Berlin - corner of Schönhauser ...

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Movie
Original title Berlin - corner of Schönhauser ...
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1957
length 81 minutes
Rod
Director Gerhard Klein
script Wolfgang Kohlhaase
production DEFA
music Günter Klück
camera Wolf Goethe
cut Evelyn Carow
occupation
Schoenhauser Allee at the intersection with the Dimitroffstraße , chestnut and poplar avenue at Metro Station Dimitroffstraße ,
location of the film (late 1980s)

Berlin - Ecke Schönhauser… is a DEFA German feature film by Gerhard Klein from 1957. It is one of the most important DEFA contemporary films of the 1950s and in 1995 was voted one of the 100 most important German films of all time.

action

Dieter, coal, Karl-Heinz and Angela belong to a group of youngsters who regularly gather under the subway viaduct of Schönhauser Allee and spend the afternoon. There is a test of courage in which coal for a promised Westmark smashes a street lamp by throwing a stone. You end up with the police.

The young people belong to the clique for very different reasons: Dieter has a job, but wants to live out his freedom. He strictly refuses to join the FDJ and is in constant conflict with his older brother, who works as a people's police officer . He lost his parents in World War II . Coal flees from his constantly drunk and violent stepfather and, as a school failure, has little chance of vocational training. Karl-Heinz dropped out of school because his wealthy parents actually wanted to flee to the West. However, they do not want to give up inherited houses in the GDR and keep trying to escape. Therefore, Karl-Heinz plans to flee alone and gets on the wrong track as a thief of GDR identity cards for stolen goods from West Berlin . Dieter, whom he initiates into his work and wants to recruit as a partner, refuses. He loves Angela, but she always argues with her mother. The latter has a relationship with her married boss, and Angela always has to leave the apartment when he comes to visit.

When Karl-Heinz steals an ID while visiting a dance hall , Dieter is also suspected. Karl-Heinz goes into hiding and goes to West Berlin, where he kills a man during a fence. He returns to his parents in order to extort money from them with which he finally wants to flee. Coal and Dieter learn that Karl-Heinz has returned and want to confront him about the stolen ID. When Karl-Heinz threatens them both with a revolver, coal strikes him down.

Coal and Dieter believe that they killed Karl-Heinz, flee hastily to West Berlin and are sent to a reception center for GDR refugees. Dieter soon regrets the escape because he longs for Angela, who is pregnant by him, and becomes an outsider in the camp. When coal is to be flown out to the Federal Republic without him , he drinks a mixture of coffee and tobacco, which is said to generate a fever and thus make him unable to travel. The next day coal is dead because he poisoned himself with the high-dose drink.

Dieter returns to East Berlin and explains the connections to the inspector, who knows him from previous clashes with the youngsters. He learns that Karl-Heinz has meanwhile been sentenced to ten years in prison for manslaughter in West Berlin . Dieter can return home and to Angela.

production

Babylon , the film's premier theater

The screenplay for Berlin - Ecke Schönhauser ... was written within a few weeks in the summer of 1956. Even the scenario was examined and criticized by the Film Headquarters , as it only thematizes "the negative, problematic aspects of our life that require critical discussion". On September 10, HV Film received the script for the film and found that its objections had not been taken into account. Thereupon she did not give a production confirmation so that the shooting should not have started.

Although there was no production confirmation, director Gerhard Klein began working on the film on October 1, 1956. The shooting with the involvement of amateur actors ran under the title Where we are not ... after the quote from the People's Police at the end of the film: "Where we are not, are our enemies." The location in East Berlin was the intersection of Eberswalder and Dimitroffstrasse (today Danziger Straße ) with Schönhauser Allee , where the clique in the film meets regularly. All other locations were in the immediate vicinity of the Dimitroffstrasse subway station there , for example the backyard of Angela's apartment was at Dimitroffstrasse 4, and the dance hall was in Berlin's “ Prater ”.

The evaluation of the rough cut took place at Gerhard Klein's instigation without the employees of HV Film. They only saw the film in its finished form and criticized it sharply: It was done to "help the enemies of our republic in their agitation" and "a prime example of a new form of dogmatism". In the opinion of HV Film, the film would “have a harmful effect on our people”, so it refused to approve the film or to test it. It was also criticized that the female lead was cast with the West Berlin student Ilse Pagé , and her fee was 5000 DM West .

The turning point for the film came when it was shown to the FDJ Central Council on June 14, 1957 . Both Hans Modrow and Günter Stahnke praised Berlin - at the corner of Schönhauser ... and said, among other things, that the film “will be well received by the masses [...]. It will be a signal to help ”. Only because of the positive assessment of the FDJ did the HV Film Berlin - corner Schönhauser ... allow . It premiered on August 30, 1957 in Berlin's Babylon, three months late . Twelve weeks later, more than 1.5 million viewers had seen the film, making Berlin - corner of Schönhauser ... one of the most successful DEFA films to this day.

The film constructions come from Oskar Pietsch .

Temporal and content-related classification

Marlon Brando as a male ideal; Photo by Carl van Vechten , December 27, 1948

Berlin - corner of Schönhauser ... is related to other "Halbstarken" films that were made at the time - including Die Halbstarken (1956) and Endstation Liebe (1957) - and took their influence from US productions.

