Original subtitles

The life of the Jewish insurance official,

factory owner and writer from Prague,

Dr Franz Kafka, lasted 40 years and 11 months.

He died of laryngeal tuberculosis in a sanatorium near Vienna.

He visited Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Paris,

Milan, Venice, Verona, Vienna and Budapest.

He saw the ocean a total of three times:

the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Italian Adriatic.

Dr Franz Kafka remained unmarried.

He had love affairs with six women that we know of,

most of them very brief.

He also had intimate contact with an unknown number of prostitutes.

His literary work consists of 350 pages of completed texts,

as well as ten times as many fragments, letters and diaries.

When he died, the instructions he left for his friend Max Brod...

The final thing he requested Max Brod to do...

You have to destroy everything. Nothing must remain.

Did you actually carry out his instructions?

No, we have to 'start elsewhere.

Max, you'll have to use the second suitcase.

- We don't have any others. - It's full. You know what's in it.

- Yes, but our things... - The train won't wait.

1939. Dr Franz Kafka has been dead for 15 years.

- Sorry. - Sorry.

This is the last train from Prague to Poland.

- Seats 33 and 35. - Max, wait. Max.

These are our seats. Please vacate our seats.

No need to get upset, Mr Brod!

- You know me? - I've read your book on Tycho Brahe.

- What do you think will happen? - Nothing will happen.

President Hacha is with Hitler.

While they're negotiating, nothing can happen.

From your lips to God's ears.

Half a lifetime earlier,

the well-known writer and his not-so-well-known friend

are travelling to Italy.

Shall we write a novel together, about our trip?

I'm not sure.

To be a writer, you have to write!

I do write.

- So write more! - Then it won't be good.

It'll be good enough.

Good enough?

Good enough...

- What the hell's going on? - Nothing, Elsa.

At the last station, they told me the Germans have taken Olomouc!

- You're meshuga! Sit down. - You'll see, you schmuck!

Why are you spreading rumours, you ganef?

- Max, did you hear that? - I told you, Hacha is with Hitler.

Nothing will happen for a few days.

Why would he invade while he's negotiating?

- Max, think about what Hitler... - Elsa, I know what I'm talking about.

Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.

I couldn't sleep last night.

Being in a strange room isn't good for me.

You were snoring. I tried to wake you up.

- I sleep very deeply. - I noticed. Enviable.

I'm awakened by every breeze.

Since I had trouble sleeping, Max,

and since one always works..best at night...

- I work best in the afternoon. - No, it has to be night.

And even the night isn't-night enough. Anyway...

Yes?

Since I couldn't sleep? I worked on our novel.

- Franz, that's great. - No, it's very bad.

- It didn't, go well? - Unfortunately, not at all.

- Must you do that every morning? - You've seen me do it

Yes, but do you have to?

I showed you the Muller brochure. Those who don't Muller-get sick.

- S@ do those who Muller. - Yes, that’s true.

Those who Muller get sick too.

Maybe we should write travel guides instead of the novel.

- We'll write both. - At the same time?

Of course! The more you write, the easier it gets.

- I'm worried Jitka may be pregnant.

You just said you're so relieved that she can't have children.

- Thpt's the other one. - Luzia?

No, no.

So you’re not worried about Luzia getting pregnant?

No, I am. I couldn't imagine anything worse.

Maybe you should be less sociable.

I'm just in love with all of them.

I don’t understand how you manage. You rarely need a woman.

When you do pick one up in a wine bar, you actually take her out.

Everyone sees you, and you don't mind.

You talk to her as if she was... As if it wasn't embarrassing.

Why not, Max? I talk to you too.

What's that look for?

Do you really have to chew for that long?

Horace Fletcher says you should chew 40 times before you swallow.

- That way the digestive process... - I know.

You've already explained, but it's so exhausting watching you.

Now you sound like my father.

I can't watch him. The way that boy eats... I can't!

Calm down, Hermann. It's just the way Franz is.

If that's how he likes it, Dad...

I can't watch him! He looks like a rabbit!

I can't stand it.

Don't serve so slowly, you cow, everything's getting cold!

Don't worry, my father doesn't mean it that way.

Of course I mean it!

Sir, look!

Did you see that man just now? He had a gold tooth.

- So? - Nothing.

I just thought that a gold tooth is really useful for describing someone,

however vague the rest of the impression.

You just write "gold tooth" and there he is.

Every single window

is painted with the recurring colour of a dress.

