Thomas Müntzer (1956)

movie

(40)

Country: East Germany
Genres: Drama, War
Release: 1956-05-17
Director: Martin Hellberg
Writers: Martin Hellberg , Horst Reinecke , Friedrich Wolf
Language: German
Stars: Wolfgang Stumpf , Margarete Taudte , Wolf Kaiser , Martin Flörchinger , Wolfgang Kaehler , Heinz Giese , Ruth-Maria Kubitschek , Albert Garbe , Maly Delschaft , Hansjoachim Büttner
Runtime: 134 min
Awards: N/A
AKA: Thomas Müntzer - Ein Film deutscher Geschichte , Gia ena kommati gis (Greece) , Thomas Müntzer (Hungary) , Thomas Müntzer
Plot: Thomas Muentzer, a university companion of Martin Luther, raises to the leadership of the bloddiest German peasant uprising in the 1520's. I purchased the Video (icestorm release) from amazon.de, which features the unrestored version. I hope some studio will restore this valuable masterpiece of a film, and release it on DVD. The VHS version shows its age, and the story at times seems to be a little disjointed. If you are not a German viewer, and not at all familiar with German history, this will confuse you. Now, I'm a great fan of German history, and well read on the subject. If there was any socialist propaganda, it shows the peasants elevated as gentle Christian folk, the counts and local warlords as brute tyrants. If you can look beyond that, the film manages to breath life into this tragic period, in all it's details. If you have been fascinated about this periods costumes, buildings castles, villages, weaponry and battles, this is your ticket: Watch those flagwaving German landsknechts, the pike and halbadier men, the peasants armory, the cannons .... it's awesome and fascinating. They really look like the depictions of the great masterpainters like Hans Holbein, AlbrechtDuerer etc. I voted an 8/10 stars.
IMDB:tt0230875