Berlin ballad
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Berlin ballad |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1948 |
| length | 89 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Robert A. Stemmle |
| script | Günter Neumann |
| production |
Alf Teichs Heinz Rühmann (anonymous) |
| music |
Werner Eisbrenner Günter Neumann |
| camera | Georg Krause |
| cut | Walter Wischniewsky |
| occupation | |
| |
Berliner Ballade is a German feature film from 1948. The satirical film by Robert A. Stemmle about a man returning from the war was the cinema debut of the then still slim Gert Fröbe . The name of the main character he portrayed, Otto Normalverbrauch , also found its way into the German language as a term for the typical German average consumer through this film.
action
Berlin in the year 2048. The city has a new large airfield which is located where the Grunewald is said to have been and has continued to grow since the incorporation of Küstrin and Magdeburg. Antique film recordings from 1948 are shown here, which are neither three-dimensional nor colored and therefore demand a lot from the viewer:
Berlin, after the Second World War . While most of the people have come to terms with the shortage, the homecoming average consumer does not find his way around. After having struggled to find his way through the ruined city to his old apartment, he discovered that it was now inhabited: by Ida Holle, who runs a dating agency, and Anton Zeithammer, who makes his living by pushing things around. You come to terms with the three of you having to live here first. After settling in a little, he recalls:
He had tried by all means to manipulate his health when he received the draft notice, but was found fit nonetheless. After surviving the war unobtrusively, he first tried to gain a foothold in southern Germany, but here he felt the heavy burden of post-war German bureaucracy. Without a moving permit, no residence permit, without a certificate of work no moving permit, without a moving permit but no work certificate. So he decided to return to his hometown Berlin.
Back in Berlin, the average consumer finds it difficult to get used to the life of waiting and often in vain waiting in line and sleeps most of the time. In his dreams he sees himself sitting at a rich cake buffet, where a lovely blonde woman is serving him cakes.
After he has completed the typical office marathon, he tries to deal with ration cards and the daily routine, which is characterized by defects. But the lack of most food and the monotony determined by hunger hits his mind. He seeks a psychiatrist , but he is sick himself and can hardly help him. Ordinary consumers begin to sell their furniture and belongings in order to get food.
Eventually he got a job in a printing company. However, when this company had to close due to the lack of material, Otto, who had previously worked in the hail insurance agent's profession, which had become superfluous in those times, went looking for work again and was able to get a position as a night watchman in a fashion store. But even there he mostly sleeps and so he is released again when the shop is completely emptied by two burglars while he is there. In his desperation, Otto seeks salvation by attending political events. But the agitators there all talk the same thing for him and leave him unsatisfied. Then he gets a job as a waiter in a luxury bar.
Over time Otto no longer remains hidden from the shortage of men caused by the war and he has to fend off numerous attempts by various women to approach him. While attending a costume ball with his roommate Ida Holle, he meets Eva, a young waitress who looks very much like the woman from his dreams. The two steal away and get closer. They get married, but the initial fall in love quickly cools down and everyday life catches up with them again. The currency reform and the blockade are causing additional concerns. When he and his roommate Zeithammer, who has meanwhile been arrested and released again, want to have a drink in a pub, he meets two men who are swinging reactionary speeches about the war. He wants to protest, but is dejected and passed out. He is pronounced dead and is to be buried.
But he wakes up in time and can clear everything up. In the cemetery, he symbolically burying bystanders things like hatred, fear and envy. He and his wife walk confidently away.
background
The satirical portrait of everyday life in the destroyed city of Berlin was one of the first German productions after the Second World War. Screenwriter Günter Neumann edited his cabaret program Schwarzer Jahrmarkt , a revue of the zero hour , for his screenplay . A narrator accompanies the progress of the plot from the off and comments on the event with ironic remarks and occasionally addresses the participants.
The film was shot on original locations in Berlin and in the Union-Film studios in Tempelhof . The team had to struggle with the conditions caused by the Berlin blockade, which had led to electricity rationing and material shortages. The film opened in German cinemas on December 31, 1948 and in Austrian cinemas on June 23, 1950.
Remarks
Director Robert A. Stemmle and cameraman Georg Krause based the imagery of the film on German Expressionism and tried to “reflect the broken existence of post-war Berliners in remote camera positions”. The film is often interrupted by the main character's daydreams and by allegorical scenes that are underscored by songs, which, detached from the plot, portray general political, cultural and social conditions. Encounters between normal consumers also represent developments of the times. When in a pub he encounters a double manifestation of his reactionary war-time sergeant, who argues with himself as a symbol for East and West, Otto's inability to choose one side stands for the Berlin population, which has been wiped out between the interests of the victorious powers becomes.
The people that the average consumer encounters are like a phalanx of contemporary prototypes: black marketeers, occupation officers, "yesterday's" or notorious skeptics. But while behaviors expressing stereotypical militarism or a phrase-like understanding of politics are caricatured and presented, the film is less likely to ridicule the existential problems of the average consumer. The passivity of the individual is not denounced, but found to be good.
Thus “the petty-bourgeois family happiness (...) is recommended as the only meaningful purpose in life; Any activity, for example in the form of political engagement, which could aim to help shape the temporal situation in some way, is shown as a hopeless undertaking. A mentality that was widespread in Germany after 1945 is reflected in this worldview. "
The musical vocal parts of the film, which mainly describe everyday life after the war, originate from u. a. by Rita Paul , Ingeborg Oberländer , Tatjana Sais and Bully Buhlan .
Awards
- The film was nominated for the British Film Academy Award in 1950 . Robert A. Stemmle was also nominated for the Golden Lion of the Venice Film Festival . There was a special prize for the “witty portrayal of German post-war conditions”.
Reviews
- Darmstädter Echo : “Look there: there is something to be said about this post-war strip! It's a cabaret film ... not malicious, not sorry, not depressing, but human and, you can hardly believe it, full of real humor. The ballad of the Berlin average consumer, composed of a myriad of witty, cheeky, cozy episodes, surprising gags, neither stretched nor trite, but lively and snappy. ... main character: Gert Fröbe, a new name and it's good. "(February 7, 1949)
- Filmdienst : "Imaginative production that remains interesting less because of its specific cinematic qualities than because of its funny, melancholy and yet optimistic inventory of the intellectual and political climate of that time."
See also
literature
- Peter Pleyer: German Post War Film 1946 to 1964 . Fahle, Münster 1965.
- Kurt Laser: ... and then came the average consumer. The post-war film in the German capital . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 12, 2000, ISSN 0944-5560 , p. 47-54 ( luise-berlin.de ).
Web links
- Berlin ballad in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ filmportal.de ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ cinegraph.de
- ↑ 35millimeter.de ( Memento from March 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved September 27, 2015.
- ↑ Wissen.de ( Memento of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved on September 27, 2015.
- ^ Political-bildung-brandenburg.de ( Memento from October 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved September 27, 2015.
- ↑ Pleyer, p. 130
- ^ Alfred Bauer: German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 18
- ↑ Quotation from: deutsches-filminstitut.de ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Quoted from: filmlexikon kabeleins.de