Berlin - corner of Schönhauser ... is considered “a typical example of the DEFA films made during the ' thaw period '. The political situation, which allowed concessions to the artists, acted as a signal to show the negative phenomena in the GDR - of course without questioning the circumstances. ”In the film, Dieter abruptly rejects the FDJ's recruitment attempts, coal raves about it Film program in West Berlin and openly admits to having "seen over a hundred films over there", and Angela, when asked about the appearance of her dream man, replies: "Like Marlon Brando ".

Kohlhaase and Klein are in Berlin - on the corner of Schönhauser ... “on the trail of young people's attitude towards life; [They] look for social roots for their behavior, for undesirable social developments, describe the influence that parents, state organs and politics have or do not have on this generation. ”Although the film also contains anti-Western tendencies, as in the drawing of the refugee camp, it does these are balanced with the presentation of the everyday problems of young people in the GDR: "Klein and Kohlhaase succeeded in conveying the topic in a credible and unspeculative manner and, despite political intention, not neglecting the artistic quality."

In the Federal Republic of Germany the showing of the film was banned in 1958 by the Interministerial Committee for East-West Film Issues . The second examination of an abridged version by the committee a few weeks later also rejected a performance permit. After the Socialist German Student Union had shown the film without permission in 1964, it was re-examined and again it received no permission.

criticism

Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler was enthusiastic about the film. He praised the natural and relaxed dialogues and said: “The film Berlin - Ecke Schönhauser is exemplary and could be a milestone in modern filmmaking. The Kohlhaas / Klein collective should be retained. It seems to the critic that this new achievement deserves a national award . "

Dieter Krusche wrote critically in 1977 that the film "agitates, it propagates the superiority of the socialist order, and it does not seriously question its own state and its forces of order". At the same time, Krusche praised the “remarkably realistic drawing of everyday life in East Berlin. [...] The [life of the young people] is portrayed in an unpathetic style that shows parallels to Italian neo-realism and captures the atmosphere of the streets in a real milieu. "

The film service found: “An attempt to show the causes of the so-called 'youngsters' problem with an authentic appearance; the intended psychological interpretation is, however, weakened somewhat by an instructive conclusion. "

Today the film is considered to be “one of DEFA's great classics” and “next to Schlösser and Katen it is perhaps the most important DEFA contemporary film of the 1950s”. Other critics described the Berlin films of the time, including Berlin - Ecke Schönhauser ... also Alarm im Zirkus , Sheriff Teddy and Eine Berliner Romance , as “one of the artistic summits of DEFA”.

Awards

Film historians and journalists in the Association of German Cinematheques voted Berlin - Ecke Schönhauser… in 1995 one of the 100 most important German films of all time.

In 2005 the film was shown by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as part of the DEFA retrospective Rebel With a Cause . At the Berlin International Film Festival 2010 , Berlin - corner of Schönhauser… was shown as part of a homage dedicated to Wolfgang Kohlhaase.

literature

  • Wiebke Janssen: Youngsters in the GDR. Persecution and criminalization of a youth culture (= volume 1, research on GDR society). Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-579-9 , pp. 96-99.
  • Markus Münch: Filming location Berlin. Where famous films were made. be.bra, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8148-0154-4 , pp. 60-65.
  • Frank-Burkhard Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 62–64.
  • Fred Gehler: Berlin - corner of Schönhauser. Film premieres 30 years ago. In: Das Magazin , vol. 34, August issue 1987, pp. 54–57.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ralf Schenk (ed.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (ed.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 127.
  2. ↑ a b quot. According to Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Ed.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 130.
  3. ^ Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 130.
  4. ↑ Markus Münch: Filming location Berlin. Where famous films were made . be.bra, Berline 2007, p. 65.
  5. ^ Günter Stahnke in Junge Welt , quoted in. after Schenk, p. 131.
  6. ↑ Markus Münch: Filming location Berlin. Where famous films were made . be.bra, Berline 2007, p. 63.
  7. ↑ Dagmar Schittly: Between Director and Regime: the SED's film policy in the mirror of DEFA productions . Ch.links, Berlin 2002, p. 100.
  8. ↑ Dagmar Schittly: Between Director and Regime: the SED's film policy in the mirror of DEFA productions . Ch.links, Berlin 2002, p. 98.
  9. ^ Federal Agency for Civic Education, censorship of DEFA films in the Federal Republic , December 18, 2008
  10. ↑ Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler in: Filmspiegel , No. 19, 1957.
  11. ^ Dieter Krusche: Lexicon of the movies. From silent films to today . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1977, pp. 235-236.
  12. ^ Berlin - corner of Schönhauser ... In: Lexicon of international film . Film service , accessed August 4, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  13. ^ Frank-Burkhard Habel : The large lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , p. 63.
  14. ^ Joachim-Felix Leonhard: The GDR film . In: Ders .: Medienwissenschaft: a handbook for the development of media and forms of communication . Part 2. De Gruyter, Berlin 2001, p. 1239.
  15. ↑ The most important German films - chronological overview. In: filmportal.de , accessed on August 4, 2018.
  16. ↑ Cf. progress-film.de ( Memento from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive )