When it comes to adaptations of the German-language literary canon, a downward trend in the twenty-first century both in German-speaking countries and globally is undeniable. But recent high value productions by outstanding auteur filmmakers from Christian Petzold to Burhan Qurbani, or by gifted genre filmmakers such as Philip Stölzl or Stefan Ruzowitzky, indicate that the tide may be turning once again. Film subsidies are vital in this process of making literature on film mainstream, even though it is debatable whether the project of an Oscar-winning director such as Ruzowitzky requires such substantial public funding. As the FFA announced on September 12, 2017, his plan to adapt Hesse’s
Narcissus and Goldmund in collaboration with Christoph Müller and Mythos Film Produktions GmbH & Co., a subsidiary of Constantin Film since January 2018, was subsidized generously with an award of €568,400.
1At the same FFA meeting, half a million euro was allocated to the adaptation of Cornelia Funke’s bestselling children’s book Drachenreiter (dir. Tomer Eshed; script: Johnny Smith). In addition to financial support provided by the Austrian state,
Narcissus and Goldmund received public funding from the Viennese film fund and Austrian public television ORF as well as German public funding both at state (Bavaria, Berlin-Brandenburg, etc.) and national level.
According to the filmmaker himself, he aimed his adaptation at “a global audience.” The choice of the source text was clearly influenced by Ruzowitzky’s belief in Hesse as “a global brand” with a substantial readership:
2Roxborough, “‘It’s a Catastrophe.’” “There are Hesse fans around the world, specifically
Narcissus and Goldmund fans. It’s not
50 Shades of Grey but people around the world, particularly young people, still read and love Hesse. It’s a brand. We hope we can take advantage of that.”
3Roxborough, “‘It’s a Catastrophe.’” Ruzowitzky positions himself and his work squarely in the tradition of Bernd Eichinger and his “Zutatenkino”
4Georg Seeßlen, “Der Neo-Adenauer-Stil,” taz: die tageszeitung, June 12, 1997, https://taz.de/Der-Neo-Adenauer-Stil/!1396796/. (cinema of ingredients) in which choices within profit-driven production companies such as Neue Constantin are guided principally by the established marketability of a film project’s individual components. Adapting a “brand” means name recognition that normally guarantees an established audience of fans. To further minimize the commercial risk of a film project, numerous public funding sources are sought, while high production values, a well-known director, and a sprinkle of stars serve to maximize its pull and thus its profits.
5According to film expert Georg Seeßlen’s definition of a “cinema of ingredients.” For further context, see Schönfeld, History of German Literature on Film, 499–582.Following the economic and political unification of Germany in 1990, national policies, globalization processes, and media conglomeration endeavors have been shaping most film projects based on German-language literature. Producer Eichinger’s adaptations and remakes epitomize especially this thorough “conciliation between capital and culture” as if Fassbinder and New German Cinema had never existed.
6Seeßlen, “Der Neo-Adenauer-Stil.”: “Es war die flotteste Versöhnung von Kapital und Kultur seit der Verbindung von Marlboro und David Bowie” (It was the swiftest/coolest conciliation of capital and culture since the connection between Marlboro and David Bowie). As film experts such as Seeßlen and, subsequently, scholars such as Eric Rentschler, Jaimey Fisher, and Hester Baer
7For further context, see Hester Baer, German Cinema in the Age of Neoliberalism (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021). insisted, it was Eichinger, “the prophet of neo-liberalism” who “created successful German cinema for Europe, a cinema of consensus” for the masses.
8Seeßlen, “Der Neo-Adenauer-Stil.” See also Eric Rentschler, “From New German Cinema to the Post-Wall Cinema of Consensus,” in Cinema and Nation, ed. Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 260–77. But as the twentieth century, the century of film, ended and CGI and digital filmmaking began to dominate the industry, the interest in the literary canon on film continued to fade. Superhero franchises became Hollywood’s global money-spinners, and in Germany and Austria a profit-driven film industry looked for markets beyond the German-language area with themes that would appeal to both national and international audiences.
As in any good blockbuster, action—sex and violence—take center-stage. It is the violence of an abusive father and husband—which is here revealed, in an added twist to the narrative, to have killed Goldmund’s mother for her alleged insubordination—and the everyday suffering of children (or, in this case, Goldmund), who are whipped in school for disobedience or lack of knowledge. But the violence of marginalization and homophobia is foregrounded and leads to the final catastrophe.
