The Beast (Brecht)

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Bertolt Brecht (1954)

The Beast is a short story by Bertolt Brecht from 1928. It is based on an actor anecdote that Moshe Lifshits published in the same year. The beast is about an incident during the making of a Russian film about a particularly brutal governor.

Brecht won a competition with Die Bestie . In 1987 the short story was made into a film. It is considered to be one of the best early short stories by Brecht.

action

Wassili Iwanowitsch Katschalow (1908), drawn by Valentin Serow

In his short story, Brecht reports on an incident that recently occurred in the Moszropom-Ruß film studios during the shooting of the film The White Eagle .

The film denounces the attitude of the police during the pogroms in southern Russia that occurred before the war [World War I]. The main role, that of Governor Muratov, "the originator of those bloody slaughter", was played by the well-known Moscow actor Kochalov. An elderly, long and skinny man came to the porter of the studio with a request for employment and referred to "his extraordinary resemblance to the famous governor". The older man was admitted, but initially nobody noticed. This changed, however, when Kochalow, who was “made up according to historical photographs”, happened to stand next to the man and everyone could see the “extraordinary similarity”. From the outset, Kochalow had little interest in the role of "the beast", as it would be more damaging to his popular reputation . Therefore, those in charge of the film began to negotiate with the similar about the main role. Kochalow immediately agreed to this experiment. The like was asked to play the role of Muratov "exactly as he imagined". A scene was chosen for the rehearsal in which the governor receives a deputation from the Jews "who implores him to put a stop to the further killing". The similar could only insufficiently follow the stage directions and got stuck helplessly in the first scene. An assistant director gave him some advice. So eating apples would be important. Muratow's term of office consisted of "cattle decrees mainly in eating apples". The scene was repeated, and the like was mostly preoccupied with his apple. With a jerky movement of his right hand he interrupted the speech of one of the deputies. Questioningly, the similar turned to the directors and asked them: “Who is taking them away?” The chief director then explained to the similar that perhaps a minor official behaved like this, but not a beast. The similar one built up the scene more dramatically in the repetition. He turned out to be a lot better, but the chief director was still dissatisfied. That is "very ordinary theater" and "an old school villain", but "not a Muratov". Then a discussion began between the directors and Kochalow, who had been watching the similar thing the whole time.

Among the extras were two old Jewish men who were members of the deputation at the time. They found that the first scene of the similar "wasn't bad". At the time, they would have found the habitual and bureaucratic to be particularly appalling. They also noted that Muratov did not eat an apple at the time. The assistant director brusquely refused, "Muratow always ate apples". In the middle of this discussion came a suggestion from something similar that had been holding back all along. He now understood what beast one wanted. That could also be done with an apple that he held in front of one of the Jews' noses and said, "Eat!" He turned to the actor, who played the leader of the deputation, and added that while he was eating the apple, he should remember that in his "fear of death it was of course stuck in his throat", but that he had to eat it. because he, the governor, finally gives it to him. That was a friendly gesture, said the similar to the chief director and he could "sign the death sentence on the side", which the apple-eating man could see.

The film team reacted to these statements with sheer horror. The chief director even believed “that the old man wanted to mock him”. Kochalow, however, had listened carefully to the statements of the similar, which "kindled his acting imagination". He pushed the similar one away with a "brutal arm movement" and made it clear to the directors that this scene would look exactly like this. He played the scene suggested by the similar. At the end of the signing of the death sentence, the whole studio broke into clapping hands. Then the scene was filmed in the same way. It had been shown “that art is part of it in order to convey the impression of real bestiality”.

The similar, who was the former imperial governor Muratov, left the film studio and went back to the city's “Quarters of Misery”. The day had been worth it for him. He had "eaten two apples and got hold of a small sum of money that was enough for a night's lodging".

History of origin

Sergei Eisenstein

Bertolt Brecht wrote Die Bestie in 1928. He participated in a short story competition for the Berliner Illustrirten Zeitung . The aim of the competition was to make up for shortcomings in short prose by German authors in terms of subject matter and form . Brecht won one of five first prizes, each endowed with 3,000 marks. Other award winners were Georg Britting , Otto Ehrhardt , Ernst Zahn and Arnold Zweig , who also received 3,000 marks each. On December 9, 1928, Die Bestie was first published in the Berliner Illustrirten Zeitung, issue 50, on pages 2161 to 2163. The weekly magazine had around 1.8 million readers at the time. In 1930 Die Bestie was published in book form by Felix Bloch Erben , along with eight other short stories . In the same year Brecht wrote a screenplay for The Beast .

The experimental Russian films such as Aelita (1924), The Women of Riasan (1927) and above all Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925) were extremely popular in Germany in the 1920s. Brecht was very interested in the entire field of film. The young Brecht wrote film reviews in the newspaper Volkswille as early as the Augsburg days . From around 1920, Brecht became more intensely involved with the medium of film as an author. During this time he wrote “films like a madman”. In his diary he noted:

“These intrigues are so tough, I always go with them, but they make me damn tired and then I collapse and it keeps filming inside me. I still go around the world with lots of films. "

- Bertolt Brecht

"I smear films and fritter myself."

- Bertolt Brecht (June 1921)

In 1922 he shot the short film Mysteries of a Hairdressing Salon with his friend Karl Valentin . Brecht directed together with Erich Engel and also wrote the script.

Brecht was very familiar with the Russian film industry and had close contacts with Meschrabpom -Rus (Межрабпом-Русь). Meshrabpom was the leading Soviet film company at the time. In The Beast he turned it into the Moszroprom soot film studio. Brecht very often took over motifs and stories from newspaper news or reports. In doing so he gave his own work the character of a document with which he tries to present social reality in terms of critical knowledge.

In 1929 Brecht met Sergej Eisenstein in Germany and in 1932 drove with him from Berlin to Moscow to the premiere of the sound film Kuhle Wampe or: Who Owns the World? , on whose script Brecht had contributed.

It is unclear and controversial in Brecht research what part Elisabeth Hauptmann had in Die Bestie or, more generally, in Brecht's works of this epoch.

A recognition

Moshe Lifshits

Brecht used an anecdote entitled Ein Wiedererkennen , which appeared in the Frankfurter Zeitung on June 22, 1928, as a template for Die Brecht . The author of the article printed on page 3 under the heading “From World and Life” is identified with the abbreviation ML . These are Moshe Lifshits . Lifshits reports on the shooting of the Russian film The White Eagle (original title: Belyi orel ), which was produced at the time. According to Lifshit's description, shortly before the first shot, the film director decided not to take part in Kochalov's role, "because the role was to be mimed by a newly discovered actor who looked deceptively similar to the governor". To record the scene at which the governor Muratov received the deputation of the Israelites, two extras, “the s.Zt. Members of the above-mentioned deputation “, who real Muratov recognized. He “took over the role of his own› I ‹out of necessity”, “in order to reproduce his previous actions on the screen”.

The white eagle

The film The White Eagle , described by Moshe Lifshits, was actually shot in 1928. The film is in turn a film adaptation of the novella The Governor by Leonid Andreyev . Directed by Jakow Alexandrowitsch Protasanow . The silent film has a length of 67 minutes and was shot on 35 mm black and white film. It premiered on October 9, 1928.

Vasily Ivanovich Katschalow played the main role of the film, that of the governor. Kachalov was one of the leading actors in the Moscow Art Theater . Brecht borrowed the name of the actor Kochalow from him for his short story. In the entire film there is no reference to the pogroms that took place between 1903 and 1906, and no “Muratov” is listed in the cast list. In fact, the film is about the events around St. Petersburg's Bloody Sunday . The film's liberal governor does not correspond to the Brechtian character of the "beast". In the film in Saint Petersburg, for example, one is dissatisfied with the liberalism of the governor of an industrial city, who is negotiating with the workers to end the strike after two weeks of strike. The government advises against it "not to save with cartridges".

The governor

Leonid Andrejew, author of the novella The Governor

Leonid Andrejew published the novella Der Gouverneur in 1906 . The events of the Russian Revolution of 1905 set the framework for the plot. The Russian original first appeared in Germany. The governor is named Peter Ilyich in Andreev's novella . The name Muratow is never mentioned.

After a three-week strike, workers in a factory in the suburbs with women, old people and children pull out in their thousands with their demands to the governor. He cannot meet the demands. There are riots, stones fly, windows break and the police chief is wounded. The state apparatus strikes back. Shots are fired. 35 men, 9 women and 3 children die. The assassination of the governor responsible for the deeds is a done deal with the workers and their families. For several weeks he received threatening letters and announcements of his murder. During this time he changes. He is going through a “very strange and radical change”. Ultimately, he longs for the time of his punishment. On his morning walks he seeks the most dangerous places "in a highly incomprehensible manner". One day he was murdered by two men on the street with three shots from a revolver.

