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

The discrepancy between the title and the auctioneer’s description of it is
further enhanced by the transition of the action three-hundred years back, to the
late 1630s. This transition is the only specifically cinematic device Zuckmayer
has used in the whole screenplay: The camera zooms in on the self portrait, which
suddenly comes “uncannily” to life when “Rembrandt’s” laughter, described as
vigorous, self-confident and mildly derisive (“mächtig, selbstbewußt, mit einem
Unterton von leisem heiteren Spott,” 6), erupts. The auction hall and the people
have also been moved back into the seventeenth-century. Bidding extraordinary
prices for jewelry he says he wants for Saskia, his wife, and getting into a fight
with the richest man of Holland, “Rembrandt” is presented here as arrogant,
prideful, wealthy, and quarrelsome. This fade-in and the animation of the picture
not only emphasize its reality status, its ‘true’ representation of the artist, but also
confirm the auctioneer’s description of it as showing “Rembrandt” “in the prime
of life” and in the midst of good fortune. The description and the animation,
however, leave the reader puzzled because the mental image of Rembrandt’s Self
Portrait as Zeuxis and the ekphrasis of the auctioneer are incompatible. The
discrepant image produced by the text is thus impossible to concretize; the text
thus evokes but does not complete its ekphrastic promise. Through this mismatch
between the ekphrasis and the actual painting, Zuckmayer emphasizes the
disparities between self and its representation and the ability of art to falsify or
misinterpret life.
Considering that the fade-in animation of Rembrandt’s self portrait is the
only strictly cinematic device of Zuckmayer’s play, it seems curious that Korda
176