Volker Wehdeking observes not only an exaggeration of violence in Ruzowitzky’s Hesse adaptation, but similarities with his previous films, for example with regard to his “sichtbare Neigung zum flammenden Inferno am Filmende” (obvious tendency towards a flaming inferno at the film’s end), which manifests both in his 2017
Die Hölle—Inferno (Hell—Inferno) and in
Narcissus and Goldmund.
9Wehdeking, “Die Hesse-Verfilmung (2020) von Narziss und Goldmund,” 188. Hesse’s fiction evokes a peaceful passing and conclusion to the tale, whilst in Ruzowitzky’s film, the burning of Goldmund’s masterpiece by a homophobic, jealous monk and thus Goldmund’s violent death from burns sustained in the fire is much more in line with other Hollywood-style, high-production action dramas so popular on streaming sites, television, and in cinema today.
10Wehdeking, “Die Hesse-Verfilmung (2020) von Narziss und Goldmund,” 187.According to IMDb, the film cost around €10 million (at least three million were granted in film funding) but grossed only $233,325 by May 2023. The big mainstream opening of the film evaporated due to closures of cinemas during the COVID-19 pandemic only days after the film’s premiere. As Ruzowitzky put it in his interview with
The Hollywood Reporter: “It was the worst-possible timing. Sony put up a big marketing campaign targeting that release date—TV ads, all of it—and that’s all gone, poof!”
11Roxborough, “‘It’s a Catastrophe.’” In addition, the critics’ initial, mostly lukewarm reception of the film ensured the dramatic theatrical flop of the adaptation.
12This information can be retrieved on the IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9014656/releaseinfo/?ref_=ttfc_sa_1. Narcissus and Goldmund has only been nominated for three awards: The Austrian Film Award and the German Film Award for Best Makeup (Helene Lang) and the Film Award in Gold for Best Production Design (Sebastian Soukup).Following the short-lived release to cinemas in Germany and Austria in March 2020, the film was screened on Italian (January 3), Spanish (February 15), and Polish television (October 22) and at the Prague International Film Festival in the Czech Republic (September 21) in 2021. It also featured at the Roze Filmdagen, the LGBTQ+ Film Festival in Amsterdam on March 12, 2022, two years after its initial release.
13According to IMDb; see https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9014656/releaseinfo/?ref_=ttfc_sa_1. At the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, representatives of the film’s production company did their best to sell the film to international distributors. As
The Hollywood Reporter noted: “Beta Cinema is screening the film for buyers at the virtual Cannes Film Market this week. The initial response has been strong. Beta closed multiple deals for
Narcissus and Goldmund out of Cannes, including with Vertigo Films for Spain, A2 Distribuidora in Brazil and JinJin Pictures in South Korea, with a North American deal in negotiations.”
14Roxborough, “It’s a Catastrophe.” The film was subsequently sold to Amazon Prime Video. On 16 November 2022,
Narziss und Goldmund was screened for the first time on both German and Austrian public television (ZDF and ORF2) and was made available for streaming the following day according to existing public subsidy agreements.
In his ambiguous and yet highly critical review of this entertaining “Spektakel” published in
Die Zeit, Jens Balzer acerbically calls the film “einen schön fotografierten Sexfilm für Katholiken” (a beautifully shot sex film for Catholics), coining the term “Katholikensexfilmästhetik” (Catholic porn-film aesthetics) due to the all-too-frequent display of Niewöhner’s physical attributes.
15Jens Balzer, “Striemen, Schnitte, Schlagwunden,” Die Zeit, March 10, 2020, https://www.zeit.de/kultur/film/2020-03/narziss-und-goldmund-stefan-ruzowitzky-filmrezension. The following three quotes are also from Balser’s article. At least Narcissus here is not just eye candy, he also convincingly portrays a young man in search of life, love, and meaning, and in this context contributes to a continuation of debates originally triggered by Hesse’s novel. While Balzer considers the film “einen wunderbar zweckfreien, ebenso sinnlos wie begeisternd beglitzerten Oberstufenliteraturadaptionsschinken” (a film wonderfully free of purpose, a senseless and at the same time an inspirational, shiny adaptation of a heavy literary work of the upper-level school curriculum), Ruzowitzky provides Hesse’s work with “Fortleben”
16Walter Benjamin uses the term in the context of translations that give new life to a literary work in a different language; Walter Benjamin, Illuminationen: Ausgewählte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977), 53. (afterlife) as Walter Benjamin would have put it, in a film production culture shaped by individuals’ responses to advanced capitalism.
17See Baer, German Cinema in the Age of Neoliberalism.