In E Fontane’s tet, Effi and her lover Major von Crampas eat at a simple wooden table behind the dunes to avoid the Baltic’s gusty winds. A servant has set a cloth with slices of cold meat, rolls, and red wine (served in delicate glasses). Fassbinder’s picnics, of which there are two, show a traditional picnic on the sand with a wicker basket, food, and drink. *
At the first picnic, Effi Briest, her husband, Geert von Innstettin, and Crampas (who Instettin does not like) sit correctly but separately. Effi faces Instettin with Crampas between them. The conversation is polite. But Instettin instinctively dislikes von Crampas and obliquely warns him not to get too friendly with Effi. Von Crampas takes the hint, but Effi does not. While Instettin is away on business, subsequent picnics become cover for a love affair that we never see consummated.
Fassbinder’s picnics are restrained. Outwardly, Briest is a model of discretion but inwardly seething with passion. The weather is cool, and the picnickers are dressed in everyday clothes tightly buttoned. Fassbinder shows her stuffed into Victorian couture that covers her figure and reveals only her face and hair.
Hermine Huntgeburth’s 2009 Effi Briest upends Fontane by tarting up Effi and Crampas’ love affair. While families picnic on the beach, Effi meets Crampas for a sexual tryst in a ruined barn (that suggests her unhappy end)
Julia Jentsch as Effi von Briest
The cast: Hannah Schygulla as Effi Briest, Ulli Lommel as Major von Crampas, and Herbert Steinmetz as Baron Geert von Instettin.
Featured Image: Effi Briest (Hannah Schygulla) and Major von Crampas (Ulli Lommel) on the beach at Kessin (a fictional town on the Baltic).
See Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Effi Briest (1975). The screenplay by Rainer Werner Fassbinder is based on Theodor Fontane’s novel. Theodor Fontane. Effi Briest (1896). Translated by Hugh Rorrison and Helen Chambers. New York: Penguin, 2001; Hermine Huntgeburth. Effi Briest (2009). Screenplay by Volker Einrauch based on Fontane’s novel.
* Though they are discrete, long after the affair has ended, Briest is found out. Innstettin insists on a duel of honor on the beach where the picnic was and kills von Crampas. Then he rejects Effi and denies her the company of her child. Sick in body and soul, she slowly dies.