the terrified soul
by Douglas Messerli
István Szabó and Péter Dobai (screenplay,
based on the play A Patriot for Me by John Osborne), István Szabó
(director) Oberst Redl (Colonel Redl) / 1985
István Szabó’s 1985
film Colonel Redl may be loosely based on British playwright John
Osborne’s A Patriot for Me, but in tone and vision it is far closer to
Austrian novelist Joseph Roth’s classic fiction, Radetzky March, a
musical rendition of that military warhorse beginning and ending Szabó’s work
as a tribute to Roth’s novel.
Like the hero of Roth’s work, the central figure of Redl is a
product of a provincial territory in the last years of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, in this case from Galicia of Ruthenian
heritage.
As
Marjorie Perloff has made apparent in her excellent literary study Edge of
Irony: Modernism in the Shadow of the Habsburg Empire, Franz Joseph I and
his associates had worked to create major cultural and educational centers in
all of the vast Empire’s regions under the dual monarchy of Austria and
Hungary, including cities in Bohemia, Moravia, Bukovina, Transylvania, Banat,
Croatia-Slovenia, Carniola, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Silesia, Galicia, and other
territories.
Indeed it was, in part, the very success of the cultural and educational
institutions that it established which brought about its eventual downfall, in
which, so Szabó’s film posits, Alfred Redl, who ultimately became the head of
the Evidenzbureau, the counter-espionage branch of the government, was
partially responsible—even though the scandal of his traitorous actions which
brought about his death by suicide on May 25, 1913, occurred more than a year
before the assassination in June 1914 of the Franz Joseph’s heir, the Archduke
Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo.
Looking in hindsight at the entire career of Redl, as Szabó basically
does, it appears that we might almost check-off a list of basic failures of the
Austro-Hungarian government and Redl himself to comprehend how this highly
patriotic and yet often clumsy stickler to government protocol helped to bring
down the world he most desired to represent.
Yet
to do this properly, something I am afraid, that lies outside my knowledge and
capabilities, we would have to be able to completely separate the man’s own
foibles and the myths created by the Austrian-Hungarian government itself in
their attempts to explain and simultaneously mystify Redl’s actions by the
scheming Archduke and his supporters.
A
bit like Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane the director of Oberst Redl seems
to suggest that the roots, at least, of Redl’s downfall lay in his childhood
upbringing in those excellent schools which focused on the eminence of Franz
Joseph and the Empire in general, views strongly reinforced by his poor mother
and father, a railroad clerk. The young Alfred (performed here as an adult by
Klaus Maria Brandauer) was a talented student, writing his own poetic tribute
to the Emperor, for which he was commended, working hard to become one of the
best students in his school.
If
only the young Alfred were not such a good student that, even without the
usually required wealthy connections, he was accepted into a prestigious
military academy where he almost immediately became close friends with Kristóf
Kubinyi (Jan Niklas), whose aristocratic Hungarian parents invited him for
holidays. Luxuriating in the wealth and refinement of their home and in the
beauty of Kristof’s sister, Katalin (Gudrun Landgrebe), he was made to feel
even more embarrassed for his own upbringing in Galacia, hiding the truth about
his humble homelife by
pretending to be of born into a Hungarian-born
family who had lost its fortune.
If
only Kristóf were not such a daredevil, seeking out adventuress excursions with
his friend, including, as they grew older, a visit to a brothel in which it
became clear that Redl is more interested in watching Kristóf have sex rather
than becoming himself involved with a woman.
In
the screen version, his budding homosexual relationship goes nowhere, however,
as his friend, a confirmed heterosexual also pushes away from Redl through his
political values. As the Hungarians increasingly become more nationalistic,
Kristóf and his colleagues argue for throwing off the yoke of the Habsburg
rule, while Redl, true to his youthful ideals, grows even more patriotic and
faithful to the man he sees as his benefactor, Franz Joseph—a viewpoint as mistaken,
in some senses, as Charles Dicken’s Pip’s belief that Miss Haversham is behind
his educational successes.
Frustrated in his would-be love of Kristóf, Redl attempts to attend to
the attractions to Katalin—a predictable way to remain within his would-be
lover’s family orbit while tempering his obvious attraction to her brother.
Katalin accepts his modest attempts to woo her, but also has no
illusions about her role in their relationship. Indeed, she is even more
sexually open-minded than her brother, admitting to having seduced stable-boys
even as a young girl, and making it clear to Redl that she knows that it is her
brother with whom Alfred would rather be sharing his bed.
Kristóf, meanwhile, involves Alfred as his second in a meaningless duel
between him and another military student, which ends in that man’s death,
jeopardizing both Kubinyi’s and Redl’s career.
Partially as punishment for their actions, the two are assigned to serve
in a garrison on the border of Russia, where, because of its unimportance to
the Empire, discipline has nearly been eradicated. Obviously, the
serious-minded Redl stands out in this backwater location, raising eyebrows
only when he frequents a bar run by a local Rabbi. To me, Redl’s act is a quiet
means of expressing his sense of being an outsider of the normative values of a
society in which he so desperately desires to be part.
When
the garrison’s commanding officer readies to retire, he recommends Redl for his
position, in which the younger is quite apt, while nonetheless antagonizing the
other officers, including Kristóf who feels superior simply by his birth.
Redl’s criticism for his friend’s behavior leads to Kubinyi
mocking Redl’s lowly origins, which in Szabó’s vision, as I have suggested, is
more at the heart of the Colonel’s later treason than his homosexuality.
