Baal (1970)

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Movie
Original title Baal
Country of production Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
original language German
Publishing year 1970
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (DVD version)
Rod
Director Volker Schlöndorff
script Volker Schlöndorff
production Helmut Haffner
music Klaus Doldinger
camera Dietrich Lohmann
cut Peter Ettengruber
occupation

Baal is a television adaptation of the play Baal by Bertolt Brecht by the German director Volker Schlöndorff . The film was shot in 1969 and first broadcast on January 7, 1970 on Hessian television and again on April 21, 1970 in the first program . The film was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on March 20, 2014.

Numerous people who were on the verge of their artistic breakthrough at the time were involved in the production of Baal : In addition to Volker Schlöndorff , who is responsible for the script and direction , these include in particular the cameraman Dietrich Lohmann , the film music composer Klaus Doldinger , the starring actor Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Margarethe von Trotta as well as the actors Hanna Schygulla , Günther Kaufmann , Irm Hermann , Walter Sedlmayr and Carla Egerer , who were cast in other roles .

action

The focus is on a talented young poet, who not only overrides the norms and rules of bourgeois society with his art , but also with his way of life . In Brecht's words, the play deals with the ordinary story of a man who sings a hymn to summer in a liquor tavern without having chosen the audience - including the consequences of summer, the brandy and the singing - ... Not the glorification of naked selfishness and more limitless An anti-social poet's greed for life is the theme of the play, but rather the reaction of an unbroken ego to the demands and discouragement of a world that is itself anti-social.

The film

In 1969 Schlöndorff filmed Baal with a budget of allegedly only 160,000 D-Marks and total production costs of at most 300,000 D-Marks

In 1969 it was common practice in the Federal Republic of Germany for theatrical performances to be recorded with three rather static cameras for television. This staging and filming practice appeared to Volker Schlöndorff as "quite dusty". He wanted to find a form of representation between the film genre and the television game genre , which would be “better adapted” to the possibilities of the television medium than the common form, which he criticized as “ Ampex canned”. Schlöndorff had Fassbinder's cameraman Dietrich Lohmann shoot the film “out of hand” in 16 mm format.

In the late summer of 1969, the film was not shot on stage (as was still the case with theater films at the time), but at original locations in and around Munich. After two weeks of rehearsals in the rehearsal rooms of the co-producing Bayerischer Rundfunk , the actual shooting lasted almost three weeks.

script

Schlöndorff did not choose one of the four versions of Brecht, but instead created his own synthesis of the various versions of the stage play. In doing so, he smoothed out and updated the language: A “ camisole ” became a “shirt”; He also deleted scenes that would have required historical backgrounds to understand, for example from the end of the First World War . As is often the case with filmic adaptations, Schlöndorff deleted longer monologues . The resulting version of Baal still contained 24 scenes, but in terms of text length it was even tighter than Brecht's last version (which contained 13 scenes). On the other hand, there are passages in the piece that deal with Expressionism and that are missing in Brecht's last versions.

Schlöndorff was of the opinion to take everything from Brecht's text that was contained in all versions and thus "to make the text as complete as possible"; in fact, however, the choice of text, the shortenings and the dramatic rearrangements led to the “weighting of various aspects of the play being changed.” Ultimately, the script “focuses on the utopian , anarchist component of liberation.” With his film adaptation, Schlöndorff intended, “ to set a critical monument to the last anarchist lone warrior ”. Instead of dealing with society, the film tends to deal with the artist and his worldview. “Schlöndorff reinforces the tendencies in which Baal's urge for freedom and independence is expressed. The negative and corrosive aspect of the Brechtian figure is diminished; instead, the text version of the film adaptation contains a utopian component. "

Stylistic devices

In contrast to Brecht's play, the “Choral vom Großer Baal” is not just at the beginning of the film, but individual stanzas of the chorale are repeated and run through the film “as a recurring moment”, thus becoming comments on the events in the film interrupt and explain the cinematic narration.

In contrast to earlier films, no backdrops are built; rather, “the action is located in the uninterrupted reality of time”. By choosing the locations in which the action takes place, Schlöndorff set specific accents: “The images of nature are in contrast to civilization .” For example, water stands for “the experience of drifting and flowing.” After Baal Johanna is offended and she leaves the room, she goes to the river. When Baal breaks away from Sophie, they both wade through a river; Once on the bank, Baal makes a declaration of love to his friend. Schlöndorff places civilization in stark contrast to nature.

