Fate of women
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Fate of women |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1952 |
| length | 104 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Slatan Dudow |
| script |
Gerhard Bengsch , Slatan Dudow, Ursula Rumin |
| production | DEFA |
| music |
Hanns Eisler , Bertolt Brecht (lyrics) |
| camera | Robert Baberske |
| cut | Lena Neumann |
| occupation | |
| |
Frauenschicksale is a DEFA feature film from 1952 , the heyday of Stalinism in the GDR . It was shot on the best color material available on the Western market and received all the support from party offices of the SED . Well-known artists such as Slatan Dudow , Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler could be won. The majority of the actresses are beginners, with the exception of the veteran worker Hertha Scholz ( Lotte Loebinger ), who recommends studying the writings of Josef Stalin to solve the problems .
action
The sleazy West Berlin Conny Lohmüller ( Hanns Groth ) - good suit, good shoes (as it turns out later: from nationally owned production), pomade in his hair, Menjou mustache - chases women, preferably in East Berlin cafes. Here he can be the urbane chatterbox and here he can be generous because he was able to turn his western money on the black market to advantage . He is a womanizer who manages to beguile four women whom he shamelessly exploits and one after the other plunges into misery. One narrowly escapes a fatal traffic accident, another has a child from him, Renate Ludwig steals out of love for him and is complicit in a death. In front of a West Berlin boutique, she keeps standing in the shop window, craving a designer dress that she will never be able to afford. After a few tragic entanglements, she found her home in East Berlin, her gaze firmly fixed on the building of socialism. Two years later, she still gets this model dress - from the state's own production.
Production notes
The film was made in the Babelsberg studio with external shots from Berlin and Brandenburg. The buildings were created by Otto Erdmann , Franz F. Fürst and Kurt Herlth . Robert Leistenschneider was the production manager . Bertolt Brecht contributed the song of luck .
additional
The main actress Sonja Sutter (not a GDR citizen) did not get off to a good start in this song of praise for building socialism . After a few films in the GDR, she went to Vienna, where at some point she even ended up at the Burgtheater. However, she only became known decades later through appearances in television series from Munich such as Der Alte , Der Kommissar , Derrick etc.
The film was criticized because Dudow, contrary to the usages of socialist realism at the time, did not focus on positive worker heroes, but on a West Berlin badass, who only lets women "become wise through harm".
Quotes on the case of Ursula Rumin
The case of the screenwriter Ursula Rumin became a real-life woman's fate.
- “To put the finishing touches to the script, we retired to a DEFA home for four weeks. There the author Gerhard Bengsch and director Slatan Dudow tried to convert me to communism on a massive scale. Since it didn't work out, the womanizer Dudow adopted a different tactic. He hoped that he could 'convince' sexually. " (Ursula Rumin 2005)
- East Berlin newspapers chalked up the film for not being one hundred percent loyal to the line. "It was my merit." (Ursula Rumin 2005)
- "If you are not interested in politics, one day politics will be interested in you," says one sentence in the film. Ms. Rumin was arrested four weeks later. Her British friends, research on juvenile delinquency in the GDR, but also contacts with one of the city's most spectacular kidnapping victims, the human rights activist Walter Linse from the investigative committee of liberal lawyers , provided the pretext for accusing her of working as an agent. [1]
Awards
- 1952: Award for “Best Director” to Slatan Dudow at the 7th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Reviews
“A thematically interesting and problem-conscious contemporary film that ends in an apotheosis of socialist construction and exchanges its social accuracy for contemporary pathos. Interesting as a contemporary document. "
Web links
- Frauenschicksale in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The fate of women at Filmportal.de
- Ursula Rumin on gulag.memorial.de
- The fate of women at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ^ Alfred Bauer : German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 253
- ↑ The fate of women. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 16, 2017 .