The Bridge (1949)

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Movie
Original title The bridge
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1949
length 85 minutes
Rod
Director Arthur Pohl
script Arthur Pohl
production DEFA
music Wolfgang Zeller
camera Fritz Arno Wagner
cut Margarete Steinborn
occupation

Die Brücke is a German feature film by DEFA , directed by Arthur Pohl , and released in cinemas in 1949.

action

After the end of the Second World War , a group of resettlers reached a small town in Central Germany that had been spared from destruction. The newcomers, who are accommodated in a resettlement camp, which is separated from the actual place by a bridge, are met with distrust and rejection of the village community. Even the spokesman for the resettlers, Michaelis, can hardly induce a rethink among the adults despite his commitment. The youth ignores resentment: Michaelis' daughter Hanne falls in love with the mayor Martin's nephew. He is also courted by the innkeeper of the village Therese. When Martin decides in favor of Hanne, Therese has the bridge sawed in revenge - Michaelis has a fatal accident on the bridge.

Therese later caused a fire through negligence that soon spreads across half the village. The resettlers, whose camp was separated from the village by the destroyed bridge, then swim across the river and actively help to save the village. The intriguer Therese, on the other hand, dies in the fire in her own house. The joint construction of a new bridge ultimately brings newcomers and long-time residents together.

background

The bridge was shot in 1948 in the Berlin-Johannisthal studio. The outdoor shots were taken in Zehdenick on the Havel and for the most part in Wusterhausen / Dosse . The film had its premiere on February 28, 1949 in the Berlin Filmtheater am Friedrichshain .

It was Artur Pohl's directorial debut , who also wrote the screenplay; Wolfgang Zeller, who composed the film music, took on a supporting role as a blind resettler.

criticism

Contemporary critics praised the director for his “ability to translate ideas into images”, even if “the recording technology is not always able to follow the director's intentions”. Nonetheless, the "weaknesses of the script, which makes use of chance too blatantly" were criticized. The lack of innovative content was also a cause for criticism, so one reviewer found that the film only reproduced "what has already been seen a hundred times and better".

Current reviews called the film a prototype of the DEFA films, "which tackled contemporary problems, but defused them with colportage stories".

literature

  • Frank-Burkhard Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films. The complete documentation of all DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1993. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 88–89.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lüd. in: Berliner Zeitung , February 1, 1949.
  2. ↑ mtr. in Weltbühne , No. 6, 1949.
  3. ^ Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 32.

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