THE SONS OF GREAT BEAR (1965)
Die Söhne der großen Bärin
*½/**** Image B- Sound B+ Extras B
starring Gojko Mitic, Jirí Vrstála, Rolf Römer, Hans Hardt-Hardtloff
screenplay by Liselotte Welskopf-Henrich, based on her novel
directed by Josef Mach
CHINGACHGOOK: THE GREAT SNAKE (1967)
Chingachgook, die grosse Schlange
**/**** Image C+ Sound B Extras B
starring Gojko Mitic, Rolf Römer, Lilo Grahn, Helmut Schreiber
screenplay by Wolfgang Ebeling and Richard Groschopp, based on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper
directed by Richard Groschopp
APACHES (1973)
Apachen
*½/**** Image C+ Sound B+ Extras C+
starring Gojko Mitic, Milan Beli, Colea Rautu, Leon Niemczyk
screenplay by Gojko Mitic, Gottfried Kolditz
directed by Gottfried Kolditz
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover On paper, it seems like a good idea: a series of westerns that not only adopt the Indian point-of-view but also paint the advancing white hordes as monstrous despoilers of the landscape and its peoples. From 1965 to 1982, that's exactly what East Germany's DEFA studios proposed: fifteen Native-centric westerns featuring chiselled Gojko Mitic as an Indian hero ready and willing to kick settler ass. But though these films took the most American of genres and used it against its homeland (a propaganda coup if ever there was one), that's where the fascination ends. Once you've dispensed with the hilarious Cold War contortions, you're left with education-film-quality productions that preach loud and long while boring the audience early and often.
One need look no further than the three epics in First Run Features' new "Westerns with a Twist" collection to immediately determine what's wrong. The iconography of Mitic says it all: although he's a movie star through and through, his steely, unchanging gaze isn't exactly versatile and slots rather easily into the disapproving-teacher mode that is the hallmark of propaganda. You go from admiring his rock-hard presence to yearning for something a little less unyielding. It doesn't help that his characters rarely deviate from the "noble savage" archetype that's gotten a few Americans into trouble (no surprise that one of the films is a James Fenimore Cooper adaptation). The disappointed visage of superstar Mitic ultimately sums up what's wrong with these movies: they leave you weighted down instead of thrilling to adventure.
To be sure, the American western comes with its own cheesy moralism (and its own value as propaganda)--but these East German epics don't even begin to offer a riposte to the likes of, say, The Searchers. At least that racist epic was deceptively credible in delineating its questionable agenda: there aren't nearly enough contours to the DEFA pictures to warrant a second glance. These aren't the kinked-up efforts of artists working out ideas; they're mainly just programmers designed for empty diversion. And while the DVD keepcases try to convince us that these films are "beautifully photographed," the truth is that they're adequately photographed near beautiful scenery. As it stands, their perfunctory mise-en-scène is a slap in the face to anyone searching for genuine beauty beyond Mitic's ripped physique.
DEFA's series kicked off in '65 with The Sons of Great Bear (Die Söhne der großen Bärin), which establishes the Manichean plan these films will follow. Pitting Dakota Indians against conniving white men, it shows what happens when it's revealed that the Dakotan Black Hills are discovered to contain gold: the Dakotas are driven into undesirable reservations while whites--particularly the dastardly Red Fox (Jirí Vrstála)--plot their own imminent wealth and military advancement. Of course, whitey isn't counting on Tokei Ihto (Mitic) and his infinite resourcefulness. Despite getting captured and tortured, Tokei succeeds in rallying the Dakotas to a spirited resistance.
Unfortunately, by 1965--the year of the second instalment in the Dollars trilogy--we had come to expect a little more from our foreign oaters. Compared to Sergio Leone's finest (or some of the more left-wing examples of the spaghetti western), The Sons of Great Bear is completely lacking in complexity. While the Man With No Name will always have our uncertainty for being beyond morality (and society), it's no puzzle figuring out where to stand on Tokei Ihto. We know who to cheer for, and it's not much fun watching the stick figures fight for Indian rights as Red Fox and his minions twirl their moustaches. That's the problem with straight-up propaganda: there's no space for the grey areas. Granted, few things are as black-and-white as the Indian genocide, yet even the film's interpersonal relationships remain stiff and undeveloped.
First Run Features' DVDs, available individually or as part of this three-disc set, are decidedly less than perfect. Presented, like subsequent titles, in 1.85:1 non-anamorphic widescreen, The Sons of Great Bear lacks vibrancy--skin tones are especially pasty--and shadow detail is not what it might be. Very occasional print damage rears its head (lines dance across the screen), and combing is also an issue, as it is with each of these DVDs. In all, it looks its age. That said, the German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound is decent and actually quite surprising in the kinds of incidental sound effects to which it manages to lend resonance. Launching the extras is a 9-minute interview with the redoubtable Gojko Mitic. The Serbian actor explains how he got into movies (an English production of something called Lancelot and Guinevere), how he worked his way up into Karl May westerns in West Germany, and how he made the jump to the East--where he was stunned by the popular acclaim surrounding his work. It's a good story well told. Rounding out the platter: biographies for Mitic, Vrstála, and director Josef Mach; production notes on the DEFA western phenomenon; a photo gallery; and the DEFA western trailer reel.