Schlöndorff primarily had natural light filmed, which is only rarely corrected by artificial light . This “leads to unfamiliar shadows and to overexposure and underexposure . This creates an unadorned picture of reality ; it is shown unbroken and raw. "

Prohibition of performance

Helene Weigel , the wife of Bertolt Brecht , who died in 1956 , saw the film on television when it was broadcast nationwide. She was extremely dissatisfied with him. She and other heirs of Bertolt Brecht therefore forbade any further screening or broadcast of the film for more than 40 years.

Even after the death of Helene Weigel in 1971, her daughter Barbara Brecht-Schall , the heir to the works of Bertolt Brecht, upheld her mother's will despite multiple efforts to change her mind. It was not until 2011 that she complied with the request from Juliane Lorenz , head of the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation , made two years earlier, and agreed to the digital processing and publication of the film. The film was shown again for the first time at the Berlinale on February 7, 8 and 9, 2014. In spring 2014, the film was released for the first time on DVD at Zweiausendeins .

Excerpts from Baal can be seen in the documentary short film Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1977 by Florian Hopf and Maximiliane Mainka.

background

Baal was the first production by Munich-based Hallelujah-Film GmbH , which was founded in 1969 by Volker Schlöndorff and Peter Fleischmann and existed until 1995. The film adaptation of Baal is the fourth film by Volker Schlöndorff. According to his website, Schlöndorff “designed the Baal television production as an attempt to find a form of representation between the film category and the television game category that is better suited to the possibilities of the television medium”.

Before the Baal filming, Volker Schlöndorff was already a recognized director at the age of 30. However, he was in a crisis, a "deep hole", as he said in a 2013 interview. After his US production Michael Kohlhaas - The Rebel had failed, he wanted to "start over". Bertolt Brecht was Schlöndorff's idol; Before the Wall was built in 1961, he had often seen and read Brecht pieces in the Berliner Ensemble . Although he had n't seen Baal on stage, he loved this piece, especially the first, less ideological one of the Baal versions . He wanted to adapt this 'wild assertion' for television as a 'poetic documentary'. For the main role he had initially thought of Daniel Cohn-Bendit , whom he had seen at the Paris May in 1968 .

The television production Baal then became Schlöndorff's first collaboration with the film director and actor Rainer Werner Fassbinder , whom he hired as the main actor. Eight years later, in 1978, Fassbinder and Schlöndorff worked together as directors and shot Germany in the fall with other filmmakers .

Three actors in Baal belonged to the Munich antiteater (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Hanna Schygulla, Rudolf Waldemar Brem), which was founded in 1968 on the initiative of Fassbinder and Peer Raben as the successor to action theater and was intended as a counter-model to the state theater.

For Volker Schlöndorff, the film adaptation of Baal is the first collaboration with Hanna Schygulla. In the same year she also starred in Fassbinder's first four films Love is colder than death , Katzelmacher , Gods of the Plague and Why is Mr. R. running amok? Leading roles. In 1980 she worked again with Schlöndorff for the film adaptation of Nicolas Born's novel entitled The Fake .

While working at Baal , Fassbinder met Margarethe von Trotta and Günther Kaufmann . The encounter marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration with Fassbinder as a film director with von Trotta and Kaufmann, who became known as actors through his films. Both played for the first time in Fassbinder's third feature film Gods of the Plague , which was shot in October / November 1969. Carla Egerer (who also calls herself Carla Aulaulu) and plays in Baal , appeared in six Fassbinder films in 1969/1970. Walter Sedlmayr also worked in eight other Fassbinder films from 1970 to 1975.

Schlöndorff's cameraman in Baal is Dietrich Lohmann, who had shot his first two feature films the year before. In 1969 he was the responsible cameraman in Fassbinder's first four feature films, which made him famous. Lohmann took part in four other Fassbinder films. The film music in Baal is from the musicologist , sound engineer and saxophonist Klaus Doldinger , who had composed his first film music for Negresco - Eine tödliche Affäre the year before .

