«The Magic Mountain» by Director Hans Geisendorfer, Germany/Austria/Italy/France, 1982. In roles: Werner Ikhorn, Rod Steiger, Marie-France Pizier, Charles Aznavour and others.
In 1982, an ambitious and visually impeccable attempt was made to move the Magic Mountain to the film screen. The director, known for his loyalty to literary first-hand sources, approached the novel with almost reverential precision.
The main achievement of the picture was the re-establishment of the hypnotic world of the Berghof sanatorium. Through endless corridors, snowed balconies, and the overall tedious rhythm of Guisendorfer’s life, he’s very good at transmitting the sense of time.
But it is in the field of ideas that the main difficulty of filming lies. The novel is built on grand-scale dialogue-teams, but the film struggles with the direct transmission of philosophical debates. The inner world of the hero remains largely behind the frame: the film only gives hints how and why it changes.