Slatan Dudow

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Dudow (2nd from right) 1955 next to Johannes R. Becher (right)

Slatan Theodor Dudow ( Bulgarian Златан Дудов ; born January 30, 1903 in Zaribrod , † July 12, 1963 in Fürstenwalde / Spree ) was a Bulgarian film director and screenwriter who mainly worked in Germany.

Live and act

Dudow, the son of a railroad worker, came to Berlin in autumn 1922 to study architecture. In 1923 he took up lessons at Emanuel Reicher's drama school and from 1925 studied theater studies as a working student with Max Herrmann . He attended Fritz Lang's Metropolis as well as theater productions by Leopold Jessner and Jürgen Fehling . From 1927 to 1928 he was a choir member at the Erwin Piscator Theater .

In 1929 Dudow undertook a visit to Moscow on behalf of Herrmann , where he met Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein and Bertolt Brecht . Brecht accepted him into his working group, and in 1929 Dudow staged Anna Gmeiner's Army without Heroes and Brecht's The Measure for the “Theater der Arbeiter” . In the same year he was assistant director on various documentary agitation films, including Phil Jutzi's Hundred Thousand Under Red Flags . His first independent design was the documentary short film How the Berlin Worker Lives in 1930 for the communist Prometheus film company . In it, Dudow described the authentic forced delogation of a Berlin working-class family, partly filmed with a hidden camera.

The high point of his work was the proletarian propaganda film Kuhle Wampe or: Who Owns the World? (1932), who illustrates the miserable living conditions of workers during the Great Depression. This is the most important communist-proletarian film in Germany. The film censors only released it for public screening on the third attempt. In March 1933 he became after seizing power again banned by the Nazis. Dudow emigrated to France , where in 1934 he completed the film soap bubbles, which had still been started unannounced in Germany .

In October 1937 he performed the Brecht play Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar with Helene Weigel together with actors in exile in Paris . After his expulsion from France, he found his exile in Switzerland with his wife and daughter. His play The Feigling was already created in France , in Switzerland he wrote The Gullible Thomas , The Fool's Paradise and The End of the World , which he published after the war under the pseudonym “Stefan Brodwin”. The coward came in 1948 at the Deutsches Theater Berlin under the direction of Ernst Legal to 57 performances.

In 1948 he returned to East Germany and was one of the most important directors of DEFA's early days with the films Our Daily Bread (1949), Frauenschicksale (1952) and Confusion of Love (1959) . On his 60th birthday he was honored with the title of professor by the Ministry of Culture (GDR) . He died of injuries in a car accident while filming the film Christine when he wanted to drive from Fürstenwalde / Spree to Bad Saarow and fell asleep at the steering wheel.

Filmography

Grave of Slatan Dudow in the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof in Berlin.

Pieces

(Published under the pseudonym Stefan Brodwin )

  • The fool's paradise, comedy in 7 pictures , Henschel, Berlin, 1947
  • The gullible Thomas, Comedy in 8 Pictures , Henschel, Berlin, 1950

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ In: Berliner Zeitung of July 13, 1963
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Kohlhaase : The film director Slatan Dudow, in GDR portraits, Frankfurt 1972, p. 427
personal data
SURNAME Dudow, Slatan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dudow, Slatan Theodor (full name); Дудов, Златан (Bulgarian); Stefan Brodwin (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Bulgarian film director and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Zaribrod
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1963
Place of death Fürstenwalde / Spree , GDR