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GRUNDGEN’S SCHRITT VOM WEGE AND KAUTNER’S KLEIDER MACHEN LEUTE 239
share the same face.11 The mirror-imagery of Weimar fantasy also recurs
when, in the Goldach inn, Wenzel’s reflection ‘magically’ makes his tail-
or’s thimble vanish and executes a carefree flourish with his liberated right
hand. In what one might deem Kautner’s version of the Lacanian mirror-
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stage – a more explicit restaging of the events of the Seldwyla opening –
Wenzel will watch the transformation pensively, then imitate his own
false image.
No longer the victim of a firm’s ‘Falliment’ depicted by Keller, Wenzel
is dismissed for recutting the mayor’s frock-coat to his own measure,
appropriates it in lieu of docked wages, then takes to the road cheerily
singing ‘Ein Schneider, der muß wandern, es kann nicht anders sein’; off
and on the film will present itself as a musical. While sheltering from
wintry weather he meets a puppet master, Christoffel, another addition to
Keller’s story, who halts a coach sent to convey a Russian nobleman and
whispers to the coachman that Wenzel is the said count, whatever his prot-
estations to the contrary. As the coach trundles away Christoffel chortles
over his successful god-like intervention. The image of Wenzel on the road
begins Keller’s story, and so Kautner’s preamble ends here.
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On arrival in Goldach the innkeeper regales Wenzel with his finest victu-
als while fascinated local dignitaries misread his stammers and pale embar-
rassment as laudable aristocratic restraint. At this point, though, a new
plot-line is interwoven with Keller’s, introducing several traditional comic
motifs, particularly that of the parallel love affair. Shortly after Wenzel’s
arrival a lady steeped in Romantic pretensions peers down from an upper
inn-window. Seraphina, a firm believer in astrology and long-time corre-
spondent of the Russian count, has arranged to meet him at Goldach.
One glance at Wenzel confirms his supposed identity and her infatuation.
The real count’s subsequent arrival prompts expectations of Wenzel’s
unmasking, but the Russian surprisingly calls himself Stroganoff (the ste-
reotypical name being the sure signifier of populist entertainment, and his
servant’s name – unsurprisingly – is Ivan), identifying himself as Wenzel’s
manservant. Has the sight of Seraphina determined him against involve-
ment with her, making him seize the chance to palm her off on the tailor?
No clear motive is given, and one can only guess. Only much later, after
Wenzel’s rejection of Seraphina, will Stroganoff reveal that her ability to
mistake a tailor for himself had amused and wounded him, leading him
to support Wenzel’s imposture.
Despite the prologue’s establishing Wenzel’s vehement desires – for
love, and for social elevation – Kautner’s Kleider machen Leute consistently
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exonerates him, presenting him as trapped. The puppeteer sets up the
11 Richard J. Rundell (‘Keller’s “Kleider Machen Leute” as Novelle and Film’, Die Unterrichtspraxis,
13/2 (Fall 1980), 160) describes this fantasy sequence as ‘delightful’, seeing nothing problematic
in it. Although Rundell’s account of the film notes the imprint of historical circumstances in the
elimination of Wenzel’s Polishness, to my mind it underestimates the presence of ideology, which
does not simply determine one or two elements but dictates the entire structure of devices inserted
to minimise Wenzel’s responsibility.
Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000.