Swiss film: «Wilhelm Tell» – News

Swiss history par excellence, the legend of Wilhelm Tell, with Rütli oath, apple shot and Hohle Gasse. In 1960, director Michel Dickoff spared no effort and shot on original locations in color and wide screen. The classic is filled with the cream of the actors’ guard of the time.

Terror in the valleys of central Switzerland. The Habsburgs enslaved, the locals suffer and finally revolt powerfully, driven by need and moved by anger. In 1291 the messengers sneak through the mild July nights, on August 1st the secret alliance of the three rural communities takes place on the nocturnal forest meadow on Lake Lucerne. An oath seals the alliance from which Switzerland is to emerge.

But because there is no place on earth for good, the bailiffs strike even more grimly as a punishment, inventing harassment like the hat on the pole in Altdorf, which one should say hello to. Tell (Robert Freitag), the gnarled refuser from the hinterland, appears, shoots the apple from the son’s head and later the arrow into the chest of the tyrant Gessler (Wolfgang Rottsieper). Burning bonfires: The Swiss have their freedom and their first hero.

At the beginning of the 1960s, two film projects with the Tell material were in progress in Switzerland. Franz Schnyder wanted to use a critical approach in “Tell, the birth of freedom” to show a hero who is deceived and exploited by selfish backers. On the other hand, the central Swiss businessman Josef Kälin endeavored to bring a Tell to the screen that had never been seen in a more elaborate and expensive way. The opulence prevailed; Production costs doubled from the planned 1.5 million in five months of shooting. The lighting system brought from Munich alone cost 300,000 francs.

The list of actors reads like a celebrity encyclopedia of the Swiss theater of the time; even the smallest roles were filled with audience favorites. But the film was unable to bring back the excessive production costs in Switzerland. And when a rescue angel in the form of Sovexportfilm approached, which wanted to exploit the film in Russia, the Cold Warriors closed their ranks in Switzerland and prevented the Swiss hero of freedom from being sold to the “red devils”.

Charisma: Sunday, August 1, 2021, 1:10 p.m., SRF 1

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