{"id":2077,"date":"2011-05-24T14:05:02","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T14:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=2077"},"modified":"2017-11-14T13:46:07","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T13:46:07","slug":"friedrich-durrenmatt%e2%80%99s-crime-novel-and-movie-%e2%80%9cdas-versprechen%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9cthe-pledge%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/friedrich-durrenmatt%e2%80%99s-crime-novel-and-movie-%e2%80%9cdas-versprechen%e2%80%9d-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9cthe-pledge%e2%80%9d\/","title":{"rendered":"Friedrich D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s crime novel and movie \u201cDas Versprechen\u201d \u2013 \u201cThe Pledge\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
Am Wochenende<\/em><\/strong> (on the weekend), I had the chance to watch one of my favorite Filme<\/em><\/strong> (movies) \u201cThe pledge\u201d with Jack Nicholson<\/a> on TV, a movie based on the Kriminalroman<\/em><\/strong> (crime novel) \u2018Das Versprechen\u2019 \u2013 \u2018The pledge\u2019 by Swiss Dramatiker<\/em><\/strong> (playwright) and Romanautor<\/em><\/strong> (novelist) Friedrich D\u00fcrrenmatt.<\/address>\n

Here is a rough plot outline for all who are not familiar with the movie: Police Detective Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson) is on the verge of retirement. On his Abschiedsfeier<\/em><\/strong> (farewell party) he receives the message that a little girl was murdered. He immediately initiates investigations. Shortly after some investigation, the police are convinced that they have found the mutma\u00dfliche<\/em> T\u00e4ter<\/em><\/strong> (suspect) and close the case, but for Black the case is completely incongruous and from then on he is obsessed with the idea to convict the \u2018real\u2019 murderer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pledge\u201d was directed by Sean Penn<\/a> and was released in 2001. But Penn\u2019s screen adaption was not the first one.<\/p>\n

In 1957, D\u00fcrrenmatt was assigned to script a TV movie, which should address the topic of sexual offenses on children. The Urauff\u00fchrung<\/em><\/strong> (first release) of the resulting movie \u201cEs geschah am hellichten Tag\u201d (lit. It happened in broad daylight) took place on July 4th<\/sup>, 1958 at the 8th<\/sup> Berlinale, the international film festival in Berlin.<\/p>\n

Although D\u00fcrrenmatt was satisfied with the movie, he was not really enthusiastic about it. He said that the protagonist Dr. Hans Matth\u00e4i, who was acted by Heinz R\u00fchmann<\/a>, was too bourgeois. He would have appreciated it when the movie would have been more defiant and burlesque. D\u00fcrrenmatt also did not like the end of the movie, where Dr. Matth\u00e4i convicts the murderer. Therefore, D\u00fcrrenmatt wrote his own version of the story, which was based on the script. Unlike in the movie, the protagonist in his novel begins to suffer from emotional distress and mental problems.<\/p>\n

Sean Penn\u2019s adapted D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s alternative deliberations. And I find that Jack Nicholson was able to transform D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s intentions very well. However, Penn\u2019s adaption distinguishes from D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s work, too. For example, D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s protagonist is not about to retire but to go to Jordan in order to train the police there. But I won\u2019t discuss this matter here in detail.<\/p>\n

If you like you can watch the 1958 movie on YouTube. There you will find the complete movie. Below you can find the first part of it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/address>\n
http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WxH7xheBOj8<\/a><\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/address>\n

And finally, if you like to improve your German I would suggest to get a bilingual edition (German and your mother tongue) of one of D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s comedies, for example, \u201cDie Physiker\u201d \u2013\u201cThe Physicists\u201d, which is somewhat ghoulish but also really hilarious. It is about three psychopaths in a madhouse, one of them is a real physicist and the two others think they are the physicists Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. Maybe you have already come across one of D\u00fcrrenmatt\u2019s works?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Am Wochenende (on the weekend), I had the chance to watch one of my favorite Filme (movies) \u201cThe pledge\u201d with Jack Nicholson on TV, a movie based on the Kriminalroman (crime novel) \u2018Das Versprechen\u2019 \u2013 \u2018The pledge\u2019 by Swiss Dramatiker (playwright) and Romanautor (novelist) Friedrich D\u00fcrrenmatt. Here is a rough plot outline for all who…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":2109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[33104,33105,33107,33108,55089,33103],"class_list":["post-2077","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literature","tag-das-versprechen","tag-friedrich-durrenmatt","tag-heiz-ruhmann","tag-jack-nicholson","tag-sean-penn","tag-the-pledge"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2077"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8906,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2077\/revisions\/8906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}