Now Schell was a good actor, but what amuses me is that he was also distinctly Austrian, with an Austrian accent. How about that, Fritz?
Lol, but probably preferable to being portrayed by women? Which seems to keep happening to him.
re: your Alexander/Joan of Arc RPF with the numbers filed off, was there any particular reason why Alexander? Were you interested in Russia, or was it that he was the best looking prince available in the era? (That's what Napoleon thought, anyway, who said he'd marry Alex if Alex was a woman.)
It's worse than that. :P It's because Russia was one of the few places my OC protagonist hadn't conquered yet! And my OC (coming from the future and all) knew better than to get involved in a land war in Asia, so she decided to initiate a little conquest-by-marriage through her granddaughter.
It was a little because I had enough of an interest in Russia to be able to fake knowing what was going on at the time, as opposed to, like, the Ottoman Empire--the only places whose political and military history I had a decent command of during my European history studying days were England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Austria-Hungary/HRE (but not most of the principalities in it, god, there are too many), Prussia, and Russia. I had only the vaguest idea of what was going on elsewhere. So after OC had conquered everywhere on that list except Russia by the early 1790s, that left Russia to try to get an alliance with.
Mein Name ist Bach: and, what do you think of Jürgen Vogel as Fritz so far? If you find the time, pray share those thoughts and feelings?
Well, since you ask and all... :D
I can't speak much to anyone's acting, because I keep the sound turned off and the playback speed at 2x, which is how I'm getting around my dislike of movies/television. The fact that all these things I'm watching in small increments are subtitled is the only reason I'm watching so many things. Having this many items on my in-flight watchlist is almost unprecedented for me, and it's because I'm actually reading them.
The depiction of Fritz so far seems to be 90% jerkass, 10% woobie, 0% magnificent bastard. Which, realistically, was probably your experience if you had to interact with him at close range, especially as a musician. Like I've said, I think there's an inverse proportion of admiration and proximity (which is why I think Heinrich looks up to him in the AU where there's a successful escape attempt and no one in his family's had direct interaction with young woobie Fritz in over a decade, compared to RL by 1786 where he was just impatiently waiting for dictatorial older bro to die already). So in a movie about Bach, this portrayal seems reasonable.
The roleplaying specifically: oh, god. I wasn't expecting that Fritz roleplayed *Katte* and the servant roleplayed young Fritz. The reversal just killed me inside. It's actually a pretty spectacular way of showing without telling just how tangled up Katte is with Fritz's emotions and how deep the trauma runs.
I wasn't expecting the spontaneity or the intimacy. I also wasn't expecting it to be that much of a private moment between Katte and young Fritz. I was expecting something rather more distant and plot-based, where Fritz instructs the servant to re-enact one of the public moments (the capture, the interrogation, the execution, something like that), and then they do it. Not the moment when Fritz and Katte were alone together and making the decision to run away. But it makes so much sense!
The fact that Fritz is on his knees during it OH GOD I'M DYING. And the face-touching. *cry*
Which leads me to, the worst part of all this for me is that he picked Goltz (Goltz? Goltz?!) to be his roleplay partner. Where the fuck is Fredersdorf?! (It's 3 am, I'm sure he's awake.) I would let Fredersdorf* roleplay with Fritz all day long. Because, for me, the biggest problem with this roleplay is that the other party has been conscripted to partake in something he doesn't think is a good idea. And on those terms, it's not. It's clear the film means to portray Fritz's idea as not helping him, and that it's not helping isn't surprising.
But having watched this scene, I feel like Fritz's instincts were on the mark. Under different circumstances, if he felt like doing this kind of roleplay, it had the potential to be really good for him, especially in the absence of better options in the 18th century.
In general, going over your traumas again and again can be healing or can be just a form of wound-picking. In Fritz's case, since he had so much difficulty talking about his trauma, I think repetitive middle-of-the-night roleplay might be a good way to habituate his brain to the memories. With someone who actually wanted to be there with him. With someone who was close enough to him and committed enough to the exercise to encourage it and try to provide a supportive environment for him to be that vulnerable. (Preferably someone who can also keep transference and countertransference from becoming a problem, which is admittedly a tall order for something like this.)
Not someone who's like, "It's 3 am, I just want to go to bed, I don't even like you, nobody in this movie likes you, this isn't my job, why do I live in an absolute monarchy where the king can just decide I need to be his therapist RIGHT NOW, I'm not even qualified to be a therapist, this job sucks." Cause you really shouldn't conscript people to be your therapist; it's not good for them, and it's not good for you. Just like you shouldn't have that much power in general; it's not good for anyone around you, and it's not good for you.
But wow, I now *desperately* want to see good roleplay between Fritz and someone who wants to be there for him. It's now become a *thing* in my brain. Oooff. Thank you for telling me about this movie.
* For the sake of fiction, I would obviously be perfectly fine with someone by the name of Goltz replacing real-life Fredersdorf and exhibiting an equivalent closeness to Friedrich within the movie. But that's not what we get. We get "I don't want to be here." Which is reasonable! Under any circumstances, and especially ones where you know from experience it never ends well and yet you're trapped with a king who won't give up the idea. But the idea had so much potential!