Nikolai Pavlovich Muratov

Nikolai Pavlovich Muratov (1915)

Nikolai Pavlovich Muratow (Николай Павлович Муратов) (1867-1930) was governor of Tambov from 1906 to 1912 and then governor of Kursk until 1915 . Muratov was noticed in Tambov in 1909 through some anti-Semitic actions. So he deposed SM Starikow, the director of the music academy, because, in his opinion, "the quality of the music in Tambov has suffered too much in the hands of the Jews". Muratov had the passports confiscated from Jews, even though they were valid and issued by the police. He justified the confiscation of the papers with the false claim that passports should be issued by the Pale of Settlement . Muratow then had the Jews, whose papers had been confiscated, deported on the grounds that they had no passports. Muratow is said to have forbidden a Jewish dentist to open a practice. He then had the dentist expelled because he was not doing his job. In the official government gazette Muratov is said to have published a plan with which the autocracy should “take hostages from the people” “who would determine the lot”, “two for each soldier or police officer murdered by the revolutionaries, three for a police officer "Fifteen for a governor-general and twenty for a minister from the people", who were then to be executed.

It is unknown whether Nikolai Pawlowitsch Muratow was the model for Moshe Lifshit's anecdote, and thus also for Brecht's short story The Beast .

Style and analysis

The beast is consistently written without a change of tense in the unfinished past ( past tense ), which describes completed events. The narrative is structured in strict chronological order and covers a period of just a few hours in one place, the film studio. It has the classic structure with introduction, main part and conclusion . For the end, Brecht chose the open variant; open to the consequences of what happened. What the reader had previously secretly suspected that the like was the beast itself, Brecht does not leave open. He reveals this punchline at the end of the story. As later in the epic theater he developed, he does not see art here as a “consumer product”, but as an educational means to encourage “cooperation” and to encourage the readership to think. Brecht formulated this in his essay 5 Difficulties in Writing the Truth in December 1934 as:

"Everything depends on the fact that correct thinking is taught, a way of thinking that asks all things and processes for their perishable and changeable side."

- Bertolt Brecht

The narrative is authorial , that is, the narrator himself is not part of the world he is portraying and reporting on. With his external perspective , he leaves the reader in the dark about his level of knowledge. The reader is also left in the dark through the use of hypothetical or suggestive adverbs such as “maybe” and “apparently”. The narrator is a long way from the omniscient narrator. A proper relationship of trust is suppressed as a result, to which the more distant narrative style also contributes.

The structure of the short story is reminiscent of a film. Different shots such as long shots, medium long shots or close-ups, the characters are assembled like individual film scenes . For Gerhard Neumann , Die Bestie is a “prime example of staging storytelling” that deals with the relationship between mimesis and reality or staging and authenticity .

Brecht dispensed with the scene of the governor being recognized by the two Jewish extras from Lifshit's anecdote Ein Wiedererkennen . Recognition ( anagnorisis ) is one of the three basic elements of an action and, according to Aristotle, represents the dialectical change from ignorance to knowledge. Dispensing with this element ensures that the reader knows more than those involved. This advance in knowledge leads to a feeling of anxiety in the reader, which is intended to encourage deeper immersion in the plot and encourage more active reading.

Brecht's prose works from the 1920s are thematically very heterogeneous, but are based on some basic narrative arrangements that connect these texts with one another. These arrangements probably have their origin in Brecht's preoccupation with the short stories by Rudyard Kipling .

