Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico

View transcript: Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico

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PRIME TIME. Late edition.
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MAXIMILIAN, EMPEROR OF MEXICO
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Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, brother of Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria, was abandoned by his European allies / Maximilian was arrested and executed according to martial law by command of Benito Juarez / Maximilian’s fate inspired people’s imagination like the death of Louis XVI, Ceausescu, Emperess Sissi and others.
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Maximilian
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2 3 4 5 6 7 17
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The court that convicted Maximilian - - 8 9 10 11 12 13
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The dead emperor
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The dead emperor
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The last survivor of this squad - -
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The Mexican director Dana Rodberg about Emperor Maximilian
Alexander Kluge
If you could describe the era of Emperor Maximilian. It wasn’t much more than 130 years ago, after all. Dana Rodberg (via translator): No, it’s not that far away. It’s an era that speaks a lot of this spirit, this divided spirit, as I call it, this … The Mexicans have just won an important national battle, and the only thing that they can think of is to bring in an emperor from Austria, instead of …
Kluge
Who owns a beautiful little palace near Triest, right? Rodberg (via translator): And they took this prince and uprooted him and planted him in Mexico with the queen and the servants …
Kluge
A little like in a fairy tale. Rodberg (via translator): …and with all the clothes…
Kluge
A French army. Straight from the World Fair a French army marches in. Rodberg (via translator): And arrives in Mexico, and a big part of the people welcomed him with open arms. They don’t really understand that this is actually an invasion.
Kluge
But why is Mexico not happy now? Rodberg (via translator): Because that’s not us.
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Dana Rodberg What does an Austrian king have to do with us? Nothing. What does an Austrian king have to do with us? Nothing. He’s a pawn that doesn’t work, that doesn’t have anything to do with the Mexican mentality … that’s why a president had to come, an indigenous president, dark-skinned, short, with completely different facial features…
Kluge
So then Benito Juarez arrives. Yes. And what does he look like? Rodberg (via translator): He’s short. He’s dark-skinned. He has indigenous features, he has Indian features. Very black eyes. And with straight hair, with his hair sticking up …
Kluge
His hair sticking up? Rodberg (via translator): Well, because it’s very thick hair, bristle hair, they stand … it’s the anti-thesis of the European ideal of beauty.
Kluge
So Mongoloid hair that sticks up and that you can’t part. Rodberg (via translator): Like a porcupine.
Kluge
Like a porcupine. And he’s from the countryside. Rodberg (via translator): He’s a farmer.
Kluge
He’s a farmer. Rodberg (via translator): He’s a farmer from Oaxaca. And in the beginning, he didn’t even know how to speak Spanish. And he taught himself… and he came to power all by himself. And this character… a hundred percent Mexican to the core, he was the only one who, with this Habsburg monarchy in Mexico …
Kluge
And he defeats Maximilian. Yes. He has him killed. Yes. Rodberg (via translator): He shoots him.
Kluge
And how did he die himself? Rodberg (via translator): He was killed too.
Kluge
By whom? Rodberg (via translator): By the next one. Durch die nächste Bewegung, die an die Macht wollte.
Kluge
And from that time on… one case of corruption after another.
Rodberg (via translator)
Yes, corruption. Corruption always existed. But more than corruption in this case …
Kluge
But Juarez isn’t corrupt.
Rodberg (via translator)
No. Juarez was a man of incredible integrity. Juarez was the only one who managed to separate church and state. The church owned all the land, and he took the land from the church and gave it to those who worked on it, the farmers.
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Translation: Elena Alvarez He was a person of incredible courage and dignity. A very complex man, Juarez. Because on the other hand, he admired a lot of things about Maximilian very much. But he was an enemy. An invader.
Kluge
If Benito Juarez were to return, would he have a majority on his side? Rodberg (via translator): Yes, I think so. Because it’s been a long time since we had a leader, since we had a caudillo, we don’t have anyone who could represent the Mexican with dignity. Juarez … that would be wonderful!