- Of a dress? - Ochre marine, for example.

Streets like this make your legs come apart.

Why the legs?

Our guidebook should include a chapter on shoes.

Avoid wear and tear on your shoes,

otherwise it gets costly.

Go away!

Hi, gorgeous.

You have to feel sorry for a dog like that.

- Why? - No one respects him and...

Thank you.

Yes?

We need to escape our offices.

Me from the insurance institute, you from the post office.

- The real way out is by rope. - Are we tightrope walkers?

No, it's stretched just above the ground.

More a tripwire than a tightrope.

Listening to you, you'd think there's no hope at all sometimes.

No, there is hope. An infinite amount, but...

- But? - Not for us.

Yes, he's difficult to understand.

He demands a lot and gives almost nothing in return.

Sometimes, Max Brod, the famous writer, is exhausted.

Sometimes, he feels as if he should give up on his friend.

- But... - Nonsense!

You might as well admit it to yourself, Max.

Sometimes you're so close...

I don't know you, sir, and I have nothing to...

Ostrava!

Max, can you hear me?

Max! Max?

Passports.

I told you!

I told you.

Passports.

- Have the Germans invaded? - What do you think?

Things will be different here from now on.

Great days are beginning for us German Czechs.

- Is the train allowed through? - We'll see.

Do you have anything to declare?

Open the suitcase.

- What's that? - Nothing.

"Nothing"?

A friend's manuscripts. He bequeathed them to me.

He bequeathed you his scribbles?

Are they valuable?

- They are to me. - I mean financially.

He asked me to burn them. That's how valuable they are.

Max!

But instead you're taking them with you?

You're leaving the country, with a suitcase full of scribbles?

What can I say, Inspector? He was my best friend.

"And now I leapt, as if it were not the first time,

onto the shoulders of my acquaintance..."

"And by digging my fists into his back,

"I urged him into a trot.

"But as he continued to stomp reluctantly

"and sometimes even stopped,

"I jabbed him in the belly several times with my boots,

"in order to liven him up.

"It had the desired effect, and we proceeded with good speed ever deeper

"into a vast but as yet unfinished region,

in which it was evening."

- "Unfinished region"? - Yes.

Are you sure? Yes.

That's ridiculous. "Unfinished region"!

Wasn't he right in the head, your best friend?

I don't understand it, but it's good.

What do you think, Max?

I think...

What, Max? What do you think?

It's the best thing I've ever heard.

You're right it really is worthless.

Like I said.

- So will the train be allowed through? - You can cross this border.

This border crossing was just for you.

Now that you've crossed it, it'll be closed.

Excuse me?

I said you were lucky.

- This is the last train. - The last one?

The border will be shut.

Take them away.

Denial of the will is the exit

through which we can recognise the same suffering in everything.

They met on 23 October 1902.

If we had to determine the day

when the century's literature changed forever,

then it'd probably be

the day Franz Kafka met the man who would save his work from destruction.

On 23 October 1902, Kafka wasn't yet a doctor,

nor a writer.

His fellow student Max, a year younger than him,

had just given a lecture on Schopenhauer.

Schopenhauer says the will isn’t only the fundamental fact of the world,

but also the principle of individuation.

No, we have to start elsewhere.

There’s something you need to know about Max.

His spinal curvature. We have to start with that.

The fact that he was actually condemned to a life as a hunchback,

to an existence on the margins as a disabled person,

as a cripple, forgive the word, that's what they said in those days.

- But his mother wouldn't have it. - Max, come!

He was swathed in parental love like a prince in his purple robe.

Slow down, Max. A little more feeling.

He was given piano lessons. He was gifted.

He consequently became a writer and philosopher,

and also a virtuoso and music theorist,

among other things.

Above all he was passionate, warm-hearted,

easily inspired, not terribly profound,

and, all in all, let's be honest, we have to be honest...

His ambition was somewhat greater than his talent. -

But he was. ambitious!

- Dr Schnitzler? - Yes, how can I help?

- The great writer? - Probably. My brother isn't here.

My name's Brod.

Sorry to disturb you, but this is part of a novel I've written.

What?

If you could read it, I'd consider it the greatest honour.

Who was that?

When Max went to university, he joined the debating society

and immediately, that is on 23 October 1902,

that great date that changed the history of literature forever,

gave his first lecture.

Nietzsche's criticism of Schopenhauer is unacceptable!

It's based on vanity and competitiveness.

Nietzsche is a swindler!

Questions later please!

