simon (05/04/83)
A query related to 'Mephisto' - the book by Klaus Mann, and a recent movie based on it (won critic's award last year). Does anyone out there what happened to Gustaf Groentsgen (?) the real life German actor the book is based on? How did he fare after the war? (For those unfamiliar with either the book or the movie, both are strongly recommended. It is the story of an excellent actor, with very little character, who, after some ineffectual flirtations with the left becomes a servant of the Nazi regime, director of the State Theater in Berlin, etc. He does it not out of conviction, but because he wants to keep acting - in a very limited way he even tries to protect his friends, produce good art and so on. Of course, as the title suggests, it is impossible to do it and remain clean.) The question is intersting, since the book and the novel differ a bit at the end: in the book the hero, upon being told that his communist friend was tortured to death, and that the opposition will overcome, and deal with him, tries to convince himself that the communists will need him more than ever. In the Hungarian movie, this is absent. I wonder whether he became a 'liberal' after the war. janos simon psuvax!simon