The Prisoner Nummer 6


The sediments at the bottom of television: series and serials, omnipresent and almost as infinite as the medium itself. Few only were successfull in touching the underside of our attentiveness.
UNWAHRSCHEINLICHE GESCHICHTEN ("Improbable Stories") was one that did, the classic TWILIGHT ZONE.
Anything associated with the expression TV-magic applies to this.

Phantastic television of the sixties, among other things, is one conjuring formula:
"Be seeing you!" or
L'année dernière
au Village:

CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS:
(GERMAN KNOWLEDGE REQUIRED)

 

 

ANDERSWO GELESEN
 

AUTOREN:

BEITRÄGE VON...
 

INTERVIEWS:

Nr6DE MIT
DAVE BARRIE
Nr6DE MIT
TIM BOURNE
Nr6DE MIT
PATRICK DUCHER
Nr6DE MIT
MAX HORA
CHRIS RODLEY MIT
GEORGE MARKSTEIN
SIMON BATES (BBC) MIT
PATRICK McGOOHAN
ALAIN CARRAZÉ MIT
PATRICK McGOOHAN
BILL KING MIT
PATRICK McGOOHAN
MIKE TOMKIES MIT
PATRICK McGOOHAN
WARNER TROYER MIT
PATRICK McGOOHAN
TOM WORRALL MIT
MARY MORRIS, N. WEST
UWE HUBER MIT
HORST NAUMANN
PATRICK DUCHER MIT
JEAN-MICHEL PHILIBERT
Nr6DE MIT
STEVE RAINES
DAVE BARRIE MIT
IAN L. RAKOFF
HARALD KELLER MIT
BERND RUMPF

 

STUDY IN "S"

"Dance Of The Dead" is merely a pretence in order to bring to the forth the surreal properties of reality.

It’s also with Kafka that "The Trial" does take place not within a building of justice but in remote attic chambers and obscure back rooms. Thus, the trial against Number Six is held in the town hall which isn’t one, of course. According to Number Two it is usually used for "amateur theatre".


< 2 private  
 

 

MORE: CARNIVAL
ORSON WELLES' MOVIE THE TRIAL (German language)

Music and dance are declared and every citizen is informed by public radio that carnival has been decreed - invaluable words indeed (at least if you’re German).

But there isn’t a real carnival, either. The ceremony suddenly tilting over into some grotesque trial against Number Six for illegally possessing a transistor radio, blending into a travesty of a French Revolution summary court and absurd theatre.

The verdict on Number Six is capital punishment. Number Six takes a run, a mad and cheering crowd hot on his heels. He hurries through labyrinthine corridors into rooms furnished with semitransparent mirrors and ghostly working teleprinters. And he is supported, interestingly, by Number Two - a woman this time. She knows about the raging crowd, her intention is to convince Number Six into cooperation because he’s privileged.
"Mustn’t damage the tissue" the doctors are always told."Dance Of The Dead" - the title does make sense. Intellectually dead and lacking of initiative, that’s what the Village inhabitants are, conformists or simply decoration. Best irritations on the way in this episode. The ending according to the script was altered but this doesn't make the episode more "intelligible". McGoohan kept saying he hadn't read Kafka. But there must have been a certain influence on this episode by the film version of THE TRIAL made by Orson Welles in 1962, with Anthony Perkins and others.

"Once Upon A Time" (the German-French title "Pas de deux" suitably refers to playing a game for two) is basically a staged play. In Number Two's words, "The whole world is a theater." The set and its lighting are quite visible. For reasons of narrative economy time has been compressed, it’s mostly dialogues. Due to excellent camera work and editing there is nothing of a letter-boxed stage.

"Once Upon A Time" is a chamber play, psychotherapy (stage of life) and gambling for power, all in one - a game/gambling until a lethal end. It’s a heavy burden for Number Two to be successful, to decide on Degree Absolute for him and Number Six in the confines of the locked-up room - the Embryo Room which is the Place within the Village.
Leo McKern’s impersonation of Number Two, a patting-on-shoulders, very jovial type of guy is one of the best castings. McGoohan is the director and it’s obvious that he’s in control now. Something he wasn’t able to reprise again for the finale of "Fall Out" where things do drift out of his hand. Those episodes literally decompose the series, there is hardly a plot and things are becoming quite detached.

 

 

Contact impressum filmtexte - texts on film deutsch english language   "Be seeing you!" or L'année dernière au Village The Prisoner · Nummer 6

 

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WIR SEHEN UNS! D
BE SEEING YOU! E
THE CAFE
FREE SEA
OLD PEOPLE'S HOME
CITIZENS ADVICE BUREAU
WALK ON THE GRASS
6 PRIVATE
2 PRIVATE
GENERAL STORES
TOWN HALL
LABOUR EXCHANGE
COUNCIL CHAMBER
BAND STAND
CHESS LAWN
www.match-cut.de
DISCOURSES

FREE INFORMATION
SIX OF ONE · 601 D
THE VILLAGE D
CAMERA OBSCURA D
WHO IS NUMBER 1?
THE NEW NUMBER 2
"ORANGE ALERT!"
VILLAGE FACT FILES
"MUSIC SAYS IT ALL"
McGOOHAN INTERVIEW D
"ARRIVAL" SCRIPT
SPEEDLEARN DIR
THE TALLY HO D DIR
Nr6DE FRIENDS & SUPP.
THE PRISONER WEBLINKS
TV-MAGIC WEBLINKS
IMPRESSUM | FEEDBACK

ARRIVAL
THE CIMES OF BIG BEN
A. B. AND C.
FREE FOR ALL
THE SCHIZOID MAN
THE GENERAL
MANY HAPPY RETURNS
DANCE OF THE DEAD
CHECKMATE
HAMMER INTO ANVIL
IT'S YOUR FUNERAL
A CHANGE OF MIND
DO NOT FORSAKE ME...
LIVING IN HARMONY
THE GIRL WHO WAS DEATH
ONCE UIPON A TIME
FALL OUT

PATRICK McGOOHAN