Coup de Grace [Criterion Collection]

Director: Volker Schlondorff Volker Schlondorff

Overview

"This double-feature video combines a highly regarded French short subject and a less celebrated but still worthwhile French-German feature. Based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce, director Robert Enrico's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge details the desperate escape attempt made by a condemned Confederate prisoner during the Civil War. To tell any more would be to give away Bierce's sardonic punchline. Released in France in 1962, Occurrence was given its widest American exposure when it was shown as a 1964 episode of the TV anthology The Twilight Zone. 1976's Coup de Grace (released in Germany as Der Fangschluss) was inspired by a Marguerite Yourcenar novel and directed by Volker Schlondorff. The story is set in Latvia in 1919, at the height of the Soviet Civil War. Margarethe von Trotta plays an aristocrat sympathetic to the Communist cause. Besides her ruinous habit of falling love with men who do not love her, Margarethe's tragic flaw is her refusal to acknowledge the cost of the revolution in terms of human lives. Director Schlondorff tends to dole out symbolism with a steamshovel; still, he effectively conveys his basic thesis that morality and politics invariably cancel each other out, and that to look for ""solutions"" is tantamount to chasing rainbows."

Product Details

Release Date:	05/27/2003
UPC:	0037429177921
Original Release:	1976
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:38:00
Sales rank:	35,962

Special Features

New digital transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions; Interview with Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta; New and improved English subtitle translation; Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Margarethe von Trotta	Sophie de Reval
Matthias Habich	Erich von Lhomond
Rüdiger Kirschstein	Conrad de Reval,Konrad
Mathieu Carrière	Volkmar von Plessen
Valeska Gert	Aunt Praskovia
Marc Eyraud	Dr. Paul Rugen
Frederik Zichy	Franz von Aland
Bruno Thost	Chopin
Henry van Lyck	Borschikoff
Franz Morek	Grigori Loew
Stanley Myers	Composer

Technical Credits

Jutta Brückner

Margarethe von Trotta

Genevieve Dormann

Eberhard Junkersdorf	Producer,Executive Producer
Volker Schlondorff	Director
Jutta Brückner	Screenwriter
Margarethe von Trotta	Screenwriter
Genevieve Dormann	Screenwriter