Bremen freedom

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Movie
Original title Bremen freedom
Country of production Federal Republic of Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1972
length 87 minutes
Rod
Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Dietrich Lohmann
script Rainer Werner Fassbinder
production Telefilm Saar under the direction of Siegbert Kohl on behalf of Saarländischer Rundfunk
music archive
camera Dietrich Lohmann ,
Hans Schugg, Peter Weyrich
cut Monika Solzbacher,
Friedrich Niquet
occupation

Bremen Freedom is the sixteenth stage play by German author, actor and film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1971, the same year at the Schauspielhaus Bremen was premiered by Bremer Ensemble.

Bremer Freiheit (subtitle: Frau Geesche Gottfried - Ein bürgerliches Trauerspiel ) is also the name of the film adaptation of the play directed by the author Fassbinder and his cameraman Dietrich Lohmann , portrayed by members of the antitheater . Play elements that Fassbinder had developed with the ensemble of the Bremer Schauspielhaus were adopted. The film was produced by Telefilm Saar on behalf of Saarländischer Rundfunk . It was shot in 9 days in September 1972. The first broadcast took place on December 27, 1972 in SR . The cost of the film was around 240,000 DM .

action

The plot of the television play is based on Fassbinder's play, which is based on an authentic case of Bremen's city history : Gesche Gottfried (by Fassbinder Geesche ) is considered an honorable and god-fearing woman among her fellow citizens. In 1831, however, she was publicly executed for fifteen murders committed against her parents, children, husbands and others.

Fassbinders Geesche is a self-confident woman who is not allowed to think, live and love independently from her environment.

“The man I want in my heart - how he has to be made, I want to tell you, Johann: The man has to accept that the woman has understanding in her head and reason! It may be that this man has not yet been born. So I will be able to abstain. "

- Geesche to her brother.

Geesche poisons her first husband because he bullies her like a slave. Geesche longs for a loving marriage and is happy when Gottfried, whom she loves, takes over the business of her saddlery. Geesche's mother (played by Fassbinder's mother in the film) makes serious reproaches to her because of her views and the intoxicating relationship with Gottfried. That is why the mother also receives poison. The two children from their first marriage are poisoned because Gottfried says he cannot imagine a child with her who grows up between someone else's children. When Geesche is pregnant by Gottfried and wishes to be married, she only receives humiliations in response. Desperate, she also gives him poison - but still wrestles the desired yes from the dying man.

Then there is one murder after the other: the father because he wants to force Geesche on the nephew to become the manager and husband; her old friend Zimmermann when he blackmailed her for a gift; her brother Johann, because he wants to wrest the management from her and force her back into the role of housewife; her friend Luisa, when Geesche raves about her freedom, and Luisa describes Geesche's life as hell. Only her friend Rumpf notices that Geesche is putting pills in his coffee. He has the police analyze them.

In his film, Fassbinder concentrates on the figure of the poisoner ( Margit Carstensen ) and the social and psychological backgrounds that led to her deeds. He shows Gesche Gottfried as a woman who saw no other possibility of liberation and self-realization in the imbalances of a male society than through murder.

“Fassbinder is not interested in the criminal case. It always shows how the poison is passed (in an almost ritual scene with piano music), but only twice the immediate result: dying. Fassbinder also omits the execution of the Geesche. Fassbinder is only interested in the motif of the murderess. "

background

After Ingrid Caven , Fassbinder's wife at the time , the piece was created in a café opposite the Hotel de l'Univers in Paris , where Fassbinder often went with her on the weekend of 1970/1971. He got up early, selected music from the machine, and wrote there all day. He also tried out individual scenes with her in the café before writing them down.

Co-director and cameraman Dietrich Lohmann says after watching the film version of Bremer Freiheit again :

“We both worked with an electronic camera and a blue box without knowing what was coming . When you see the result today, it's very decent, very innovative and, above all, very artistic. (...) There are very few directors who encourage a cameraman and say, trust yourself, we'll do it a little differently now, we'll go a step further. A lot arose from this attitude at Fassbinder. "

- Dietrich Lohmann in an interview with Juliane Lorenz

Fassbinder, when asked whether he thinks that Bremer Freiheit says something about the women's movement, replies:

“Certainly that says something about the women's movement, because the possibilities women resort to when they want to emancipate themselves are very limited. I mean, the society we all live in is a man-made society in which women only have defensive mechanisms that of course give them a certain amount of power, also a great deal of power within the family. But these are all sick conditions, I mean, it is all not very healthy, definitely not. "

- Fassbinder in conversation with Christian Braad Thomsen, 1972

When asked whether Geesche Gottfried , like Whity in the film of the same name, symbolically ends up in the desert after the crime, Fassbinder answers:

“Of course, Bremer Freiheit is not a simple piece of emancipation, but also opposes the emancipation that is normally practiced. On the other hand, I mean that the murder committed by both Geesche and Whity is really an attempt to defend oneself. It's just not the right way, and this is where education has to start. You have to show people how to defend themselves without ending up in the desert. Neither Geesche nor Whity can survive afterwards, and therefore they did not liberate themselves, but acted against their own liberation. By the way, emancipation is not just a problem for women, it applies to everyone. I am irritated by this eternal chatter about women's emancipation. It's not at all about women versus men, but the poor versus the rich, the oppressed versus the oppressor. And there are just as many oppressed men as there are women. "

- Fassbinder in conversation with Christian Braad Thomsen, 1973

Reviews

literature

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rainer Werner Fassbinder: poet, actor, filmmaker - retrospective 28.5.-19.7.1992 , Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation (ed.), Argon Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-87024-212-4
  2. ↑ a b Rainer Werner Fassbinder retrospective program, Ernst-Christian Neisel (editor), Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation (publisher), Argon Verlag, Berlin 1992
  3. ↑ a b The normal chaos , Juliane Lorenz (ed.), Henschel Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 3-89487-227-6
  4. ↑ a b Fassbinder on Fassbinder , Robert Fischer (Ed.), Verlag der Autor , Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-88661-268-6