Language:
English
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
Music and Exile
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2023) 284-301
Keywords:
Spoliansky, Mischa
;
Mr. Emmanuel (Motion picture : 1944)
;
Hatikvah (Song)
;
Motion pictures
;
Motion picture music History and criticism
;
Jewish composers
;
Jews in motion pictures
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in motion pictures
;
Germany In motion pictures
Abstract:
Russian-born Mischa Spoliansky (1898–1985) was a well-known composer of cabaret music during the Weimar years. In 1933 he emigrated to England and wrote music for numerous British films, among others in 1944 for the movie Mr. Emmanuel, based on an eponymous novel by the Jewish writer Louis Golding (1895–1958), published in 1939. In both novel and movie Isaac Emmanuel, a retired secretary of the Jewish Board of Guardians in Doomington, goes on a quest in Nazi Germany to establish the whereabouts of the mother of a Jewish refugee boy, Bruno Rosenheim (the time frame of the plot is moved from 1936 to 1938). In Berlin he is wrongly accused of conspiracy, is tortured in a Gestapo jail, only to be released following the intervention of Elsie Silver – a famous cabaret singer. Emmanuel ultimately establishes the fate of Bruno’s mother, who has become the wife of Karl Heinkes, a NS official. Spoliansky’s background music for the movie is primarily based on the melody of the Zionist anthem ‘Hatikvah’ (‘The Hope’), which in the form of a leitmotif accompanies the plot’s development. The film represents a turning point in Spoliansky’s career and reflected his identity as a Jewish refugee in Britain.
DOI:
10.1163/9789004544109_016
URL:
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