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Safety Last! (1923)

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franz kafka's family had a jackdaw as their family-emblem, which also was featured in their accessories-store, since the czech word "kavka" means jackdaw.

i do think that bird fits him.

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a while ago i watched "my life as a zucchini" (ma vie de courgette, 2016) - a movie that honestly broke me, but that's not the point.

i spotted a little girl reading franz kafka's metamorphosis.

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the glory of life - compared

from the movie "die herrlichkeit des lebens" (the glory of life, edited post linked)

sabin tambrea as franz kafka

henriette confurius as dora dymant

manuel rubey as max brod

daniela-donja golpashin as elli kafka / hermannova (kafka's sister)

alma hasun as ottla kafka (kafka's sister)

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introductory

greetings 🎻 my name is jerre, i am a student for eternity. on this blog you will find decaying culture; from art over literature to history - with many franz kafkas in between... book-recommendations can be found via. #jerre's books

my art: @leichenmaler

in-character oc-blog: @trostloski

unless you're a creep - DMs are always open. i speak german, russian, english - and am learning yiddish 🐫

until then - thank you for coming by and i hope you stumble over something likeable!🪑

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die herrlichkeit des lebens (2024)

with kafka's 100th death day approaching this year, 2024 is full of new media about our favourite author.

@sepulkralkreatur and i watched yet another take on kafka's life:

"die herrlichkeit des lebens" (the glory of life) is a movie about kafka's last year, beginning at the baltic-sea and ending by the death-bed. it centers around kafka's romantic relationship to dora dymant and his outbreak from family and prague as a whole - with him moving to berlin. unfortunately, his tuberculosis progresses and he has to move to a sanatorium, where he looses the ability to speak, eat and drink - until he finally dies, with dora being next to him in his last moments.

i got to say, i feared that this movie might be full of kitsch and focus on romance rather than franz kafka - and my initial thought wasn't far from reality in the end - unfortunately.

while the kafka series had this darker and yet funnily-absurd touch to it (which was very fitting for him - kafkaesque!) and strictly followed every aspect of his life, the kafka-feeling in the movie was reduced to fragments of his writing, other people from his life and sporadically added biographical elements - like his illness.

all of this sounds so negative - but let's view the movie from a different perspective: maybe i shouldn't compare the series with the movie in the first place; the series included more facets of biography and had a larger variety of characters and themes - because it was intended to be a biopic.

the movie on the other hand, was based on a novel of the same name by michael kumpfmüller - which dealt with kafka's last year with dora. although having many biographical references, the novel still remains a form of fiction - which makes the movie more distant to the state of a biopic. we shouldn't view the movie as a biography, but rather as a romanticized adaptation of kafka's last year.

the movie features max brod, ottla and elli (kafka's sisters), as well as elli's husband karl hermann. although the characters make phone-calls with kafka's father - he isn't seen anywhere. he remains an oppressing, invisible power towards kafka throughout the whole movie. despite this being a possible, well done metaphor - i would have wished to see more of other characters, with more insight into their feelings in these hard times. but yet again - the movie wasn't made for this intent.

and it is worth considering, that not much is known about his time with dora, since her belongings, including possible letters and memories to franz, were confiscated by the gestapo in 1933. similiar to the legend about kafka's doll (which funnily enough was also mentioned in the movie, that was wholesome), fiction is there to close those holes in his life - and we have to be aware of the fictional nature to the movie.

although i am not the biggest fan of romance-movies and this one didn't necessarily scream "kafka" in your face - i enjoyed it. the actors did a great job and brought some sort of lightness with them. the sets and scenes were full of details and beautifully arranged, making it very lifelike. the following may sound a bit grotesque, but even the medical treatmant and dying-scene was done very realistically, making his suffering even more gruesome. and of course - my favourite thing: the metaphors. the hospital-beds at the beach instead of loungers made dreaming of freedom during a serious illness very impactful.

thank you henriette confurius (dora) and sabin tambrea (franz) for the movie and paying tribute to wonderful people 100 years ago!

more posts:

comparison of the actors and their roles

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my depiction of dora dymant from last year

another course-work capturing a nightmare of mine. starring dora dymant and sigmund freud.

may 2023

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happy birthday vincent!

vincent van gogh, a dutch artist of the impressionism-movement, was born the 30th march of 1853. today, he would have been 171 years old.

in 2022 i visited a van-gogh centered exhibition in hamburg, where his little room was possible to enter.