Forgive me, Mr Brod, you're not really claiming

that Nietzsche's criticism of Schopenhauer

stems solely from base motives?

That no philosophical considerations whatsoever entered into it?

That's exactly what I'm claiming, and I'll prove it!

If there's only the will,

why does it cast itself in worldly form?

Why isn't it just the will?

Schopenhauer says the will must recognise itself,

or it would have nothing to want.

- But it's blind. - Not so blind that it can't want.

That night, the two of them walked back and forth, back and forth.

Max accompanied Franz to his flat, then Franz accompanied Max to his flat,

then Max accompanied Franz to his flat again.

That night neither of them would sleep.

And since then, like it or not,

there is no Brod without Kafka, and no Kafka without Brod.

And what later became known to posterity as the "Prague Circle"

was basically nothing other than Max Brod's three best friends.

The insurance clerk Kafka, the blind piano teacher Baum,

and the editor Weltsch.

- I don't see anything. - Yes, right there.

In reality, posterity never actually called them the Prague Circle.

You know who called them that?

The only one who did, in his book The Prague Circle?

I did! So what? The Prague Circle, that was us, what's the problem?

And so here's the Prague Circle,

celebrating as 1910 becomes 1911.

The world is stable, war is a thing of the past,

progress is inevitable.

And Halley's comet is resplendent in the sky.

There's nothing there.

Maybe it's good if it doesn't show.

Astronomers say it could graze the Earth.

- 1911 is an ominous date. - Any date is ominous.

Do you see anything, Baum?

- Nothing. - Baum doesn't see anything either.

- Of course Baum doesn’t see anything. - What are you implying?

What am I implying? Baum is blind.

That's not nice, Brod.

A little more sensitivity would do you good sometimes, Max.

But he knows he's blind. It's not as if I called him ugly.

Did you hear that?

Brod, what did Baum ever do to you?

Now he's calling me ugly.

Still nothing.

We came all the way up here for this stupid old comet.

- I was sweating. - Why did you even come?

- For the comet of course! - But it's not coming.

I'll write a strongly-worded article.

- A bad review about the comet? - I don't mince words.

- They won't know what hit them. - Who?

I bet they'll blame the Jews.

Shall we get going?

Yes, it's not coming today.

But the Prague Circle doesn't just look for comets.

It also makes regular excursions to the brothel.

Cheers.

I'll just say it, brothels were commonplace at that time.

Almost all young men went there,

and many poor young women worked there in order not to starve.

Surely you can manage something more original, Weltsch,

than just "cheers'"?

I'm not a poet. In fact, I'm the only one here who isn't a poet,

therefore I can say whatever I want.

I welcome every platitude. Every threadbare thought is my friend.

Thank you, Mitzi!

But the true poet here, the heavenly high schooler,

does he have nothing to present?

- I think she means you, Werfel. - I always have something to present!

There must be some benefit of poets coming here.

- We want to hear something too. - Fine.

The friends who converse with me.

So oft discontented,

now in joyous radiance.

They wander my fine countenance.

Arm in arm,

ennobled souls.

Alas, my face that dignity can't hold.

And earnestness and equanimity will not suffice.

Because a thousand smiles in renewed flights.

Upon its heavens eternally unfold.

I am a procession on a sunlit square.

A summer's festival with women and bazaars.

My eye breaks from too much illumination.

Upon the grass, I shall sit down.

And ride with the earth into the evening far.

Oh, earth, evening, happiness...

To be in the world!

Bravo.

That was lovely, Franz.

Especially all the sunlit squares and stuff.

It's good, isn't it? It took me a while.

That was wonderful.

Enough poetry now, friends.

There's a time for words, and a time for silence.

Every day, I walk past the brothel

as though it were the house of a beloved.

You say nice things too, but they don't rhyme.

Rhyme is the shore upon which they're landing.

Where two thoughts reach an understanding.

That's beautiful. And it rhymes too.

If it didn't rhyme, it'd be wrong.

Did you write that?

Unfortunately not. If it were mine, it wouldn't rhyme.

When I put sentences together,

the rhyme disappears and hides in a corner.

Then let's go and find it, Franz.

The great thing about these>girls is that they don't get pregnant.

Really?

I mean, if they do, it's not my problem.

While Jitka has given me another fright.

For 10 days, she was unsure.

How did you do with the girl? You haven't told me.

Look, that gentleman's killing himself.

Look.

No, really.

Now they're getting him out. Why are they doing that?

