I am very fond of the book and have just finished re-reading it. Couldn't imagine how they could film it and was surprised they even tried. OK it is a good attempt but there is too much wrong with this to be regarded as either an acceptable adaptation of the book or a film in its own right.
Von Sydow is really the only good thing in it, the supporting cast are dire. I would have been happier if they had performed in German with subtitles as their English acting is awful. Hermine doesn't have the controlling hypnotic quality she has in the book and the other characters seem to be caricatures of the [people they are supposed to portray.
There is some nice camera work but direction is weak and fragmented. We rely heavily on quoted bits of Hesse's text to convey Haller's internal struggles as there are no real clues in the direction. Nothing against the animated bits in principle but they are a bit too cartoony and don't convey the right level of eeriness. Orson Welles used animated sequences in his version of Kafka's "The Trial" to better effect. The Magic Theatre sequences use good special effects for the time but they could have achieved more with less psychedelic visuals and more subtlety.
Most disappointing is the music. Handel, Bach, Brahms, Wagner and Mozart feature in the book, Mozart is even a significant character in the story yet we hear almost nothing from them in the soundtrack. Instead the score by George Gruntz is very much the sound of the 70s and hasn't dated well. Kubrick would have chosen classical cues all the way through and it would have worked perfectly.
Von Sydow is really the only good thing in it, the supporting cast are dire. I would have been happier if they had performed in German with subtitles as their English acting is awful. Hermine doesn't have the controlling hypnotic quality she has in the book and the other characters seem to be caricatures of the [people they are supposed to portray.
There is some nice camera work but direction is weak and fragmented. We rely heavily on quoted bits of Hesse's text to convey Haller's internal struggles as there are no real clues in the direction. Nothing against the animated bits in principle but they are a bit too cartoony and don't convey the right level of eeriness. Orson Welles used animated sequences in his version of Kafka's "The Trial" to better effect. The Magic Theatre sequences use good special effects for the time but they could have achieved more with less psychedelic visuals and more subtlety.
Most disappointing is the music. Handel, Bach, Brahms, Wagner and Mozart feature in the book, Mozart is even a significant character in the story yet we hear almost nothing from them in the soundtrack. Instead the score by George Gruntz is very much the sound of the 70s and hasn't dated well. Kubrick would have chosen classical cues all the way through and it would have worked perfectly.