Re: Epic rap battles of history
Lol, but probably preferable to being portrayed by women? Which seems to keep happening to him.
re: your Alexander/Joan of Arc RPF with the numbers filed off, was there any particular reason why Alexander? Were you interested in Russia, or was it that he was the best looking prince available in the era? (That's what Napoleon thought, anyway, who said he'd marry Alex if Alex was a woman.)
It's worse than that. :P It's because Russia was one of the few places my OC protagonist hadn't conquered yet! And my OC (coming from the future and all) knew better than to get involved in a land war in Asia, so she decided to initiate a little conquest-by-marriage through her granddaughter.
It was a little because I had enough of an interest in Russia to be able to fake knowing what was going on at the time, as opposed to, like, the Ottoman Empire--the only places whose political and military history I had a decent command of during my European history studying days were England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Austria-Hungary/HRE (but not most of the principalities in it, god, there are too many), Prussia, and Russia. I had only the vaguest idea of what was going on elsewhere. So after OC had conquered everywhere on that list except Russia by the early 1790s, that left Russia to try to get an alliance with.
Mein Name ist Bach: and, what do you think of Jürgen Vogel as Fritz so far? If you find the time, pray share those thoughts and feelings?
Well, since you ask and all... :D
I can't speak much to anyone's acting, because I keep the sound turned off and the playback speed at 2x, which is how I'm getting around my dislike of movies/television. The fact that all these things I'm watching in small increments are subtitled is the only reason I'm watching so many things. Having this many items on my in-flight watchlist is almost unprecedented for me, and it's because I'm actually reading them.
The depiction of Fritz so far seems to be 90% jerkass, 10% woobie, 0% magnificent bastard. Which, realistically, was probably your experience if you had to interact with him at close range, especially as a musician. Like I've said, I think there's an inverse proportion of admiration and proximity (which is why I think Heinrich looks up to him in the AU where there's a successful escape attempt and no one in his family's had direct interaction with young woobie Fritz in over a decade, compared to RL by 1786 where he was just impatiently waiting for dictatorial older bro to die already). So in a movie about Bach, this portrayal seems reasonable.
The roleplaying specifically: oh, god. I wasn't expecting that Fritz roleplayed *Katte* and the servant roleplayed young Fritz. The reversal just killed me inside. It's actually a pretty spectacular way of showing without telling just how tangled up Katte is with Fritz's emotions and how deep the trauma runs.
I wasn't expecting the spontaneity or the intimacy. I also wasn't expecting it to be that much of a private moment between Katte and young Fritz. I was expecting something rather more distant and plot-based, where Fritz instructs the servant to re-enact one of the public moments (the capture, the interrogation, the execution, something like that), and then they do it. Not the moment when Fritz and Katte were alone together and making the decision to run away. But it makes so much sense!
The fact that Fritz is on his knees during it OH GOD I'M DYING. And the face-touching. *cry*
Which leads me to, the worst part of all this for me is that he picked Goltz (Goltz? Goltz?!) to be his roleplay partner. Where the fuck is Fredersdorf?! (It's 3 am, I'm sure he's awake.) I would let Fredersdorf* roleplay with Fritz all day long. Because, for me, the biggest problem with this roleplay is that the other party has been conscripted to partake in something he doesn't think is a good idea. And on those terms, it's not. It's clear the film means to portray Fritz's idea as not helping him, and that it's not helping isn't surprising.
But having watched this scene, I feel like Fritz's instincts were on the mark. Under different circumstances, if he felt like doing this kind of roleplay, it had the potential to be really good for him, especially in the absence of better options in the 18th century.
In general, going over your traumas again and again can be healing or can be just a form of wound-picking. In Fritz's case, since he had so much difficulty talking about his trauma, I think repetitive middle-of-the-night roleplay might be a good way to habituate his brain to the memories. With someone who actually wanted to be there with him. With someone who was close enough to him and committed enough to the exercise to encourage it and try to provide a supportive environment for him to be that vulnerable. (Preferably someone who can also keep transference and countertransference from becoming a problem, which is admittedly a tall order for something like this.)
Not someone who's like, "It's 3 am, I just want to go to bed, I don't even like you, nobody in this movie likes you, this isn't my job, why do I live in an absolute monarchy where the king can just decide I need to be his therapist RIGHT NOW, I'm not even qualified to be a therapist, this job sucks." Cause you really shouldn't conscript people to be your therapist; it's not good for them, and it's not good for you. Just like you shouldn't have that much power in general; it's not good for anyone around you, and it's not good for you.
But wow, I now *desperately* want to see good roleplay between Fritz and someone who wants to be there for him. It's now become a *thing* in my brain. Oooff. Thank you for telling me about this movie.
* For the sake of fiction, I would obviously be perfectly fine with someone by the name of Goltz replacing real-life Fredersdorf and exhibiting an equivalent closeness to Friedrich within the movie. But that's not what we get. We get "I don't want to be here." Which is reasonable! Under any circumstances, and especially ones where you know from experience it never ends well and yet you're trapped with a king who won't give up the idea. But the idea had so much potential!