Mephisto (1981 film)

The film adapts the story of Mephistopheles and Doctor Faustus by revealing the costs to the main character Hendrik Höfgen as he abandons his conscience and continues to perform, ingratiating himself with the Nazi Party in order to retain his job and improve his social position.

Hendrik Höfgen (modeled on German actor Gustaf Gründgens, played by Klaus Maria Brandauer) craves center stage. The first third of the film follows his career as a frustrated, passionate actor slogging it out in provincial theaters, occasionally dancing and singing and doing parts in films to gain notice. He even founds a Bolshevik theater with a friend to generate more work, in the avant-garde period of the early 1930s, before the Nazis came to power. Initially, Hendrik is more successful in his social and love life than as an actor. Both strands unite, however, when his new wife watches him play the ultimate role, Mephisto (the devil in the Faustus play), just before the Nazi party came to power in Germany. While his wife, leading actors, and friends go into exile, or protest against the new regime, Hendrik returns to Germany lured by the promise of forgiveness for his communist theatre escapade and a desire to act in his native language. When the Nazi party effectively offers to make him a star, he doesn't hesitate. Great roles and accolades quickly come his way, and Hendrik revels in his success. Hendrik reprises his greatest role as Mephisto and agrees to run the national theatre, working around the cultural restrictions and brutality of the Nazi government. He blithely overlooks the profound moral compromises of his situation, excusing himself by using the power of his close relationships with Nazi officials to help friends who would otherwise be targeted by the regime.

The plot's bitter irony is that the protagonist's fondest dream is to become Germany's greatest actor, playing Hamlet and Mephisto, but in order to achieve this dream he sells his soul. In the process, he realizes too late that he is not playing the role of Mephisto but that of Faustus; it is the Nazi leader with a major role in the film (modeled on Hermann Göring) who is the real Mephisto.

• Klaus Maria Brandauer as Hendrik Hoefgen
• Krystyna Janda as Barbara Bruckner
• Ildikó Bánsági as Nicoletta von Niebuhr
• Rolf Hoppe as General (Göring)
• György Cserhalmi as Hans Miklas
• Péter Andorai as Otto Ulrichs
• Karin Boyd as Juliette Martens
• Christine Harbort as Lotte Lindenthal
• Tamás Major as Oskar Kroge, theater director
• Ildikó Kishonti as Dora Martin, prima donna
• Mária Bisztrai as Motzné, tragedienne
• Sándor Lukács as Rolf Bonetti, bon vivant
• Martin Hellberg as Professor Reinhardt
• Ágnes Bánfalvy as Angelika Siebert
• Judit Hernádi as Rachel Mohrenwitz
• Vilmos Kun as stage manager

The film was the highest-grossing Hungarian film in the United States and Canada with a gross of $3.9 million.[2]

Mephisto was awarded the 1981 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film; the film was submitted to the Academy by Hungary.[3] It was the first Hungarian film to win the Foreign Language Oscar, and the only one until Son of Saul won in 2016.

At the 1981 Cannes Film Festival the film won the Best Screenplay Award and the FIPRESCI Prize.[4] It received the award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1982 by the U.S. National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.[5]

• List of submissions to the 54th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Hungarian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

• Mephisto at IMDb
• Mephisto at AllMovie