Reviews

“Knowledge of the diverse and in some cases highly successful dramatic experiments by the antitheater boss and film director Fassbinder makes it easier for the viewer to believe in a duplicity of origins, social commitment and the artistic potency of playwrights and performers. The most astonishing effect of this late Expressionist work comes from its unexpected topicality: Schlöndorff did not stage it as a costume piece, but rather carelessly transported it into our time, which was shaped by a new cult of genius and relaxed conceptions of sexual morality. Lo and behold: up to the role of court jester assigned to the poet Baal at the tables of the rich, Brecht's early work - of which he warned in 1954 that 'the piece lacks wisdom' - shows such a resemblance to the current situation that in Baal, his girls and his cronies, you think you recognize characters that you meet every day. "

- Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 1970

“But all […] mistakes weigh slightly against the overall style of this television production, its sovereign photography, its leadership; take a back seat to what Schlöndorff made of an actor like Rainer Werner Fassbinder who didn’t meet the character of Baal from the outset. The word actor is, of course, chosen incorrectly and conventionally. Fassbinder spoke Brecht's text, sang the black, stand-alone ballads [...] and was present to such an extent that there was no thought of role play. "

- Friedrich Weigend, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“'Baal' by Volker Schlöndorff is one of those rare films that appear almost unseen from the past and immediately appear as if they have always been there. And still didn't get old. [...] 'Baal' is a film that is at the top of the canon of German film and can now finally be viewed. "

- Verena Lueken, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung :

“A masterpiece of cinema adolescence that is garish and horny, morbid and carnal. The pretension is sometimes unbearable - and of course hilarious. A remnant of a revolutionary surplus, the post-war society must be sabotaged by functionalizing its useful idiots. Baal eats his way through, he takes advantage of everyone, he humiliates and impregnates women and pushes them in the dust. "

- Fritz Göttler: Süddeutsche Zeitung

“Very interesting transposition of an early work by Brecht by the self-centered artist whom the world does not accept. Modern design and excellent actors reveal the great skill of the director. "

literature

  • Joachim Lang Epic Theater as Film: Bertolt Brecht's plays in the audiovisual media Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2006; ISBN 978-3-8260-3496-1
  • Volker Schlöndorff: For me there was only one God and that was Brecht. In: Thomas Martin, Erdmut Wizisla (Ed.) Brecht plus minus film. Brecht Days 2003 Berlin: Theater of Time 2004; Pp. 48-51

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Brecht on Baal, quoted from VolkerSchloendorff.com
  2. Data sheet for the film (Deutsches Filmhaus)  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.deutsches-filmhaus.de  
  3. Schlöndorff interview  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. by Peter W. Jansen@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.deutsches-filmhaus.de  
  4. ^ Inga Lemke: The spectrum and the aesthetics of the theater films in Germany. In: DFG research group "Program History of GDR Television" at the Humboldt University Berlin (ed.) The literary television. Contributions to the German-German media culture . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / New York 2007
  5. a b c Schlöndorff, in: Brecht plus minus film
  6. Schlöndorff website
  7. ^ Lang Epic Theater as Film , p. 318ff.
  8. ^ Joachim Lang, Episches Theater als Film, p. 319
  9. Joachim Lang, Episches Theater als Film, p. 320
  10. Film brochure p. 7
  11. Lang Epic Theater as Film , p. 323
  12. ^ Lang Epic Theater as Film , p. 322
  13. Lang Epic Theater as Film , p. 328
  14. Lang Epic Theater as Film , p. 324
  15. Lang Epic Theater as Film , p. 328
  16. Baal film review by Dieter Wunderlich, 2004
  17. Volker Schlöndorff's Baal with Fassbinder in the title role as a special at the Berlinale , press release, Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, Berlin, February 1, 2014
  18. Hanns-Georg Rodek: "Throw this cooper in boiling oil." In: Die Welt . January 14, 2014, accessed March 27, 2014 .
  19. Baal Zweiausendeins Edition Deutscher Film 7/1969 at Zweiausendeins.de
  20. Information on Baal (1970) on Internet Movie Database
  21. Christiane Peitz: The consumer of women . Der Tagesspiegel, March 20, 2014.
  22. ^ Rainer Werner Fassbinder: poet actor filmmaker - retrospective 28.5. – 19.7.1992. Herbert Gehr and Marion Schmid (editors), Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation (eds.), Argon Verlag, Berlin, 1992, ISBN 3-87024-212-4
  23. Negresco - A Deadly Affair with Internet Movie Database
  24. Baal In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 20, 1970, quoted from VolkerSchloendorff.com
  25. ^ Friedrich Weigend: Baal In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, quoted from VolkerSchloendorff.com
  26. Verena Lueken : Blue and extremely wondrous. Schlöndorff's Brecht film In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 20, 2014 (to be shown again at the Berlinale 2014 and to appear on DVD)
  27. Fritz Göttler: Riding in the light. Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 25, 2014.
  28. Evangelical Press Association, Munich, Review No. 12/1970