Watch out, spoilers!
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Once upon a time, many years ago, I saw Istvan Szabo’s film Mephisto, 1981, and it made a strong impression on me. Some time ago I decided to revise it, as well as the entire German trilogy of I. Szabo, which I did. I realized that my impressions over the years have not changed, the film is very strong. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Klaus Mann (son of Thomas Mann), and the prototype of the character was Mann’s former son-in-law actor Gustav Grundgens, who bears the name Hendrik Hoefgen (Klaus-Maria Brandauer) in the film. Starting his acting career in the provincial theater, Hoefgen tried to make a more successful career, performing in all possible roles and roles, even organizing a theater for the people of the Bolshevik orientation. He is eventually spotted in Berlin and invited there. Soon he married a wealthy girl, and then his career began to go uphill, largely due to his acquaintance with an actress living with a high-ranking official. Some time later, the Nazis come to power, which may turn into big trouble for him because of his previous hobbies, but even then he gets out, despite the fact that his wife and her family emigrate. He seems to sometimes think about emigration, but is unable to give up the unexpectedly loud glory that has fallen on him, and meanwhile the Nazis begin to sculpt their star from him, make him the head of state theaters. Sometimes he even thinks that he is in charge of the process, he is already completely immersed in all this, slightly consoling himself with the fact that at times he helps some acquaintances who without him might have been killed, but does not disdain completely vile actions, reporting on a colleague who was formerly a Nazi, but disappointed in their ideas, who is simply killed as a result. And his moral decline continues, although it looks like a great rise, he is almost on the theatrical Olympus, when he gets into a situation that finally tramples him, he is not really Mephistopheles, he is Faust. Klaus-Maria Brandauer is great in this role, but I like him as an actor.