Oh, very well. I defer to your far superior knowledge of this movie. :)
I will say that, with my deep emotional investment in this scene, I watched these particular few minutes multiple times like a normal person, and also in slow motion, before forming an opinion, but I agree I am handicapped by 1) experiencing it in translation, which affects both phrasing and intonation (you can hear the intonation this way, but not reliably match it up with the words) 2) my refusal to watch the rest of the movie like a normal person and thus absorb the full Fritz/Goltz context for the scene.
But here's why I parsed this dynamic the way I did, and why I would have far preferred Fredersdorf:
It begins with Goltz saying he's tired and wants to go, and Fritz saying, in effect, that he doesn't care what Goltz wants, it's therapy time. That lead-in made it very difficult for me to interpret what came next in light of anything except a power imbalance. And so I took Goltz's apparently genuine concern, "This game does Your Majesty no good," as him appealing to Fritz's self-interest in order to get them both out of this, since his own needs have already been rejected as irrelevant.
And then everything after that is Fritz/Katte roleplay, so all words, intonations, facial expressions, and gestures of tenderness can be assumed to have been micromanaged by Fritz over the course of the previous roleplay occasions, and so none of this is admissible as evidence. (As noted, the facial expressions in the rest of the movie that you have seen and I have not are admissible as evidence and I defer to you.)
Whereas RL Fritz showed at least some concern over Fredersdorf's well-being in their correspondence, and same with Catt's well-being in Catt's memoirs. What I haven't seen in this movie, and stop me if I just missed or forgot it from 2xing the thing in small increments over the course of several weeks, is Fritz showing any concern for Goltz's well-being. Now, granted, *any* relationship between Fritz and another person is going to suffer from a power imbalance, including and up to Wilhelmine and Katte. But when I see some reciprocity, I'm more likely to interpret it as a mutual relationship with potentially positive aspects. That's why, if they had only changed the name to Fredersdorf, and kept all the dialogue and everything else the same, I would have been more likely to parse Fredersdorf as genuinely concerned, as opposed to simply watching his back and trying to keep his job (in the face of Fritz's notorious zero-strike policy).
Also. My experience of the film leaves me taking Goltz's word for it that the roleplaying isn't good for Fritz. Maybe it's not. Maybe he's always in a foul mood afterward and takes it out on everyone around him and never gets anywhere even after numerous repetitions. But what I've actually gotten out of the movie so far with my own eyes and what you've told me is 1) Fritz crying at the end of the roleplay, 2) Fritz confiding in Bach later on. Neither of which convinces me that the roleplay wasn't good for him, given the way his historical number one reaction to Katte's death, after those first few days, was to bottle it all up inside. Obviously, roleplay hasn't solved all of his issues, no one thing is going to do that (especially when the Katte affair was only his most acute trauma, and his chronic trauma had imo far more widespread and ineradicable effects), but that's different from saying it does him no good.
Here's how I would have loved to have seen this play out. It requires absolutely minimal changes.
1) Change Goltz's name to Fredersdorf.
2) Same roleplay scene. We can even keep the line about it not being good for Fritz, on the assumption that Fredersdorf doesn't know that it might be good for him, because I don't expect anyone in the 18th century to know the first thing about psychology.
3) That flute music by moonlight scene immediately after? Have Fritz and Fredersdorf playing their flutes together.
4) Keep the therapy session with Bach later on.
Implication: spontaneous repetitive roleplaying of acute trauma in the dark, with someone he has a close relationship with, functions as exposure therapy, which in turn leads to it being easier for him to open up about his chronic trauma in the daylight with someone whom he knows less well (and Gooood knows, hasn't has the smoothest relationship with so far in this movie!) but who can function as a father figure.
It substitutes one name and makes a slight alteration in one scene, and it changes the whole arc for me.
Btw, question for you, as someone who's seen the whole movie: I've done repeated slow-mo-ing and freeze framing of the shot right after Goltz knocks over the ink, and I'm a bit confused. My interpretation is that it's Fritz having a flashback to what appears to be a beheaded (?) individual in a white shroud (?) lying next to a wheel and a stone wall suggestive of a fortress. Now, I've seen historians suggest that FW threatening Katte and Keith with torture (though he never followed through) might lie behind some of Friedrich II's later mitigation of torture. And that definitely seems to be what this scene is getting at: it starts with Fritz talking to Goltz about his personal horror of torture, and ends with him having a flashback to what has to be Katte.
Am I interpreting this correctly? Is this just artistic license on the part of the film, implying that Katte was broken on the wheel? Is this cleared up in the discussion with Bach? Does Fritz explicitly talk about Katte at all with Bach, or just the many, many other daddy issues?
Thank you for bearing with my dislike of this medium that dates back to when I was 2-3 years old and my mother tried and failed to get me to be a normal kid and watch Sesame Street. :)
I suspect some conspiracy involving Prussian cyber agents from the beyond.
