a demonic force luring its devotees to unleash the most heinous vice onto the world, as a cog in this wicked wheel, no one, however apolitical, can come out of it unscathed, apprehending his tenuous rapport with the party, in Szabó’s glaring surreal final shots, Hendrik is running scared for his precarious future, a resounding kicker to expose evil from within, MEPHISTO, sometime running away with its high theatrics and unruly caprice, is a spine-tingling reminder of what it is like to live when perpetuating fear and injustice is hovering overhead.

referential entries: Szabó’s BEING JULIA (2004, 7.1/10); Ildikó Enyedi’s MY TWENTIETH CENTURY (1989, 7.2/10); Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s DESPAIR (1978, 7.8/10).

1981年匈牙利导演伊斯特凡·萨博将四十年前德国作家Klaus Mann的著名小说《靡菲斯特》搬上银幕，当时原作者已经去世三十年，原著映射的德国著名演员Gustaf Gründgens也去世了近二十年。

Gustaf Gründgens（1899-1963），德国著名演员，被誉为整个20世纪德国最著名的舞台剧演员之一，他在《浮士德》中诠释的靡菲斯特被誉为最佳演绎，也许这就是他的前小舅子Klaus Mann如此直接的就把“靡菲斯特”这个头衔冠在他头上的原因，尽管书里用了另一个名字。

1926年，正在事业上升期的Gustaf与德国著名作家，诺贝尔奖得主Thomas Mann的女儿Erika结婚，这段婚姻有名无实，因为Erika是个公开的同性恋者（她的两个弟弟Klaus和Golo也都是），三年后俩人离婚，此时的Gustaf已经拥有了相当的名望，他与前妻一家依然保持一定的联系。

纳粹上台后，反纳粹的Mann一家离开了德国，但是Gustaf 留了下来，并在1934年成为了普鲁士国家剧院的管理者。当时流亡到西欧的Klaus接到编辑的写稿任务，原本他想写一个类似于玄幻的未来故事，但是他的朋友建议他以前姐夫为原型，写一个投靠纳粹的演员故事，于是在1936年Klaus出版了《靡菲斯特》。

1949年，Klaus Mann因服过量安眠药在法国去世，1963年Gustaf Gründgens在马尼拉去世，据说死因也是过量服用安眠药。

在当事者都去世后，1966年Gustaf Gründgens的养子、继承人Peter Gorski将此书以诽谤罪提上法庭，经过几年的审判，法庭最后宣判此书在西德系禁书，但在海外和东德依然可以发表，直到1981年禁令解除，同年，同名电影上映，并获得奥斯卡最佳外语片奖。