Undergångens arkitektur (1989)

Director:

Peter Cohen

Writer:

Peter Cohen (writer)

Release Date:

13 October 1989 (Sweden)

Genre:

Documentary | History

Tagline:

Skönhetskult och barbari i Tredje Riket

Plot:

An absorbing and chilling documentary about the National Socialist aesthetic, and how attempts to create...

Plot Keywords:

Nazi | Jewish | Degenerate Art | Washroom | Architecture

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Rolf Arsenius	...	Narrator (original version) (voice)
Bruno Ganz	...	Narrator (German, subtitled English versions) (voice)
Sam Gray	...	Narrator (dubbed English version)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Martin Bormann	...	Himself (archive footage)
Karl Brandt	...	Himself (archive footage) (as Dr. Karl Brandt)
Arno Breker	...	Himself (archive footage)
Hermann Giesler	...	Himself (archive footage)
Josef Goebbels	...	Himself (archive footage)
Heinrich Himmler	...	Himself (archive footage)
Adolf Hitler	...	Himself (archive footage)
Wilhelm Keitel	...	Himself (archive footage)
Viktor Lutze	...	Himself (archive footage)
Jeanne Moreau	...	Narrator (French version) (voice)
Alfred Rosenberg	...	Himself (archive footage)
Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt	...	Himself (archive footage)
Albert Speer	...	Himself (archive footage)
Josef Thorak	...	Himself (archive footage)
P.L. Troost	...	Himself (archive footage)

Directed by
Peter Cohen

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Peter Cohen		writer

Produced by
Peter Cohen	....	producer

Original Music by
Sven Ahlin
Peter Cohen

Cinematography by
Mikael Cohen
Gerhard Fromm
Peter Östlund

Sound Department
Klas Dykhoff	....	sound editor
Kjell Westman	....	dubbing mixer

Camera and Electrical Department
Börje Sundberg	....	gaffer

Editorial Department
Karin Giernoth	....	negative cutter

Other crew
Stig Jonassen	....	fact checking

Thanks
Göran Bengtson	....	thanks
Marcel Cravenne	....	thanks (as Marcel Cohen)
Boguslaw Drewniak	....	thanks
Marylou Gjernes	....	thanks
Kay Glans	....	thanks
Harald Herrmann	....	thanks
Ernst Klee	....	thanks
Gerhard Koch	....	thanks
Bo Kuritzen	....	thanks
Lars-Olof Larsson	....	thanks
Lars Lundström	....	thanks
Mikael Rosengren	....	thanks
Werner Schwanitz	....	thanks
Hans Jurgen Singer	....	thanks
Rita Stetter	....	thanks
Claes Söderqvist	....	thanks
Peter Vierek	....	thanks

Production Companies

• Poj Filmproduktion AB
• SVT Drama
• Sandrews
• Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI)

Distributors

• Alive (1992) (France) (theatrical)
• First Run Features (1991) (USA) (theatrical) (English narration)
• Cult Filmes (Brazil) (VHS)
• Sandrew

Also Known As:

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

Sweden

Language:

Swedish

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Sweden:11 | Australia:M

Company:

Poj Filmproduktion AB

Trivia:

While researching this film in Germany, 'Cohen, Peter' stumbled upon an obscure industrial documentary about various methods of vermin control for factory use. This short, entitled "Kleinkrieg" (or "Little War"), proved invaluable as it was the first to advocate the use of Zyklon-B as an effective means of mass extermination.

Movie Connections:

Features The Eternal Jew (1940)

Soundtrack:

Requiem (excerpt)

The power of incompetent narration

The film approaches the Nazi period from a refreshing angle: the seldom-documented (in film) visions that informed official Nazi aesthetics, given priority by a host of top Nazis who, like their Fuehrer, were failed artists. It offered a number of insights, such as the role played by architectural sketches Hitler had made in his youth and the future propaganda value of gargantuan Greek-influenced architecture (e.g., Reich buildings were designed to decompose along the lines of Roman ruins so as to impress archaeologists centuries later).

But the English narration by Sam Gray was so atrocious that it was difficult to separate it from the visual and conceptual qualities of the film itself. Imagine a Beethoven symphony where the strings are played without passion and several beats off from the other sections – no reflection on the composer, but still hard to listen to. So great was the impact of the narration, in fact, that I expected to see ratings averaging 5 or 6 (my vote) on the IMDb site. Gray's uneven, indifferent inflection applied to a script he clearly (to judge by his mispronunciations) had not familiarized himself with gave the film an amateurish quality that it surely did not have in the original Swedish or the German versions. Moreover, the English translation, done by a German, was awkward in places.

As tragic an oversight as the choice of the English narrator was, Peter Cohen and the producers ultimately retain responsibility for letting it pass, especially since Cohen had worked in English before. Any educated native English-speaker asked to review it would have cautioned them, after a single listening, not to underestimate how much the narration undermined its effectiveness. Engaging another narrator surely would not have broken the budget.

Had I the choice, I'd see this film again with the Swedish or German narrations, subtitled in English.