It may be of some interest
here to express how the cultured centers of the Empire perceived the Ruthenians, also designated as Rusyns or the people of
Rus, suggesting their linkage to Russia and the Ukraine, particularly since
their language was a variation of Ukrainian generally referred as East
Ukrainian. As scholar Martin Mutschlechner reminds us:
Depending on the observer’s point of view,
these mountain country folk and farmers of the Carpathian region were subsumed
by Poles, Slovaks or Ukrainians. They were regarded as “exotic” among the
peoples of the Habsburg Monarchy; on account of their archaic way of life
ethnographers tended to view them from a perspective of presumed,
quasi-colonialist superiority and described them as if they were non-European
“aboriginal tribes.”
Is
it any wonder that Redl, the supreme patriot, is embarrassed by his heritage?
If
only the commanding officer, Colonel von Roden (Hans Christian Blech), having
recognized Redl’s attention to detail and his utter loyalty to the Habsburg
Empire, had not helped him to get promoted to an important assignment in Vienna
as the deputy director of the Intelligence Service.
Indeed, it is somewhat puzzling why von Roden continued to support
Redl’s career for many years, particularly since his protégé’s homosexual
inclinations had long been observed by military leaders and come to the
attention of the Ukrainians and Russians.
As
Alfred and Katalin ride through the park in celebration of his new position,
she points out the figure of Franz Joseph walking nearby in the mist. One of
the most touching moments of this film occurs when Alfred asks for the
horsecart to be turned back, but realizes that he might have nothing of
importance to say to his paternal hero.
Since Alfred’s sexuality is now discussed openly, Katalin suggests that
Redl marry her friend, Clarissa, who suffering from poor health is quite happy
to remain in a basically non-sexual relationship with him.
Despite the rumors, however, and the increased grumbling of his
associates for his harsh implementation of military rules, Redl’s endless
devotion to the Empire results in more awards and decorations, drawing the
attention of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who, scheming for a way that will
awaken the government to the increasing speculations about overthrowing the
Emperor, sets up an aging Ukrainian officer to be arrested by Redl, now
Intelligence Director, in order to agitate the army to throw off their
complacency. The plot fails, however, when the man is accidently shot to death
by one of Redl’s own men.
Later readdressing the urgency of the matter, the Archduke explains why
whoever Redl might pick as the fall guy cannot be a Hungarian, given that the
Empire is a dual-monarchy, that it cannot a Croat for fear of starting a
revolution in that part of the Empire, etc. No, he argues, it must be someone
from one of the most distant parts of the Habsburg community, Galacia, perhaps
a Ruthenian, he concludes, sending Redl back into his homeland to discover such
a person.
Obviously, the fall guy, Redl soon perceives, is to be himself.
At
a grand ball—at which nearly everyone present is openly discussing the end of
the Empire—Alfred is discretely introduced by a friend to a handsome Italian,
who waits for him as he leaves. The two obviously enjoy a lovely night of sex
before they take a walk in the snowy forest nearby, with the Intelligence
Office confronting the Italian about his intentions and the woman who had
introduced them. In short, he has seen through the man’s ruse, and in
rapid-fire outrage names all the Austrian garrisons and the numbers of those
who man them and the quantity of weapons they contain.
To
have assimilated this information the Italian would have to be as capably
orally as someone with a photographic memory. But for the director’s purposes
it is all evidence that Redl long ago recognized that he must give up his life
in order to permit the Empire’s survival.
On
the morning of May 1913, he was presented with a gun by his beloved friend Kubinyi,
who waited outside until Redl gained the courage to shoot himself.
Unfortunately, in his attempt to implicate Ruthenia as Redl’s version of
Kane’s “Rosebud,” Szabó has played with a slightly stacked deck of cards. In
truth, Alfred Redl was not at all Ruthenian, but of German-Czech stock, and, as
the son of a senior employee of the railroads, grew up in family of the middle
class. His sister, far from being a poor peasant woman as portrayed in the
film, was a schoolteacher.
Rather than being exposed by an Italian seducer, Redl had for years been
a paid spy of the Imperial Russian government who themselves had blackmailed
him for his homosexuality.
As Richard Grenier, exploring the facts and fiction of the real Redl’s
life in The New York Times observes:
“Redl was nothing if not audacious. Letters indicate that he was deeply
in love with a young cavalry officer in Austria's 7th Uhlans, the Empire's most
fashionable cavalry unit, and that he kept this officer in the highest style:
horses, custom-made Daimlers (at three times a colonel's yearly pay), a
sumptuous apartment—all paid for with Russian money. He took the young officer
with him even on some official occasions, introducing him as his nephew.
“Redl's passion for the cavalry officer did not, however, prevent
dalliance with other partners. After his suicide, members of the General Staff
who broke into his residence, which reeked of women's perfume, found not only
photocopies of top-secret Austrian battle plans but also cosmetics, pomades,
dyes, a curling iron, women's silk stockings and photographs of Redl and other
male Austrian officers, nude or in women's clothing, engaging in a variety of
sexual practices.”
Of
course, these last reports may simply have been part of the Archduke’s attempts
to stir up yet more outrage from the Empire’s populace. On the other hand, some
historians also argue that Franz Ferdinand was not at all involved in a plot
against Redl.
And, of course, the US itself has had a head of Intelligence who was not
only involved in a homosexual relationship but enjoyed, in private company,
dressing up in drag.
Certainly, the general public and the intelligentsia of Redl’s time were
shocked by the revelations. The young author Stefan Zweig is said to have
“started up with terrified soul,” he later proclaimed, knowing that war was now
certain.
Los Angeles, September 9, 2020
Reprinted from World Cinema Review and My
Queer Cinema blog (September 2020).
