Mephisto

Though Szabo's fable takes place at the beginning of the Nazi era, it may also be considered as an incisive metaporhical commentary on the director's experiences in Stalinist Hungary. The story of Hendrik Hofgen, provincial actor turned cultural beacon by the watchdogs of the Third Reich, is based, in part, on Klaus Mann's 1939 roman a clef about the life of prominent actor Gustav Grundgens and his faustian accomodations to the Nazis. Hofgen is overjoyed when Germany's Prime Minister, enthralled with his performance as Mephistopheles, confers upon him celebrity status and the directorship of the Prussian State Theater. Though troubled by the mysterious deaths of colleagues, the forced exile of his black mistress and the eventual estrangement of his theatrical designer wife, Hendrik craves the honorifics of his position. For the unsuspecting Hofgen, however, the price of fame is peonage to the system's megalomanic and unrelenting spotlight. (Does not circulate).