Kluge
Could you tell me what your impression of Maximilian of Mexico is, and the history? First of all, is that a story you could dramatize, is it dramatic?
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Heiner Müller, playwright
Heiner Müller
There’s an existing play by Franz Werfel entitled, “Juarez und Maximilian”. And of course I am on Juarez’ side, no question, because of course Werfel as an Austrian has turned Maximilian into a Jesus figure, and that also shows in the picture.
Kluge
A technical officer, the younger brother of a relatively aggressive, military-minded emperor …
Müller
But he also was a still pubescent young man who …
Kluge
… loved sailboats …
Müller
… loved sailboats, and it was possible to make him think that he had a mission, a humanitarian mission.
Kluge
And here comes someone whom Marx always called – what did he call him? The constable, yes. He being the one, the police officer, whom the bourgeoisie needs to turn its power into a real dictatorship, that’s Napoleon the Third, right. With an heir’s certificate at hand.
Müller
That guy, who plays Napoleon, who probably plays The First …
Kluge
He plays Napoleon the First …
Müller
An actor.
Kluge
Yes, an actor.
Müller
And that actor always wants to be a director, and as such he stages Maximilian in Mexico now.
Kluge
A huge event for the media. Yes. For World Fairs.
Müller
And the staging did turn out well indeed. But what I find interesting is – this may be off-topic, but – I was in Bucharest, I think six or nine months ago, I hadn’t been there before, and this Hollywood-Babel that Ceausescu was trying to have built there, that’s insane.
Kluge
Not Stalinist, but in a Chinese manner.
Müller
Not just Chinese …
Kluge
A kind of its own.
Müller
It’s Babel and Hollywood. It’s complete madness. It’s all deserted now and is in the process of decay, and so … but it’s great as a concept. Complete madness. Okay. Well, we went to visit that, we were a delegation of some organization for cross-cultural friendship and stuff. Then we were at the oldest orthodox church in Bucharest, and a delegation of elderly women was just busy lighting candles for the bereaved, or the dead. And then an old woman came to us, she had heard someone speaking French. She came with a candle and said – she was a translator, too – and asked: Could you tell me where the sanctuary or the temple of Jeanne d’Arc is.
Kluge
What?
Müller
Jeanne d’Arc.
Kluge
In Bucharest?
Müller
No, where it was in France. Because she’d heard French.
Kluge
Was she a Romanian woman?
Müller
Yes, she was this old, wrinkly Romanian: Where is the temple of Jeanne d’Arc? Well, why do you want to know? Well, I want to light a candle for Jeanne d’Arc at her temple or sanctuary. And why? Because, Jeanne d’Arc saved the monarchy. Und was wir brauchen ist die Monarchie. Und das war so einleuchtend, ne, für Rumänen: They need a monarch – and I am totally serious about this – who takes over business for two, three, four years, and then he is assassinated, and then they can start doing something else. First I need an interim figure …
Kluge
The point of departure …
Müller
Yes, that’s the only way it works.
Kluge
The century gets detention, it needs to be repeated.
Müller
Exactly, I think so. It’s basically the same for Russia, too. It only works with a monarchy. If you turn that on its head now … in what people think of as democracy or stuff here … it’s a complete disaster. You need a figure to relate to, who doesn’t have anything to do with reality.
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120 years earlier: Emperor Napoleon the Third appoints the poor Maximilian Emperor of Mexico.
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Maximilian’s vest after the execution (bullet holes)
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Better days: Emperor Franz Joseph and his brother Maximilian
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The carriage that takes Maximilian to the place of execution–
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The confessors
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“At the bottom of the hill, the carriage stopped, since the car door could not be opened, His Majesty jumped out of the window and told his servant Tidos in Hungarian: Do you believe now that they are going to shoot me?”
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MAXIMILIAN, EMPEROR OF MEXICO
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PRIME TIME. Late edition