Brecht (film biography)

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Movie
Original title Brecht
Country of production Germany , Austria , Czech Republic
original language German
Publishing year 2019
length 2 × 90 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Heinrich Breloer
script Heinrich Breloer
production Bavaria Fiction in cooperation with WDR, BR, SWR u. a.
music Hans-Peter Ströer
camera Gernot Roll
cut Claudia Wolscht
occupation

Brecht is a two-part German-Austrian-Czech fictional film produced as a biopic and docudrama for television from 2019. It deals with the life and work of the playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht . The film was shot based on the script by Heinrich Breloer and directed by him. The premiere took place at the Berlinale 2019 .

For decades, Breloer talked to Brecht's companions, women, lovers, family members and friends, allies and outcasts, wrote a book about them and filmed his life. “I'll show the world what it is. But as it really is. « Breloer applies this Brechtian program to Brecht himself in his docudrama.

“He had built a stereotype of himself. A production by a tough man who could not be shaken by anything. The dark side of the moon that we haven't seen - that's what I wanted to get to know. Because I was sure that when you see him suffering, you understand the work, ”says Breloer.

action

The focus of the film is more on the numerous female relationships (from Paula Banholzer to Marianne Zoff , Helene Weigel , Elisabeth Hauptmann , Ruth Berlau , Käthe Reichel , Regine Lutz to Isot Kilian ) than on the poetic and dramaturgical work. The term “ epic theater ” does not appear, instead there are rehearsal scenes in the second part in which Brecht's working process is illustrated with that of the Berliner Ensemble .

Breloer skips the years of exile . Breloer on this:

Of course, I would also have liked to talk about exile. But that should have been a completely separate film and there wasn't the necessary money or airtime for it. In my novel about film, however, exile comes up, especially the time with Margarete Steffin .

Part of the film is the report of Martin Pohl , one of Brecht's master students, who after two years in prison reports how he was tortured by sleep deprivation and how he made a false confession.

1st chapter

Depiction of Brecht's time in Augsburg, Munich and Berlin before his exile. "I'll be right after Goethe," the 17-year-old Augsburg student calls out to his young love Paula. He wanted to be the last genius. His friends laugh with him at his presumption, and yet they believe the slight, shy-looking Brecht.

Part 2

The second part of the film is primarily about the time after Brecht's return from exile, his life and work in East Berlin. I.a. he shows his involvement with the SED regime in the GDR. 1953 planned e.g. B. the central committee of the SED to hand over the theater on Schiffbauerdamm to the ensemble of the barracked people's police (the later Erich Weinert ensemble ). When Brecht found out about this, he successfully appealed to Otto Grotewohl . Since 1954 the house has been the venue for the Berliner Ensemble founded in 1949 by Helene Weigel and Brecht.

production

The film was produced by the German Bavaria Fiction , co-producers were the Austrian Satel Film and the Czech MIA Film . The shooting took place from May 30th to July 28th 2017 in Prague and the surrounding area.

right

Barbara Brecht-Schall († 2015) was the owner of all rights to the Brecht pieces. Her fundamentally restrictive practice of awarding performance rights has been criticized on several occasions, and she also attached particular importance to reproductions that she rated as true to the original. After Heiner Müller's death , she acquired his shares in the Berliner Ensemble. Breloer: I kept negotiating with Brecht's daughter Barbara Brecht-Schall, which was not easy. The project almost failed because of that, I don't want to tell you about this in detail.

Reviews

A pound, however, are the interviews with friends and colleagues of Brecht that Breloer shot for a documentary at the end of the 1970s, including with Brecht's Augsburg lover Paula Banholzer, with whom he had a son, or with the poet Martin Pohl , who from The SED was imprisoned and tortured at a time when the Stalin Prize was still considered the culmination of Brecht's work.

and

Contemporary history in the Digest, the icon BB in the mirror of tear-drenched women's eyes and its political ideology as well as a lot of equipment fetishism and wood-carved dialogue on the topics to be mentioned: school television, if you will, with a touch of frivolity.

  • In the night review it says:

In the first part you hardly notice anything of Brecht's political development either. It is a frenzied ride through the history of the interwar period and those who are not completely sure of their saddle will soon understand nothing. Especially not how Brecht's consciousness is determined by being.

and

Finally, one sees Brecht working on the production of "Galileo Galilei", who renounces and betrays his knowledge to the rulers in order to survive. The others say he has stained his hands, but Galileo replies: "Better stained than empty". Breloer asks BK Tragelehn if he thinks Brecht knew that he was writing about himself here. And Tragelehn replies that there are two kinds of knowledge - an intellectual knowledge and a knowledge of art. And: "Well - he wrote it, didn't he?"

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Brecht . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 186537 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ "Brecht" - Acclaimed world premiere in the presence of the President , PM Bavaria Fiction of 11 February 2019 Retrieved on February 19, 2019
  3. ↑ Heinrich Breloers BRECHT in February at the BERLINALE, in March on ARTE and in Erste , ARD | Das Erste, accessed on February 17, 2019
  4. ↑ Brecht. Novel of his life , published by KiWi Verlag about the book, accessed on February 19, 2019
  5. ↑ Breloer's “Brecht” premieres at the Berlinale , NDR on February 9, 2019, accessed on February 17, 2019
  6. ↑ Heinrich Breloer: "I want to get Brecht off the podium" , Augsburger Allgemeine from February 11, 2019, accessed on February 18, 2019
  7. ↑ Werner Hecht: Brecht Chronicle 1898–1956, additions . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / M. 2007, ISBN 3-518-41858-0 , p. 118.
  8. ↑ Brecht. In: filmportal.de . German Film Institute , accessed February 17, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Heinrich Breloer: "Brecht" film almost failed due to the heirs , Augsburger Allgemeine from February 10, 2019, accessed on February 18, 2019
  10. ↑ Berlinale Special Every sentence a post-it for eternity - Breloer's "Brecht" , Berliner Zeitung of February 9, 2019, accessed on February 17, 2019
  11. ↑ Should he be acquitted? , Night Review February 10, 2019, accessed February 17, 2019