EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF & GOD AGAINST ALL Movie Review
The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser
Jeder fur Sich und Gott Gegen Alle
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser
In Nuremberg in the 1820s, a mysterious man was discovered standing in the town square bearing a letter. Having been locked in a cellar and abused by his… master?…father?…until he was grown, and never having met another human being until the day that he appeared in town, Kaspar is in essence a newborn in the utterly confused body of an adult. And what a body. The origins of the actor who plays Kaspar—whose name is only given as Bruno S.—are nearly as mysterious as those of the actual Kaspar, though the public relations value of the carefully concealed mystery of Bruno S. himself can't be discounted. (While undeniably an artist, director Werner Herzog is also a consummate showman; Bruno S.—though possessed of an electrifying screen presence—is in real life no holy innocent, though Herzog has brilliantly transformed Bruno's orchestrated enigma into the art house equivalent of one of schlockmeister William Castle's horror movie gimmicks.) Though there is still contention and controversy over the origins and history of the actual Kaspar Hauser, the version of events depicted by Herzog in this enormously popular 1975 film, originally titled Every Man for Himself & God Against All, is the kind of fable that we accept as truth because we want it to be. That being said, The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser is nevertheless a visually staggering and seductively told legend that manages—in images such as a baby's tiny hand clutching at one of Kaspar's thick, rough fingers—to transcend most of its easy heart-tugging. Its last moments—in which a grotesque, Teutonic bureaucrat arrogantly declares the discovery of a physical explanation for the metaphysical mystery at the movie's center—have a surprising resonance, and are likely to stay with you permanently.
NEXT STOP … Stroszek, Woyzeck, The Wild Child
1975 110m/C GE Bruno S, Brigitte Mira, Walter Laderigast, Hans Musaus, Willy Semmelrogge, Michael Kroecher, Henry van Lyck; D: Werner Herzog; W: Werner Herzog; C: Jorge Schmidt-Reitwein; M: Albinoni Pachelbel, Orlando Di Lasso. VHS NYF, GLV, COL