#Sissi Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin

[hundredthousandtimes]

PERIODDRAMA APPRECIATION WEEK 2023

Day 5: Favorite period drama film: Sissi trilogy by Ernst Marischka

The Sissi trilogy is an Austrian film directed by Ernst Marischka and starring Romy Schneider as Sissi, and Karlheinz Böhm, as Franz Joseph I. In the first of a trilogy of movies about Elisabeth "Sissi" of Austria, the vibrant young princess catches the eye of her sister's fiancé, Emperor Franz Josef. The second in a trilogy of movies about Elisabeth "Sissi" of Austria, the film chronicles the married life of the young empress as she tries to adjust to formal and strict life in the palace and an overbearing mother-in-law. The final film in a highly romanticized trilogy about Elisabeth "Sissi" of Austria finds the young empress traveling throughout Europe. (source: imdb)

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Sissi — Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin (1957) [Sissi — Fateful Years of an Empress]

This was a good one! I was worried that it would end with Elisabeth's assassination and that I would have trouble writing a review in light of a certain unprecedented event which completely threw me off my groove, but it didnt, so that was good i guess

The plot was pretty all over the place, it starts with Elisabeth hanging out in Hungary with Gyula Andrássy and asking him to invite Count Batthyani (who swore to never give the imperial family the time of day because the emperor gave the order to execute his father) to his house so that she can talk to him on neutral ground and make peace with him. And she does! Kind of? Idk, she starts having some weird pains so she returns to Vienna pretty much immediately after that to have a doctor check up on her. Turns out that she has some kind of lung disease, oh nooooo, the doctor advises her to go to Madeira, both because she needs a change of air to help with her disease but also because she's contagious and should be away from Franz Joseph and her daughter. In Madeira, she spends the first weeks being depressed and not getting any better but then Ludovika comes by to cheer her up and get her moving again and they travel a bit and Elisabeth ends up making a full recovery. When Franz Joseph hears about this, he obviously wants to go to her as quickly as possible, he wants to meet her in Venice but his advisors are like "You need a political reason to go to Venice because shits been going and all of italy hates us and if you go there just for personal reasons, something bad might happen", so they decide to hold an opera gala with a big reception in Milan and they invite a bunch of italian nobles. But uh-oh, the italian nobles dont like austria so they all passive-agressively send their servants over in their stead and then to add insult to injury, the orchestra and singers start performing some opera-song about freedom and all the servants in the audience join in. But Elisabeth claps anyway, either showing that their attempt to insult just slid right off her or that she's supporting them, Im not really sure. At the reception, she and Franz Joseph passive-aggressively receive all the servants as though theyre the actual nobility, I dont know how this is helping them politically. But whatever, later on they get on a boat and drive (? whats the word you use for boats) to a church to meet the pope, but there are no adoring citizens cheering for them on their way, its a complete ghost town and the few people that are there just glare at them, so thats really humiliating. But then they arrive at the church and Elisabeth's daughter runs up to greet her after all these months/maybe years and all the people standing next to the church cheer and the pope loves her so its all good.

So that was a pretty underwhelming finale, both to the trilogy and just this film as a standalone. Like, the previous films both ended on these big victories ignore the fact that the wedding did not feel like a victory when I saw it that felt like they mattered and had been built up, but I think the troubles with Italy only got brought up like 25 minutes before the end so I found it hard to care about all that.

But idk, I still liked it overall, although writing out a summary of the plot really made me realize how messy it is. Honestly, I find it kinda hard to describe what exactly I even liked about this film specifically that isnt just all the stuff I liked about the previous ones (the acting, the sets, the costuming etc). I think Ive just gotten to a point where Im attached enough to (this version of) Elisabeth that Im pretty much fine with just watching her do whatever

I mean, I guess I liked that they softened Sophie for this one, I mean she's still strict with that everything-for-the-dynasty mindset but shes not actively causing problems with Elisabeth so that was kinda nice.