He should be left in peace if he really wants to kill himself.

Franz, help me! Franz!

Let me through. We need to give him artificial respiration.

- You didn't even try to help! - You didn't even try to look.

The way his features jumped at the exact moment...

He confronted the extreme.

- Then he needs help. - He needs us to look him in the eye.

- That's not human. - But we're writers, Max.

So?

Our eyes are more important than our hands.

At the decisive moment, it's important we see,

see everything, outside, inside, day, night.

You know I work differently.

You need it.

The-darkness, the stepping back, the cold gaze.

But my poems, my novels, aren't they good enough,

without keeping my distance from everything?

Yes, good enough. Indeed they are.

There are twelve of my books on your shelf.

Twelve!

The suicide attempt upset us both.

I didn't do all that at half strength.

- Twelve books. - Of course not.

I exaggerated again. You know I like to exaggerate.

Twelve.

- Are you completely out of your mind? - Good morning, Franz.

"It's a sign of the cultural heights German literature has reached

"that our writers grace diverse aspects of existence

"with their art and their cruelty.

"Heinrich Mann, Wedekind, Meyrink, Franz Kafka,

and several others belong to this sacred group." Max!

- What? - I haven't published anything.

- Mann, Wedekind, Meyrink, Kafka?

- Why would you write that? - Because it's true.

- People are going to read this! - I hope so.

- They'll wonder who Kafka is. - Let them.

- Tihen they'll want to buy my books. - Possibly.

And the bookseller will tell them there aren't any.

You'll have to fix that.

His constant enthusiasm was unbearable,

but it was also irresistible.

Mr.Brod, we're thrilled to be publishing your novel here in Leipzig.

But one novel isn't enough. I have so much more.

More? You've written a second novel?

- Just what we need. - Hear him out.

I've written many novels, but also...

This was written by my friend Felix Weltsch.

A philosophical work of extraordinary power.

This is by Otto Stoessel, a promising author.

He also wrote this.

This is by Werfel. You know him.

We call him the heavenly high schooler.

For a young unknown author, you certainly bring a lot of baggage.

I bring treasures.

This is by a certain Oskar Baum, a friend of mine.

He writes about being blind.

- Really? He writes about being blind. - Exciting.

Would you just listen?

What the world is like for someone who never sees how people move through it.

It's overwhelming, you have to publish it.

Of course we have to check it first, but it's interesting.

And then there's..

Kafka.

What's his name? "Haffa"?

- KafKa. - Kafka.

Franz Kafka.

He just may. be the greatest writer in the world.

Nothing but the-best, right?

So what did you bring by this greatest writer in the world?

Nothing.

- Nothing? - No.

- There isn't anything yet. - But you said...

Mr Brod, are you feeling unwell?

I said that where's written - something, finished something,

finally finished something,

it'll be a credit to your publishing house, Mr Rowohlt,

it'll be something that people will never stop reading, I promise.

And yes, it sounds ridiculous, it sounds utterly absurd and overblown.

But wasn't he right?

- And who is this great "Haffa"? - Yes, who is this wondrous man?

Is he still at school too?

He works for the National Insurance Institute.

How exciting.

Well, you've piqued our curiosity.

You're good at that, Mr Brod, piquing curiosity.

Speak for yourself, Wolff. I can control my curiosity.

I know that you're good at that, Rowohlt.

Not as good as you are at spending money.

He doesn't like to travel and he doesn't get much holiday.

But I'll do my best to lure him here to Leipzig.

In the meantime, you have to get Werfel here and Baum...

And..

I completely forgot.

Here's someone else. His name's Haas.

He writes extraordinary things.

He was like a literary agent who didn't get a percentage.

Dear Dr Brod,

we're very pleased to be able to speak to you

on the occasion of your visit to the Marbach Literary Archives.

The pleasure's all mine.

Dr Brod, you're a well-known author in your own right,

but even more well-known, of course,

as a friend of the world famous Franz Kafka.

Dr Brod, let me begin by asking

whether it isn't often a disadvantage for you to write about Kafka.

To analyse his work, to reflect on him.

Don't you often wish you hadn't been his friend at all,

because that would've afforded you a more objective view.

Do I think...?

It'd never be advantageous not to have been Kafka's friend.

There have been accusations

that you altered his diaries.

When anyone was offended, I cut the passage."

You cut parts of Kafka's diaries?

Things that don't concern anyone.

You just went and decided that on your own?

You know, Mr...

For you it's a book, but for us it was our life.

