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Velikiy uteshitel (Der große Tröster)
1933: Years full of attacks and humiliations left Kuleshov and a generation of Russian directors exhausted, embittered and insecure. The film's title expresses what Kuleshov accuses art of being - a comforter. William Sydney Porter, famous as O. Henry, is as revered by Kuleshov as an author as Chaplin is as a filmmaker. He uses him to illustrate the dilemma of reality embellished by literature (or cinema). Behind bars, oppressed by the brutal injustice of the penal system, O. Henry begins to write about his cellmates by adding more interesting fates to their stories, thereby renouncing the critical power of the pen. Details from the author's biography are transposed into parts of his stories, the ‘real’ prisoners become O. Henry's imaginary creatures or lose themselves in their own dreams. (H.T.)
Introduction Christoph Huber on 12.5.2025