Actually, that reminds me of a scene that I really liked, it might be favorite in the film (although it does have some serious competition that I'll tell you about later). So, when Elisabeth comes back to Vienna after being in Hungary and she gets exhamined by the doctor, he doesnt actually tell her whats going on because its a really serious lung disease and he thinks she might not survive until the next year, but he does tell Sophie. Elisabeth finds out about this when she's allowed to get out of bed for an hour and decides to surprise Franz Joseph in his office at the exact moment Sophie decided to tell him about her condition, so she overhears everything including Sophie being like "yknow, since the empress is probably gonna die pretty soon and she hasnt produced an heir, we might wanna start looking into other women" which is so fucked up. But anyway, Franz Joseph sends her away and once he's alone he buries his head in his hands and starts crying, and he lets out such wonderfully pathetic little sobs it made me giggle and kick my feet. sighs dreamily. Men Suffering <3 (I mean that in a pervert way, not a terf way)

Then Elisabeth goes up to him and comforts him (shes using a different, hidden door than the one Sophie left through) and I liked that too, he doesnt hear her so he doesnt notice her approaching until she's already right next to him and gently puts a hand on his head, and it makes him kinda freeze up for a moment before he wipes away his tears and looks up to see that its Elisabeth, and hes still shocked for a moment and asks her how much she heard and she's like "I think Ive heard everything I had to hear" and then they hug and oughhhhhhh its a good scene. 10/10

Now, that other scene that I really like is one I like for how fucking insane it is. Its at the very start of the film, Elisabeth, Gyula and a bunch of his guys are doing a horserace and after being in the lead for a while, Elisabeth and Gyula lose the track and they basically just decide to give up and wander around together instead of joining back with the others. They walk and talk about how much they love hungary until they stumble upon a Romani camp where she hears a woman whos being beaten up by her husband cry for help. She walks up to them, yells at him and pushes him pretty hard and I think the husband slaps her in retaliation but Im not entirely sure. She definitely hits him with her riding crop and then the woman pours a bucket of water over, at which point Gyula finally intervenes and goes "HEY this is the queen of hungary". The woman and her husband both profusely apologize while Elisabeth just kinda laughs it off and walks away and as she's walking away, the husband starts beating the woman again.

Honestly, I dont think my description of that scene truly conveys how insane actually watching it was, it happens so suddenly and goes by so quickly, I literally yelped when the woman poured the bucket of water on her, a true roller coaster of emotion. That being said, as I was writing that down I realized that I felt weird saying that my favorite scene in this film is the one making a joke out of domestic violence, so I officially declare the other scene my favorite

And yeah, that's pretty much it for this one. It's a pretty flawed film but I liked it and I had a pretty good time watching it, I actually didnt feel any of that dread while watching (I mean, I was a little anxious because of the assassination-thing but I forgot about that pretty quickly). If I had to rank this trilogy from worst to best, the order would be: first film, third film, second film

[comicalfellow]

The full works:

Sissi - Filme im Ersten - ARD | Das Erste Sunday 25 December 2022 15:45 local time

Sissi, die junge Kaiserin - Filme im Ersten - ARD | Das Erste Sunday 25 December 2022 17:30 local time

Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin - Filme im Ersten - ARD | Das Erste Monday 26 December 2022 17:30 local time:

[archduchessofnowhere]

Episode 3 done, I just can't seem to get into this season's plotine. I don't know what is lacking, but I simply don't care about almost anything that's happening, and that's a problem. I say "almost", however, because surprisingly the only storyline that I'm truly liking so far is the Marie-Franz Josef plot, mainly because "Person that has never been a parent accidentally adopts a feral child" is one of my favorite tropes in fiction (I know FJ is a parent but we never really see him with his kids so it counts).

But the Hungarian plot is boringly predictable, and the Prussian conflict plot just boils down to "Bismarck is evil. This is the only reason the war is going to happen. Now let's talk about guns for like twenty minutes", and I don't care about either. Also they literally gave Helene the same plot that 1957 Sissi Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin I'm TIRED.

[dynamofilms]

Sissi – Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin/Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress (1957)

5/10

[historical-beauty-lily]

Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin (1957) dir. Ernst Marischka

[natalja1210]

[ornellamutis]

Romy Schneider as Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin / Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress (1957) dir. by Ernst Marischka.

[xellnikov]

if you see my happily watching a movie, it’s not because of a handsome man being in it, it’s because i’m watching the original sissi trilogy with romy schneider.

