Blue horses on red grass
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Blue horses on red grass |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1980 |
| length | 120 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Christoph Schroth (theater), Margot Thyrêt (film) |
| production | Television of the GDR |
| music | Rainer Bohm |
| camera |
Wolf Wulf Wolfram Huth Horst Rudolph Helmuth Hubmann Tristan von Lühmann Alfred Kirchner Jörg Hofmann |
| cut | Wolfgang Meyer |
| occupation | |
| |
Blue Horses on Red Grass is the GDR television recording made in 1980 of a production by Christoph Schroth at the Berliner Ensemble based on a 1979 drama by Michail Schatrow .
action
Blue horses on red grass - this is what a paralyzed Red Army soldier calls his dream of the communist future. He dedicates it to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin .
A day in Lenin's life, or more precisely: October 1st, 1920. Doctor Obuch examines Lenin's symptoms of illness - three and a half years later he will have to write them down in the death bulletin. They give reason to urge the revolutionary leader to moderate his zeal for work, to recommend walks and more rest. Lenin promises to follow it and to go for a 90-minute walk. But in a few days the first Komsomol Congress will take place, the young delegates insisted on Lenin's presence, wanting his answers to their questions. A decision is also to be made about a controversial - and ridiculously small - sum to which almost all people's commissariats lay claim for their area in the young Soviet state; a party journalist refuses to accept that he cannot export the revolution by force. Kirov urged Lenin to hear a peasant, the envoy from his village. He takes off his shoes when he enters the office and sits down on the floor. Lenin sits down with him and listens to the problems. He distributes the food he has brought with him to a children's home and hospital. Clara Zetkin asks questions resulting from knowledge and deliberation that require a decision. Saposhnikova, a functionary, is accused of riding on principles. Lenin states that she keeps repeating his quotes and has not yet understood that they should only serve as a call to a revolutionary way of life and not as an administrative guide. He makes it clear to her that she is not suitable for the post.
Between the scenes with Lenin, the house of the theater is repeatedly transformed into the noise-filled assembly hall of Komsomol groups, heated disputes about radicalism, free love, and proletarianism rattle from the stage, parquet and tiers. Banners with impetuous slogans flutter and flyers fly down. Then again young workers storm the stage with their Agitprop cart no. 1, organize a mighty spectacle, demand the destruction of classical culture, cheered on by a zealot who runs out of breath at the latest by Pushkin. There are the cheeky debates about free love, supported by songs, a speaking choir and pantomime, where young people frivolously denounce feeling and responsibility between two people as petty-bourgeois. It is enjoyable to see how all the confusion that Lenin hears prompts him to devise a speech on the need for education, culture and morality in building the new society.
The mural Blue Horses on Red Grass remains unfinished. The painter dies. The following will paint it again. This picture on the firewall of the stage should be a symbol of beauty and happiness. At the end the picture lights up again. Lenin, exhausted from the struggle against bureaucratic obstacles and obstacles, almost desperate, runs towards the picture and returns from it with newfound strength.
production
Over twenty first-year students from the State Drama School in Berlin were given the opportunity to work on the play. These included: Andrea Aust , Kirsten Block , Sven Geske , Franziska Hayner , Nicole Kühl , Kristiane Kupfer , Gesine Laatz , Sabine Sommerfeld , Peter W. Bachmann , Matthias Brenner , Jens-Uwe Bogadtke , Justus Carrière , Thomas Harms , Michael Kind , Ralf Kober , Joachim Lätsch , Raimund Matzke , Joachim Nimtz , Thomas Rühmann , Manuel Soubeyrand , Olaf Späte , Marian Wolf . The students played two academic years and were then replaced.
The public recording of the performance in the Berliner Ensemble took place before the premiere, on September 24 and 25, 1980. The premiere took place at the XXVII. Berlin Festival on October 3, 1980. On the same day it was broadcast on the second channel on East German television. The stage design was created by Matthias Stein and the costumes were designed by Ursula Wolf. The lyrics were from Kurt Bartsch .
On March 27, 1990, the 250th and last performance in the Berliner Ensemble took place. All four generations of students who have participated in the nearly ten years were invited to this performance.
criticism
Helmut Ulrich wrote in the Neue Zeit : “This performance has strength in its idiosyncratic access to Schatrow's piece. Again and again she is able to provoke approving laughter from the audience. Not a Lenin Requiem that makes you feel solemn and sublime. "
Liane Pfelling stated in the Berliner Zeitung : “The director has the strength of his partiality and his enormous scenic imagination, including Michail Schatrow's Blue Horses on Red Grass - a series of scenes with an emphatically journalistic, agitational cut about Lenin and about usefully and creatively mastering his thoughts - A maximum of content and theatrical effect was achieved. Rich in contrast, he interweaves the various episodes and situations that challenge Lenin's thoughts and actions over the course of a day, demand answers and decisions, into a theater evening of immense dynamism and great aesthetic cohesion. Schroth makes use of the most varied of creative means, from agitprop to psychological figure elevation confidently and confidently, uses them to question the past about its significance for today, and to smile at the errors of the past as having been overcome. "
Web links
- Blue horses on red grass in the online dictionary of the television of the GDR
- Blue Horses on Red Grass in the Internet Movie Database (English)