Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

that both of these works equally perpetuate the myth of the isolated genius and his
rebellion against bourgeois society. Both the screenplay and the film depict the
artist’s life and career from around 1640 to his death in 1669. Narrating the fall
from his height of fame to his end as a lonely old man without money or
recognition, the text and film emphasize Rembrandt’s inner development and his
acceptance of his fate by finding satisfaction in his work. The surface story, then,
in entirely in line with a romanticizing hagiography of Rembrandt. However, by
analyzing the use of ekphrasis, these works also allow for a different reading. If
the interpretive ekphrases of the self portraits in Zuckmayer’s screenplay and
Korda’s film are recognized and analyzed, the screenplay and movie present
another version of Rembrandt’s self portraits that challenges the traditional,
romanticizing one. For the film viewer who identifies and analyzes the self
portrait tableaux vivants, the film (and screenplay) presents a Rembrandt who
consciously shapes and promotes his public image.
Futhermore, on the surface, Korda seems to have made many changes to
Zuckmayer’s screenplay. Horst Claus’ “Whose Film is it? Alexander Korda’s
Adaptation of Carl Zuckmayer’s Film Script Rembrandt” emphasizes the amount
of changes to the screenplay; changes he believes are due to the cultural horizon
of expectations of Korda’s British audience, for whom the filmmaker preferred to
reinforce “the sentimental elements by toning down many of the down-to-earth
characterizations and actions” (274). Thus, according to Claus, “less than 50% of
Zuckmayer’s lines have been retained in Korda’s film, and these amount to only
Drehbuch und Drama,” Michigan German Studies 12.2 (1986): 151-163. Furthermore, the
screenplay has been published as a paperback by the popular Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag in 1981,
making it readily available to the reading public, independently of the film.
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