“Genius”: Scenes from a Marriage with Jew Law and Colin Firth – Berliner Morgenpost

There is nothing more boring in the cinema, watching as poets writing. You have to spray much ink and crumple sides to make the bare act somehow sensual. The only thing that is perhaps even more tedious is watching lecturers at work. For since the words are not scratched with pen on paper or hacked into the machine, because the red pen is unsheathed and crossed vigorously.

Genius Premiere with Colin Firth and Jew Law

video: BM-video

And then comes this film. And everything is completely different. Michael Grandage entry in the Competition is not only about literature, corpulent browse and lengthy discussions. He is also a self-book adaptation, namely, goodness gracious, of a non-fiction book, “Max Perkins: Editor of Genius” by A. Scott Berg. And yet we have thus a very strong contribution to this strong contributions by no means poor competition.

It is the story of two men, as they could not be more different. Let the one in the rain, we give him an umbrella or hat to make him look more ragged. And we let him calm patschen restless with the shoes in the puddle.

the other we provide to dryness, at a desk. Put him on a hat, even in the room, which he, as a running gag, never pull, not even at dinner at home or when he reads in his pajamas. Well guess who the poet and who is the editor.

The man for the great poets

Colin Firth is the one who has the hat on. He has a King weaned at the Berlinale stuttering. Him we believe everything, including that he is Max Perkins, so the editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

One morning thrown him a thick pack densely described pages on the table , He will go over time. He begins to read, he does not stop, he knows that it is a masterpiece. Only stop much too long

As in a relationship. The writer and his editor
Photo: Marc Brenner / Pinewood Films / dpa

Then the behavioral problems man stands by the road in front of him. He presents himself as Thomas Wolfe before, and we believe only times not so readily because Thomas Wolfe was a little obese and otherwise not remotely as attractive as Jew Law.

Laws Wolfe wants to take the bundle again actually. All other publishers have already rejected. He can not believe it when he hears that it is to be printed only. But then it comes to the details. And at 300 pages that need to be reduced.

mentor, support, shrink

There is a very long sequence in which nothing else is done, as on a manuscript page so many words to be deleted with a red pencil, to nothing at the end remains. And that’s great art, the dialogue ago as of the presentation, which always performs in the Berlinale Palast on true laughter.

We learn more about other thinkers, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the rather because of its writer’s block already at the end and sharp contours of Guy Pearce in a few scenes, and Hemingway who is drawn back to Spain, this time not because of bullfights, but because of the war, but with Dominic Wiest unfortunately a little pale is busy.

But this is only an accessory. Basically, it comes to this male friendship in which Perkins is not just an editor, but a mentor, support, Bulwark, shrink. Ultimately, this is like a relationship. Scenes from a Marriage.

Thomas Wolfe has never looked as good as Jew Law

The view women that way. And they are not amused . Here Laura Linney, the wife of the middle-class lecturers who followed jealous as her husband sweeps months only with the author through his work. And Nicole Kidman, who feels deported as a lover of the artist, “edited”, as she says, “written out” as is subtitled, “deleted”, as you think.

and we learn a lot about writing and about the writer. That genius just always called madness. The genius but also always need someone who curbs the madness. The author fights for each row. And grumbles even know how good that Perkins Tolstoy did not proofread, otherwise one would have only “War and Nothing”. And the lecturer is not so sure he makes the books really better. . And not just different

In a good mood: The main actor in the Berlinale press conference
Photo: HANNIBAL Hanschke / REUTERS

but then the great serpent comes success. And with it the temptation. Does the author nor the one who shortened his work, now that all publishers queue? The first book was dedicated to the beloved, after which it was dumped. The second book is dedicated to Max Perkins. And all tell him that as a grave inscription sounds.

But this no longer occurs. For a brain tumor can Thomas Wolfe collapse on the beach. Once he does in this film on the eyes, to ask for a pen. And writes to his publisher a few last lines. When she reads later, the unthinkable happens. He takes off his hat. Any vibration is in this gesture.

Hats off!

We must join at this point. We also salute. What the day before the Fallada adaptation “Every Man Dies Alone” failed, the successful here immediately. Here Lust is made on reading. Immediately afterwards one might read a Thomas Wolfe. Before so much skill, of a material of which one believes to hear almost rustling the paper, to make such a delicious Kinokleinod. Chapeau.

If the cinema only finally would begin to address not only the great authors with such earnestness, but also those who write the scripts. But that’s another story.