Film version of a work by Arthur Schnitzler

The expressive and artistic capabilities of cinema were, from the very beginning, understood by a number of the most important writers of Vienna and Mitteleuropa at the turn of the century. In particular, Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), one of the most important Austrian writers of this century, grasped the importance of the new art form and helped in the transposition of his own work for the cinema. This paper examines the first film version of Schnitzler's Schauspiel, the Liebelei, which was carried out after the introduction of sound in 1933, by the German director Max Ophuls. The film and its subtitled Italian version offer the chance of a double comparison: from "original" play to film, and from original German text to Italian subtitles. Influences, variations and common elements in the two systems are examined without, however, introducing any judgment or evaluations. On the contrary, the comparison allows the author to point out that the specificities of each system do not hinder substantially similar versions in terms both of dialogue and characterization.