If someone said something...

Or if he..

For example, judged someone's work using words that...

Then it's none of the public's business.

You mean, when he spoke about your work, for example?

We both held each other in the highest possible regard.

There are supposedly passages in the diaries...

- Show me. - I can't.

That's my point.

If I cut anything, I did so for good reason.

Like the business with Pachinger.

It's a real honour to have you here, gentlemen.

I'm always happy to show things to connoisseurs.

The evening progressed.

The pregnant female body

is preferable to all other women.

- You don't say. - I speak from experience.

The best to screw, you mean?

- Better than all the others. - Tell us more, Mr Pachinger.

These are mine. I don't mean the pictures, I mean the women.

I had them all.

- All of them? - Thousands.

Look.

Carnival in Munich.

Over 6,000 women go there unaccompanied,

- just to... - To copulate.

Precisely, Dr Kafka, precisely!

And then if you have another one, I'll tell you, and another...

I can just picture it, Mr Pachinger. The way you tell it.

I can really picture you slowly stuffing your big member into women.

- Do you want to see more pictures? - Absolutely.

Of course I cut that. People shouldn't know about such an evening.

I think I did the right thing under the circumstances, as an editor.

As the executor carrying out his final wishes.

So did you actually carry out his instructions?

Every notebook,

every story.

Especially the novel manuscripts.

You have to destroy everything.

Nothing must remain.

I never promised him. He knew how I felt about his work.

The fact he asked me shows that he didn't want it destroyed.

- He knew exactly what I'd do. - The diaries too?

You could've published his work,

but the most personal, the most intimate, the diaries...

Did he really secretly want the public to see them, Dr Brod?

A writer of his stature..

Every one of his words is...

- Every word... - That's not the question, Mr Brod.

The public might want to see it, but should they be allowed to?

He trusted you.

So you're accusing me of cutting a few sentences

and at the same time criticising me for not burning it all?

When someone mentions the name Max Brod today...

Let's be honest,

it's always in connection with Kafka.

Your own novels, all of your writing...

They're not in competition. People read my-writing too.

But they're not available.

I'm as much at peace with my work as a writer

as I am with the response it’s generated.

What do you want from me?

I didn't expect to be subjected to such questioning.

You mean the kind of questioning where someone asks questions?

Why are you here, Franz?

I wanted to visit you.

You used to do that a lot.

- You look sad. - I write book after book.

I correspond with Einstein and Thomas Mann and Freud.

They discuss me in Berlin and Vienna.

I keep thinking the next book means I can finally leave the post office,

leave this room.

I keep thinking it must be time.

And I keep writing and another book comes out, and again nothing happens.

And I wonder, will I ever leave the post office?

- You'll leave the post office, Max. - Are you sure, Franz?

I'm not so sure anymore. Why am I not getting anywhere?

Please don't say it's because I write things that are good enough again.

- Some things aren't good enough.

You'll leave the post office. I promise you.

How can you be so sure?

We all leave the post office in the end.

Where are you going?

I'm leaving the post office.

Took his work with me into exile, on the last train.

They closed the border straight after. If I'd waited a day longer...

But you didn't just take his work abroad,

you also published it.

You edited it, you commented on it,

you showed the world your opinion of what Kafka was like.

You made him a saint, a prophet, an interpreter of the truth.

He was all those things, and more.

And you didn't tolerate any disagreement.

But you never really explained

what gives you the authority to do all that.

Forgive me, Dr Brod, but I'm citing the opinion of others.

An author who himself was never first-rate,

a man with no literary training,

an individual who is in no way qualified for this task.

Why do we never get the great Franz Kafka without you?

Why were you always there? Why are you always in the picture?

Why is there no Kafka without Brod?

The third class cars are always at the very back.

- You have to get on at the front. - Why?

One of the connecting doors could be blocked.

That isn't your fault and you can travel first class on a third class ticket.

We really need to write Travel on the Cheap.

We'll earn so much money we won't have to travel on the cheap anymore.

Attention, please!

The train to Prague is leaving in a couple of minutes!

I'm jealous. Tomorrow I'm back at work while you're at the sanatorium.

- Yes, but it's a nude sanatorium. - Nude?

Not what you think. Quite the opposite. Very sober medical business.

I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

You'd rather be in the office?

Naked it is then.

Let me repeat the question, Dr Brod. What gives you the right?

Why are you, of all people, entitled

to constantly make apodictic statements about him?

He was...

He was my best friend.