The adventures of Baron Münchhausen: the creation of a literary myth and its first german film version

Abstract

The Baron of Múnchhausen, literary myth, who was born in Germany and who ¡s very known in the universal culture, comes to us like a character, who tells his life transformed into a lie full of fantastic adventures, which make enjoy and laugh. The archetyp which it represents ¡is the "miles gloriosus' That however exists yet in the Literature of Occident; in the same way many of the topics of his adventures take us to the phantastic literature, that it is very well known too. His atractiveness for all publics, specially childhood and youth, provoked that in spite of ¡ts birth in literature, would spring to other artistic disciplines like cinema. In the two spaces there is at the same time many versions and adaptations. In the present work ¡t will be done a comparative analyse between the literary version, which it gave universal fame to the myth —the German work of Búrger (1786)—, and the first German filmic version, which it was filmed in 1943 by Josef von Báky. This was considered during many years like the classical version of the myth. Its screenplay was adapted by Erich Kástner, other outstanding writer for the history of the literature written in German language.