Spring Awakening (1929)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Spring awakening |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1929 |
| length | 92 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Richard Oswald |
| script |
Friedrich Raff Herbert Rosenfeld |
| production |
Richard Oswald Liddy Hegewald |
| music | Walter Ulfig (Berlin performance) |
| camera | Eduard Hoesch |
| occupation | |
| |
Spring Awakening is a German silent film from 1929 by Richard Oswald based on the drama of the same name (1891) by Frank Wedekind .
action
Moritz Stiefel is very hardworking, but despite everything a bad student. His classmate Melchior Gabor, however, finds everything easy. Both are in competition with Wendla Bergmann, who is of the same age. Moritz's fear of his strict father, who demands more effort and better grades from his son, drives Moritz Stiefel to suicide.
Meanwhile, a love affair unfolds between Melchior and Wendla, and she is soon pregnant with the boy, who seems to have succeeded in everything. Driven by this into great hardship, Wendla goes to an angel maker. She dies in the subsequent, forbidden abortion.
Production notes
Spring Awakening was created in September and October 1929 in the Efa studio in Berlin. The six-act film premiered in Berlin on November 14, 1929 in the newly opened Stella Palast and in Munich's Phoebus Palast.
The film, which was banned from young people, was rated “artistic”. Conrad Flockner was employed as a unit manager, Max Knaake designed the film structures.
As is so often the case with Oswald productions, the film censors criticized all sorts of scenes that were viewed as sexually offensive or at least too daring. The following scenes were forbidden: 1. The scene in which Wendla stands in her nightgown and runs over her bare chest (beginning of the 3rd act), 2. The close-ups of teacher Habebald's lascivious face and when he wipes his tongue over the Lips goes (end of 3rd act, 4th act), 3rd subheading "Actually he owes me five marks" (3rd act).
The premiere of the film took place exactly one moment after the acclaimed performance of the play by Karlheinz Martin at Berlin's Volksbühne .
Reviews
Georg Herzberg wrote in Film-Kurier : "It was to be foreseen that Wedekind's youth tragedy, filmed years ago by the Fleck couple , would once again be used as a basis for fighting at this time of heated discussion with young people The success of the drama in the Volksbühne proves that it is still topical and sparkling. (...) The Zentralinstitut has declared Richard Oswald's clear, decent and untimely work to be artistically valuable. Friedrich Raff and Herbert Rosenfeld wrote the manuscript. Basically, it can be said that The tragedy of the poor pupil Moritz Stiefel takes up too wide a space compared to the fate of Wendla. The school topic may have appealed to the authors more, especially since most of the film arguments are already exhausted about the sexual deprivation of youth. But you can feel one in what is happening around Wendla inner emptiness of the action, its death, result of an intervention, comes unprepared and s does not seem to necessarily emerge from the course of events. Above all, there is no confrontation with the oily, ossified mother of the Sussin type, who always thinks only of herself, of her inhibitions about explaining the child, and of her shame when the misfortune for which she is responsible occurs. "
Ernst Blaß stated in the Berliner Tageblatt : "The premiere film, Spring Awakening, takes Wedekind's external conflicts. He is still guilty of the atmospheric, the poetic: the early trepidations, joy you spook, the labyrinth of the chest, the horror of becoming. But it brings at least an indication of difficulties, unresolved, tragic things. That is also human and valuable. (...) The director Oswald makes the structure conventional, but reliable. The children look a bit cinematic. (...) But Wendla is Tony van Eyck: serious, childlike, playing, as if stunned (...) And Balhaus as the actor in the boot: quiet and very hopeful. "
Web links
- Spring Awakening in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Spring awakening at filmportal.de