[leben-s-freude]

what i love best about the Sissi trilogy is how both Sissi and Franzl are both down SO bad for each other

[dolcesostenuto]

Cueillette de narcisses | Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin 1957

[sala66]

Romy Schneider en “El Destino de Sissi” (Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin), 1957

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Hey! I've been obsessed with Elisabeth: das Musical for a good while and one of the things I really like about it is the way it comments on Sissi-media. However, Im saying that as someone who really only knows about that media through cultural osmosis and hasnt really seen any of it. And since I'm gonna have a bunch of free time the next few weeks, I thought it would be interesting to watch all* the media about Elisabeth I can get my hands on and review it and just talk about my thoughts on it. I'm also gonna watch all* the Rudolf media I can find as part of this little project because, I might as well

*by 'all media' I mostly mean stuff like movies, series and stageplays, obviously I know there's books but I'm not really in a place where I can focus on reading a bunch of stuff, but I know that the trilogy is based on books, and if I can find free audiobooks online I'll listen to those

I also want to give a quick disclaimer that I'm not a history person, I know very little about all this, so I'm not gonna get too much into the historical accuracy of any of these pieces. I mean, maybe this whole thing will get me to do research into the actual history, I actually have been wanting to do that more since Ive started engaging with the Elisabeth das Musical fandom and seen all these people talk about how much reasearch they do for fanfics and stuff, and its making me feel a little left out ngl, but I struggle with actually doing that for reasons I dont really want to get into. Long story short, if I dont approach historical topics very carefully Im gonna end up with horrible intrusive thoughts that last for days, and I'd like to avoid that but I need to figure out how to do that first.

Anyway, that's pretty much it for now. I'll put everything I want to watch in order under the readmore. I'm pretty sure I got everything (that i can access atleast), but if you feel like Im missing anything please tell me, I want to be thorough and I would really appreciate it ^^

• Kaiserin Elisabeth von Österreich (1921)

• Elisabeth von Österreich (1931)

• The King Steps Out (1936)

• Mayerling (1936) (with english subtitles)

• L'Aigle à deux Têtes (1948) (with english subtitles)

• Le Secret de Mayerling (1949) (with german subtitles)

• Ludwig II. — Glanz und Ende eines Königs (1955)

• Sissi (1955)

• Kronprinz Rudolfs letzte Liebe (1956)

• Sissi, die junge Kaiserin (1956)

• Mayerling (1957)

• Sissi — Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin (1957)

• Mayerling (1968)

• Elisabeth Kaiserin von Österreich (1972)

• Ludwig (1973) (with german subtitles)

• Viza Privati, Pubbliche Virtú (1976) (with german subtitles)

• Der Kronprinz (1989)

• Sisi und der Kaiserkuß (1991)

• Elisabeth: das Musical (1992 Austrian proshot)

• Elisabeth: Ai to shi no Rondo (1996 Snow Troupe Proshot) (with english subs)

• Elisabeth: das Musical (2004 Hungarian proshot) (with english subs)

• Kronprinz Rudolfs letzte Liebe (longer original version split into two parts: Kronprinz Rudolf — der Rebell (Part 1) und Kronprinz Rudolf — Mayerling (Part 2), same as 'Kronprinz Rudolf — Sissi's einziger Sohn) (2006)

• Lissi und der wilde Kaiser (2007)

• Sisi (2009)

• Rudolf: Affaire Mayerling (2009)

• Sisi... und ich erzähle euch die Wahrheit (2012)

• Sisi (2021)

• The Empress (2021)

• Sisi & Ich (2023)

Media I am aware of but could not access:

• Leibfiaker Bratfisch/Day Geheimnis von Mayerling/Die Tragödie eines Prinzen (1919/1924-1925)

• Tragödie im Hause Habsburg/Der Prinz der Legende (1924) (<- I was very surprised that I wasnt able to find these two anywhere since theyre old silent films and would think they would be archived somewhere, and I couldve sworn Ive seen gifs or screenshots of Tragödie im Hause Habsburg on tumblr, so idk, if anyone could point me to where I could watch these, I would really appreciate it)

• The Last Half Hour: The Mayerling Story (1951)

• Sissi — Beuteljahre einer Kaiserin (1989)

• all the various Mayerling-shows by the Takarazuka revue

[malitasoledad]

Franz Joseph “Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin”

[gatutor]

Romy Schneider-Walther Reyer "El destino de Sissi" (Sissi-Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin) 1957, de Ernst Marischka.

[scarytheory]

2021 IN FILM

63) Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress (Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin, Ernst Marischka, Austria, 1957)