Jew Suss – Rise and Fall

Ferdinand Marian was the actor who in 1940 gave a brilliant performance
in the lead in Veit Harlan’s Nazi propaganda film "Jud Süss" – but the role
was to break him.

The situation already begins to come to a head for Marian during the filming
when his wife distances herself from him because she can’t bear to see
how her husband has changed. The national and international success of
"Jud Süss" – which delights audiences at its premiere at the Venice international
film festival founded by Mussolini – is but a brief, albeit ecstatic, intermezzo.

In time the Nazis’ new superstar begins to see through the effect
that the film has on society; he also recognises the criminal nature of the
regime. Not only are many of his friends forced to emigrate; the Marians
also hide Jewish actor Adolf Wilhelm Deutscher in their summerhouse –
until a maid denounces Deutscher to her SS lover.

In a desperate attempt to distract himself, Marian succumbs to alcoholic
binges and affairs but his actions only succeed in earning him the disapproval
of, among others, the propaganda minister himself. In a bid to control
him, Goebbles has Marian’s wife Anna deported. But this only accelerates
the actor’s demise, and even his Czech lover Vlasta can no longer give
him the support he needs. He no longer wishes to have anything to do with
the most successful film of his career.

After the end of the war Marian observes others who were involved in the
film attempting to acquit themselves – particularly its director, Nazi propagandist
Veit Harlan. At a garden party in Munich Marian meets concentration
camp survivor Deutscher, who in forms him of Anna’s death. Unable to
bear Vlasta’s intimate behaviour with an American soldier, he breaks down,
gets into his car and drives off, never to return again.


Source: 60. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)