Mutabor!

Wilhelm Hauff’s fairy tales (published 1826–1828) are among the best-known fairy tales in German-speaking countries. They form a mixture of Romantic fairy tale understanding, Biedermeier bourgeoisie, critical-realistic portrayal and adventure story. Their author was familiar with the finesses of market-oriented literary production of his time. He created popular texts that were based on the conventions of several genres at the same time and addressed them explicitly to girls and boys as well as implicitly to an adult readership. Initially discredited as formula fiction, some of Hauff’s fairy tales were soon canonized as children’s literature and frequently adapted to film, from the early twentieth century onwards. The article introduces early film adaptations of Die Geschichte vom kleinen Muck, Kalif Storch and Das kalte Herz and sheds light on their contemporary environment. Depending on the availability of historical sources, different aspects of production, distribution and reception are considered. The films adapt the originals in their specific ways – historicizing, updating, ideologizing, aestheticizing, or psychologizing the story. Through expansion, modification and transposition, they contribute to the transformation of the original text and its levels of meaning, but also to innovative continuation, to differentiation and diversification.