The Lamb (1964)

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Movie
Original title The Lamb
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1964
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Wolfgang Staudte
script Frank Leberecht based on the story of the same name by Willy Kramp
production Hermann Schwerin for Fono-Film, Berlin
music Peter Thomas
camera Götz Neumann
cut Klaus Dudenhöfer
occupation

Das Lamm is a German feature film from 1964 by Wolfgang Staudte .

action

Bernd Dickhues, who leads a bleak life in the Ruhr area, is a closed, shy loner. " Who should I talk to? "He asks," with father about stamps? Why didn't mother give me any siblings? “He doesn't ask these questions to a human friend, but to his closest confidante: a lamb. Bernd, just 15 years old, is a working class child. He does not find his way around in his environment, and so he gives all his affection to his woolly four-legged friend, which he raised from an early age and saved from the butcher. On the hike through the night he meets the only marginally younger Elli, who like him has also left home. Two wounded, lonely souls meet.

Elli's father is a drinker who has not got on his feet since he was driven from his old homeland. In 1945 he had lost everything: his wife, his sons, his farm, his four horses, his 21 cows, his seven pigs and his ten acres of carp ponds. All that remains is Elli, a precocious fruit on which he lets out all his frustration with life. Beaten out of the house and disgusted by her criminal type Conny, Elli has made a decision: she wants to join the kindred Bernd. But Conny proves to be persistent; he is not ready to just let his "flame" go.

Bernd wants to offer the lamb a species-appropriate life and therefore intends to bring it to his uncle's farm. But there is a long way to go. The journey is the goal, and this is how the two young people get to know the unvarnished and sometimes gray Germany of those years. Once they even spend the night in the castle of a millionaire who is in love with animals, who takes better care of the lamb than the two human guests. The couple split up in a village inn where a wedding party is taking place. Elli got to know a strong and cheerful young man named Heiner who she likes exceptionally well and who promises her more protection from the rigors of life than Bernd. While she stays with Heiner and roars with him on his motorcycle into the night, Bernd continues undaunted with his lamb. But for Heiner and Elli the end of the line is already at the next intersection: both are killed in a serious accident.

Finally, at dawn, Bernd and the lamb arrive at their uncle's farm. There the lamb tears itself loose and runs towards a flock of sheep. It will find a new home here. For Bernd, however, this loss also presents a new opportunity: he discovers life - with people. The beginning has been made: he plays football on the street with some of his peers.

Production notes, backgrounds, interesting facts

The lamb , a by-product of Staudte, is one of the director's least-known works. The film was shot from August 17 to September 28, 1964 in Marl - Polsum , Recklinghausen and the surrounding area as well as in the Bavaria studios in Munich . The world premiere took place on November 26, 1964 in Recklinghausen. A year later the film was also shown in GDR cinemas.

Johannes Ott created the film structures. Ernst Steinlechner was production manager, Hans Wolff , whose last film was Das Lamm , production manager.

The film consists largely of night shots.

For the former DEFA cameraman Götz Neumann , Das Lamm was his debut in the West. He had not photographed a film since the Wall was built in 1961. In an interview, producer Hermann Schwerin explained how the cameraman, who is completely unknown in the West, came about. “ In an interview for a trade journal I once explained what I don't like about average German film photography and why I consider the way German feature films are photographed to be provincial. Mr. Neumann wrote to me that he shared my opinion and the exchange of ideas then became an obligation for "Das Lamm" . "

Financing this work, which was rigorously eluding mainstream cinema, proved difficult. As Schwerin explained, he had to pay 60% of the costs himself, 40% came from the rental company. However, the realization was only possible because the Federal Ministry of the Interior had enabled a script bonus and also allowed him, Schwerin, to re-invest the bonus for the German-Spanish comedy An almost decent girl in Das Lamm, which he had produced immediately before .

Casting the actual star of the film, the title hero born in 1963, also proved difficult. Director Staudte said in a conversation noted by G. Thomas Beyl for ringpress:

“The search for the lamb actor was not that easy, even though there are so many sheep. Because there is of course just as little a stock exchange for trained film sheep as there is no farm where sheep are trained to be actors like lassies or rin-tin-tins. So we went looking for a herd. Unfortunately, in the Ruhr area where we shot the film, there were only black-headed sheep, which are really called black-headed sheep. After long journeys we finally found a farmer on the Dutch border who raised white sheep. But they were so shy that it took hours to get one out of the herd. So that it should feel comfortable with us, we wanted to buy the mother of the lamb. But the farmer advised us against it and recommended that we take a 'friend' with us. Unfortunately, one lamb died very soon, probably from longing for the flock. The other lamb, however, was no longer recognizable: it was downright degenerated, so much had it got used to the people. No doubt it felt good with us. If it should run into the dump, then it raced. An antelope is a snail on the other hand ... Another time the lamb refused to come back to repeat a scene and lay down. In order not to lose any time, we just carried it back. We shouldn't have done that. Our four-legged friend noticed that and from then on insisted on always being carried back. In the end, we didn't want to deliver the lamb to a butcher or even eat it ourselves. So we tried to herd it into a herd. We gave it a nudge, it ran for a while, made a mow, turned around - and came back to us. When, after several attempts, it finally succeeded in driving the lamb to its conspecifics - then the herd scattered as if a lion had intervened. The shepherd tried all his skills to keep the lamb in the herd, and even hit it with his stick. Then it gave the shepherd a big look and then quickly came back to the colleagues from the film. We ended up retiring from an animal lover. "

criticism

In Der Spiegel it was said: “The camera lyrics by Götz Neumann, borrowed from the east zonal" Defa ", mainly add night impressions; Director Wolfgang Staudte remains at the level of well-intentioned educational cinemas. In addition to the shy shepherd boy (Ronald Dehne), Elke Aberle, 14, is a good Revier Lolita. "

The lexicon of international films wrote: “The film follows a story by the Protestant author Willy Kramp, whose train of thought (“ The world can only exist through the suffering of the innocent ”) director Staudte knew little about. Divided into ten unequal episodes, the film is convincing neither in the external nor in the internal plot. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schwerin in an interview with ringpress, program for Das Lamm , No. 111/64
  2. ↑ ibid.
  3. ↑ ibid.
  4. ↑ Der Spiegel, issue 19 of December 9, 1964, p. 151.
  5. ^ The lamb in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used , accessed on January 3, 2014.

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