Those sneaky cyber agents, always foiling us! Say hi to Old Fritz from me, agents. :D
Re: Epic rap battles of history
I will say that, with my deep emotional investment in this scene, I watched these particular few minutes multiple times like a normal person, and also in slow motion, before forming an opinion, but I agree I am handicapped by 1) experiencing it in translation, which affects both phrasing and intonation (you can hear the intonation this way, but not reliably match it up with the words) 2) my refusal to watch the rest of the movie like a normal person and thus absorb the full Fritz/Goltz context for the scene.
But here's why I parsed this dynamic the way I did, and why I would have far preferred Fredersdorf:
It begins with Goltz saying he's tired and wants to go, and Fritz saying, in effect, that he doesn't care what Goltz wants, it's therapy time. That lead-in made it very difficult for me to interpret what came next in light of anything except a power imbalance. And so I took Goltz's apparently genuine concern, "This game does Your Majesty no good," as him appealing to Fritz's self-interest in order to get them both out of this, since his own needs have already been rejected as irrelevant.
And then everything after that is Fritz/Katte roleplay, so all words, intonations, facial expressions, and gestures of tenderness can be assumed to have been micromanaged by Fritz over the course of the previous roleplay occasions, and so none of this is admissible as evidence. (As noted, the facial expressions in the rest of the movie that you have seen and I have not are admissible as evidence and I defer to you.)
Whereas RL Fritz showed at least some concern over Fredersdorf's well-being in their correspondence, and same with Catt's well-being in Catt's memoirs. What I haven't seen in this movie, and stop me if I just missed or forgot it from 2xing the thing in small increments over the course of several weeks, is Fritz showing any concern for Goltz's well-being. Now, granted, *any* relationship between Fritz and another person is going to suffer from a power imbalance, including and up to Wilhelmine and Katte. But when I see some reciprocity, I'm more likely to interpret it as a mutual relationship with potentially positive aspects. That's why, if they had only changed the name to Fredersdorf, and kept all the dialogue and everything else the same, I would have been more likely to parse Fredersdorf as genuinely concerned, as opposed to simply watching his back and trying to keep his job (in the face of Fritz's notorious zero-strike policy).
Also. My experience of the film leaves me taking Goltz's word for it that the roleplaying isn't good for Fritz. Maybe it's not. Maybe he's always in a foul mood afterward and takes it out on everyone around him and never gets anywhere even after numerous repetitions. But what I've actually gotten out of the movie so far with my own eyes and what you've told me is 1) Fritz crying at the end of the roleplay, 2) Fritz confiding in Bach later on. Neither of which convinces me that the roleplay wasn't good for him, given the way his historical number one reaction to Katte's death, after those first few days, was to bottle it all up inside. Obviously, roleplay hasn't solved all of his issues, no one thing is going to do that (especially when the Katte affair was only his most acute trauma, and his chronic trauma had imo far more widespread and ineradicable effects), but that's different from saying it does him no good.
Here's how I would have loved to have seen this play out. It requires absolutely minimal changes.
1) Change Goltz's name to Fredersdorf.
2) Same roleplay scene. We can even keep the line about it not being good for Fritz, on the assumption that Fredersdorf doesn't know that it might be good for him, because I don't expect anyone in the 18th century to know the first thing about psychology.
3) That flute music by moonlight scene immediately after? Have Fritz and Fredersdorf playing their flutes together.
4) Keep the therapy session with Bach later on.
Implication: spontaneous repetitive roleplaying of acute trauma in the dark, with someone he has a close relationship with, functions as exposure therapy, which in turn leads to it being easier for him to open up about his chronic trauma in the daylight with someone whom he knows less well (and Gooood knows, hasn't has the smoothest relationship with so far in this movie!) but who can function as a father figure.
It substitutes one name and makes a slight alteration in one scene, and it changes the whole arc for me.
Btw, question for you, as someone who's seen the whole movie: I've done repeated slow-mo-ing and freeze framing of the shot right after Goltz knocks over the ink, and I'm a bit confused. My interpretation is that it's Fritz having a flashback to what appears to be a beheaded (?) individual in a white shroud (?) lying next to a wheel and a stone wall suggestive of a fortress. Now, I've seen historians suggest that FW threatening Katte and Keith with torture (though he never followed through) might lie behind some of Friedrich II's later mitigation of torture. And that definitely seems to be what this scene is getting at: it starts with Fritz talking to Goltz about his personal horror of torture, and ends with him having a flashback to what has to be Katte.
Am I interpreting this correctly? Is this just artistic license on the part of the film, implying that Katte was broken on the wheel? Is this cleared up in the discussion with Bach? Does Fritz explicitly talk about Katte at all with Bach, or just the many, many other daddy issues?
Thank you for bearing with my dislike of this medium that dates back to when I was 2-3 years old and my mother tried and failed to get me to be a normal kid and watch Sesame Street. :)
I suspect some conspiracy involving Prussian cyber agents from the beyond.
Those sneaky cyber agents, always foiling us!
Say hi to Old Fritz from me, agents. :D