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kafka's literary works in the kafka series

die verwandlung / the metamorphosis

der prozess / the trial

das urteil / the judgement

das schloss / the castle

in der strafkolonie / in the penal colony

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franz kafka and dora dymant showing their love for each other through shadow-plays in the kafka series

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everyone who knows franz kafka probably has seen this photo of him, with him slightly smiling at the viewer, while remaining to look a bit lost. the picture was taken in 1908, making kafka 25 years old at the time.

but wait - the photo is cropped!

kafka is petting a dog! but there is more to this picture, it still remains cropped -

that's better, that's the one. it reveals kafka not only sitting next to a dog, but also a woman. the question remains - who is she?

the very happy looking woman is juliane "hansi" szokoll, a wine-bar-waitress, who was 22 years old when the photo was taken. not much is known about her relationship to kafka.

according to the german biographer and literary scholar rüdiger safranski, hansi was also a part-time sex-worker.

that would explain, where kafka might have met her - and also why she mostly was cropped out of the picture, to show kafka in the way, that people wanted him to see for a long time - innocent and somewhat mysterious.

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more of laughing kafka:

[franz kafka, felix weltsch and oskar baum laughing at max brod for admiring kafka's literary work]

franz reminds me of a little goblin here for some reason

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kafka at the yiddish theatre

a scene from the kafka (2024) series, where kafka, along with the rest of the "circle of prague" (max brod, oskar baum, felix weltsch), visit a play by the yiddish theatre.

since i enjoy expressionistic theatre and the yiddish language - this was my favourite scene. also - kafka's joy and laughter was very wholesome. i added english subtitles. 🎻🤎

background / analysis:

franz kafka enjoyed the yiddish theatre and in 1911/12 he encountered the polish actor yizchak löwy in one of those very plays. a long-lasting friendship began and kafka got more invested in his jewish ancestry - which he and his family had neglected up until that point. later in 1917, kafka published an essay "on the jewish theatre" ("vom jüdischen theater"), which recalls yizchak löwy's memories.

kafka's father hermann kafka viewed people like yizchak as dirty and backward and made fun of his manner of speaking. the hate of bohemian jews towards jews from east-europe wasn't that uncommon - as stupid as it sounds. but hermann also hated yitzchak for being a person of arts, since in his opinion - arts was not valuable, especially in the economical sense.

in the scene, one of the actors portrays an authorial figure, that tries to solve the fight at the dinner-table. the situation, combined with the strange insult of the "fat tomato", reminds kafka of his own father, who often caused arguments when the family ate together. seeing this figure having soup poured over him - makes him laugh, schadenfreude the germans would call it.

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Hi! Can I just ask how you watched the Kafka mini series? I am a huge fan of Kafka but I live in the US and the videos aren’t available to me. Do you know if it’s possible for me to watch the show? Thanks!

greetings! i am based in germany, therefore i have access to the ARD-mediathek, a streaming service for german tv-shows etc.

it should be accessible via. the website or the app:

however it can be possible, that geo-blocking prevents you from viewing it... a vpn could be helpful. however there are no english-subtitles available...

i have searched multiple times for an option to stream it in the US or other countries, including english subtitles - but i haven't found anything yet. i am so sorry, i will keep my eyes open for that! i uploaded a scene, that may cheer you up

update: russian version spotted

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intro animations of the kafka series morphing into franz kafka's drawings:

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lia von blarer as felice bauer

liv-lisa fries as milena jesenská

tamara-romera ginés as dora dymant

christian friedel as franz werfel

konstantin frank as jizchak löwy

lars eidinger as rainer-maria rilke

marie-luise stockinger as grete bloch, a friend of felice bauer

"kafka (2024)" - the series compared

more about this kafka-biopic in linked post.

joel basman as franz kafka

david kross as max brod

tobias bamborschke as oskar baum

robert stadtlober as felix weltsch

nicholas ofczarek as hermann kafka, franz kafka's father

marie-lou sellem as julie kafka, franz kafka's mother

maresi riegner as ottilie "ottla" kafka

mariam avaliani as gabriele "elli" kafka

naemi latzer as valerie "valli" kafka