A little more complexity enters the DEFA canon with 1967's Chingachgook: The Great Snake, based on James Fenimore Cooper's The Deerslayer--though you'd better believe that the deerslayer in question (Rolf Römer in the film) will be upstaged by Mitic's titular Chingachgook in a big way. Here, our Last of the Mohicans, taken up by the English-supported Delaware tribe, finds himself in conflict with the Hurons when they make off with Delaware princess Wahtawa (Andrea Drahota); he's backed up by Deerslayer, who discovers that friends Tom Hutter (Helmut Schreiber) and Harry Hurry (Jurgen Frohereip) have been similarly shanghaied. Alas, Hutter, having already bargained for release, commits a major faux pas in firing on the Hurons, meaning the English will have to clamp down in a final massacre.
Although Deerslayer engages in quite a bit of expository jabbering, it's Chingachgook who does all the heavy lifting. That's him fending off Huron attackers in the early canoe set-piece--it's also him determining the logistics of getting the various parties back home. Slight, pallid Römer is no match for either his co-star or most of the other strangely buff Braves populating the assorted tribes. In the end, it's the ministrations of the British and French--each of which controls one tribe--that (barely) lift this above the straight-up tedium of The Sons of Great Bear. One appreciates the shifting alliances between tribal factions--who naturally want colonial oppressors of any stripe off their backs--and the refusal of Deerslayer to blow off his Mohican pal. Still, one wishes it weren't cast in such goody-goody terms, or that Mitic would smile and tell a joke once in a while.
Chingachgook: The Great Snake, alas, was sourced from comparatively inferior elements. The 1.85:1 letterboxed image--apparently cropped from 'scope, though the damage is minimal--is occasionally flecked with print/neg scars, with white or blue scratches visible in a handful of scenes. The rest of the film boasts the same decent-but-not-stellar colour saturation as its brethren. The Dolby 2.0 mono sound is better, not as sharp as you'd hope but fairly rich regardless. As for extras, a 6-minute interview with Mitic deals with his outrageous stunts: he recalls that you had to clean off the rocks in the streams if you were to step on them, in addition to a particularly nasty bit of business in a movie called Scout. Production notes on the DEFA western, biographies of Mitic, director Richard Groschopp, and "Deerslayer" Römer, a photo gallery, and the DEFA trailer reel cap things off.
Jumping forward to 1973, we find ourselves with Apaches, or rather, what happens when you try to massacre a fort packed full of them. In the most pathetically-staged manner possible, a group of Americans and Mexicans led by one Mr. Johnson (Milan Beli) decides it would like the copper deposits on Apache reservation land. This, of course, pushes our man Ulzana (Mitic) to first destroy the fort's food supply, then further damage the fleeing civilians who would profit from the Apaches' destruction, resulting in a protracted battle royale pitting Ulzana's dwindling people against Johnson's band of profiteers--with Apache vengeance coming swift and clever. To be fair, Apaches gets off to an interesting start with a largely wordless encounter between encroaching white folk and riding Indians--and it raises hopes that it may be more imagistic than the blandly-didactic entries that preceded it. No such luck: it's back to Mitic looking stern as he refuses the white man's firewater and metes out his revenge. Furthermore, Johnson suggests a facsimile of Red Fox from The Sons of Great Bear--a wind-up heavy designed to die an ironic death after muttering anti-Indian sentiments throughout the piece. One could of course argue that mutterers of such sentiment ought to bite the big one in the final reel, but the set-up is far too obvious and lacks any sense of form or subtlety. Like the other 'Westerns with a Twist', Apaches is a bizarre curio of times gone past without much in the way of artistic expression.
Apaches' 1.85:1 letterboxed presentation is a tad soft and sickly: though one is aware of the intentionally muted palette, saturation is far from dynamic besides. The Dolby 2.0 mono sound is fairly sharp (the percussion on the sub-Morricone score pops), if a bit fainter than it really ought to be. Extras include a 2-minute interview with Mitic, who too-briefly explains how he came to co-write the script when director Gottfreid Kolditz got stuck; biographies of Mitic, Kolditz, and supporting players Gerry Wolff and Rolf Hoppe, production notes explaining Apaches' place in the DEFA western canon, a photo gallery, and the DEFA reel finish off the disc and the set proper. "Westerns with a Twist" docks on the format in a cardboard sleeve housing three standard-size keepcases.
- The Sons of Great Bear
93 minutes; NR; 1.85:1 (16x9-enhanced); German DD 2.0 (Mono); English (optional) subtitles; DVD-5; First Run Features - Chingachgook: The Great Snake
86 minutes; NR; 1.85:1 (16x9-enhanced); German DD 2.0 (Mono); English (optional) subtitles; DVD-5; First Run Features - Apaches
94 minutes; NR; 1.85:1 (16x9-enhanced); German DD 2.0 (Mono); English (optional) subtitles; DVD-5; First Run Features