A variation on the theme can be found in the silent film His Last Command ( OT : The Last Command ) by Josef von Sternberg , which was first performed in the same year as Brecht's short story. Here, too, the subject is a film production. In Hollywood, the Russian director recognizes the former Russian general Sergius Alexander, who he hated, among his extras. The director lets the ex-general play himself in rehearsals to humiliate him. Sergius Alexander plays the role with full passion, but takes over and dies on the set.

reception

Brecht's early prose works from the 1920s are comparatively little known. The beast , considered "one of the best of Brecht's early short stories," is an exception here. From the relatively late onset research into narrative prose Brecht, is the beast as "a narrative power of the first rank" seen.

filming

Ekkehard Schall (1989)

Brecht's short story was filmed in 1987 by GDR television in a production by Alejandro Quintana . Ekkehard Schall , one of the most prominent Brecht actors of his time, played Muratow and Kochalow in a double role. The role of the recording head had Peter Hladik . Margot Thyret directed the television . Werner Hecht wrote the script based on Brecht's template . The first broadcast was on February 10, 1988 in the first program of the television of the GDR.

literature

  • Bertolt Brecht: The beast. In: Collected Works. Volume 11, 1967, pp. 197-203.
  • Jan button , Joachim Lucchesi : Brecht manual. Volume 3: Prose, Films, Scripts; Metzler, 2002, ISBN 3-476-01831-8 , pp. 112-119.
  • Joachim Dyck: Ideological Correction of Reality. Brecht's film aesthetics using the example of his story Die Bestie. Brechtdiskussion, eds. Joachim Dyck, Heinrich Gossler u. a., Scriptor, 1974, pp. 207-260.
  • Michael Morley: Truth in Masquerade. Structure and Meaning in Brecht's Die Bestie. MLN 90, 1975, pp. 687-695;
  • Dieter Wöhrle: Bertolt Brecht's story "The Beast". A plea for multi-eyed perception. In: Discussion German. 139, 1994, pp. 329-335.
  • Dieter Wöhrle: The story “Die Bestie” - Or: how Brecht turns the reader into a director. In: Inge Gellert, Barbara Wallburg (ed.): Brecht 90. Difficulties with communication? Cultural theoretical aspects of Brecht's media programming. Verlag P. Lang, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-86032-001-7 , pp. 141-149.
  • Constanze Eichendorff: Analysis of the short story "The Beast" by Bertolt Brecht. Student thesis, Karl-Franzens-University Graz , 2015, ISBN 978-1-5150-9084-7 , 36 pp.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Jan Knopf , Joachim Lucchesi: Brecht manual. Volume 3: Prose, Films, Scripts; Metzler, 2002, ISBN 3-476-01831-8 , pp. 111-119.
  2. ↑ Ulrich Kleber: Great poet, rebel and wine lover. In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung. Issue of April 26 and 27, 2014, p. 27. ( PDF ( Memento of November 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ))
  3. ↑ Will Vesper : The beautiful literature . Avenarius, Leipzig, 1929, p. 47. ( limited preview in Google book search)
  4. ↑ a b Bertolt Brecht: The unworthy old woman and other stories. Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 1746, 11th edition, 2013, ISBN 978-3-518-38246-2 , p. 213.
  5. ↑ Jan Knopf : Brecht was always somewhere on the hit list. In: Conturen. Issue 2–3, 2012, pp. 91–106.
  6. ↑ Jan Knopf : Brecht Handbook: An Aesthetics of Contradictions. Volume 5, Verlag JB Metzler, 1996, ISBN 3-476-00587-9 , p. 115.
  7. ^ A b c d e Constanze Eichendorff: Analysis of the short story "The Beast" by Bertolt Brecht. Student thesis, Karl-Franzens-University Graz , 2015, ISBN 978-1-5150-9084-7 , 36 pp.
  8. ↑ Karsten Witte : Brecht and the film. In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.): Text + criticism. Journal of Literature. Special volume Bertolt Brecht, 3rd edition, Richard Boorberg Verlag, 2006, p. 64.
  9. ↑ Werner Hecht : Everything was Brecht is… Suhrkamp Verlag, 1998, ISBN 978-3-518-40911-4 , p. 207 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  10. ^ Bertolt Brecht: Journals 1-2. Aufbau-Verlag, 1994, p. 191 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  11. ↑ Jan Knopf , Joachim Lucchesi : Prose, Films, Scripts. Metzler, 2002, ISBN 978-3-476-01831-1 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  12. ^ Thomas Brandlmeier : The German film comedy before 1945. Ed. Text + Criticism, 2004, p. 36 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  13. ↑ a b Joachim Dyck: Ideological correction of reality. Brecht's film aesthetics using the example of his story Die Bestie. In: Joachim Dyck, Heinrich Gossler u. a. (Ed.): Brechtdiskussion. Scriptor, 1974, pp. 207-260.
  14. ^ Rober Leach: Eisenstein´s theater work In: Ian Christie, Richard Taylor (Eds.): Eisenstein Rediscovered. Routledge, 2005, ISBN 978-1-134-94441-5 , p. 119 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  15. ^ Werner Wüthrich : Bertolt Brecht and Switzerland. Chronos, 2003, ISBN 978-3-034-00564-7 , p. 438 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  16. ↑ John Willett : Brecht In Context. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-1-474-24308-7 , p. 75 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  17. ^ The white eagle (Belyi orel) (1928) At: Federal Archives, accessed on March 6, 2016
  18. ↑ a b Films by Jakow Protasanow: BJELY ORJOL (Gubernator) - The White Eagle (The Governor). 12th international forum for young film, Berlin, 13. – 23. February 1982.
  19. ^ Bertolt Brecht: Prose. Aufbau-Verlag, 1997, p. 649. ( limited preview in Google book search)
  20. ↑ Dieter Wöhrle: The story “Die Bestie” - Or: how Brecht turns the reader into a director. In: Inge Gellert, Barbara Wallburg (ed.): Brecht 90. Difficulties with communication? Cultural theoretical aspects of Brecht's media programming. Verlag P. Lang, Berlin 1991, pp. 141-149, ISBN 3-86032-001-7 .
  21. ^ Leonid Andreyev: The governor. Books on Demand, 2013, ISBN 978-3-95584-493-6 , p. 1. ( limited preview in Google book search)
  22. ^ A b Leonid Andreyev: The governor. Translation by August Scholz.
  23. ^ Heinz-Dietrich Löwe : Anti-Semitism and reactionary utopia. Hoffmann et al. Campe, 1978, ISBN 978-3-455-09229-5 , p. 299 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  24. ↑ Yury Vladimirovich Got'e: Time of Troubles. Princeton University Press, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4008-5932-0 , p. 111 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  25. ↑ Oleg Budnitskii: Russian Jews Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917–1920. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-8122-0814-6 , p. 25 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  26. ↑ Anastasia S. Tumanova: A Conservative in Power - Governor NP Muratov. In: Russian Studies in History. 53, 2015, p. 38, doi : 10.1080 / 10611983.2014.1020227 .
  27. ↑ Oleg Budnitskii: Russian Jews - Between the Reds and the Whites, 1917-1920. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-8122-4364-2 , p. 25.
  28. ^ Heinz-Dietrich Löwe : Anti-Semitism and reactionary utopia. Hoffmann et al. Campe, 1978, ISBN 978-3-455-09229-5 , p. 140 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  29. ^ Bernhard Stern: History of public morality in Russia. 1907, p. 501 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  30. ↑ Frank Thomsen: Ungeheuer Brecht. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006, ISBN 978-3-525-20846-5 , p. 234 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  31. ^ Gerhard Neumann : Bertolt Brecht: "The Beast". The invisibility of history and the media. Lecture at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies at the conference The Inaudibility of History , May 31, 2008
  32. ↑ Günter Gregor Saverschel: authenticity and representation of terrorism by the example of the play Babel. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2008, pp. 50–56.
  33. ↑ Aristotle: Poetics. translated by Manfred Fuhrmann , Reclam-Verlag, 1982, ISBN 3-15-007828-8 , p. 35.
  34. ↑ Burkhardt Lindner : The discovery of the gesture. Brecht and the media. In: text + criticism . Special volume, 3rd edition, Richard Boorberg Verlag, 2006, pp. 21–32.
  35. ↑ Florian Gelzer: "Take your chairs and your tea glasses with you behind the stove". Narrative arrangements in Brecht's early prose against the background of Kipling's short stories. In: Colloquia Germanica Volume 42, Number 2, 2009, pp. 139-155.
  36. ↑ Hans Martin Ritter : Bertolt Brecht: Die Bestie - Telling as a discourse. In: Hans Martin Ritter: Nachspielzeit: Essays on theater-pedagogical and theater-aesthetic questions. epubli, 2014, ISBN 3-8442-9577-1 , pp. 166-178. limited preview in Google Book search
  37. ↑ Klaus Detlef Müller : Brecht commentary on narrative prose. Winkler Verlag, Munich, 1980, ISBN 3-538-07029-6 , p. 89.
  38. ↑ BESTIE, DIE (1987) - A film of the television of the GDR based on the story of the same name by Bertolt Brecht. accessed on March 1, 2016