Georg Wilhelm Pabst

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georg Wilhelm Pabst (born August 25, 1885 in Raudnitz , Bohemia , † May 29, 1967 in Vienna ), usually referred to as GW Pabst , was an Austrian film director . His best-known films include Pandora's Box (1929), The Threepenny Opera (1931) and Comradeship (1931).

With Fritz Lang , Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and Ernst Lubitsch, Pabst is one of the great film directors of the Weimar Republic .

Live and act

Cameraman Sepp Allgeier (front) and GW Pabst in 1929 filming the diary of a lost woman on the beach in Swinoujscie
Actors Albert Préjean (left) and GW Pabst in 1931 while filming the film The Threepenny Opera
GW Pabst's grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery

Pabst came to film through the theater , where he initially worked in other areas before making his directorial debut in 1923 with Der Schatz .

His first big success was the film Die joudlose Gasse in 1925 with Greta Garbo and Asta Nielsen . This socially critical, often censored film began an extremely productive time with numerous artistically valuable and commercially successful films. Pabst has been described in film histories as one of the main representatives of the “ New Objectivity ” in film, without his work ever being able to be defined in terms of a style. A production shot in the studio and influenced by psychoanalysis with the title Secrets of a Soul was followed by the melodramatic film Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney , which was followed by the coolly observed portrayal of a marriage crisis in a wrong way from 1928. His last silent films The Pandora's Box (based on Frank Wedekind's Pandora's Box and Earth Spirit ) and Diary of a Lost Woman , both of which he shot with the American actress Louise Brooks , are among his internationally best-known works. In 1930 Pabst was able to make his first sound film Western Front in 1918 . The uncompromising anti-war stance of the film led to heated discussions in Germany, just like Lewis Milestone's film All Quiet on the Western Front (German: Nothing new in the West ). With the following films, The Threepenny Opera and the comradeship propagating international understanding, Pabst placed his work politically even more firmly in the left spectrum.

At the time of takeover of the Nazis Pabst was just shooting a film in France . He decided to stay in France, where he made another film.

In the same year the next stop was Hollywood , where he had little leeway and ultimately little success with the film A Modern Hero in 1934 . In 1936 Pabst returned to France without directing another film in Hollywood. In France he made three more films by 1939 that were more entertaining. In 1938 he decided to go to the USA for good. However, in September 1939 he was surprised by the start of the Second World War in Austria , where he was visiting his family. Since he could no longer leave the German Reich , he made films for Bavaria Film . The film biographies Komödianten and Paracelsus glorified historical figures in German history and, with their subtle propaganda tendencies, are typical of the era.

Even after the Second World War, Pabst could no longer build on the successes of the films of the Weimar Republic. He made films in Austria, Italy and Germany. However, his first post-war film The Trial of 1947, which deals with anti-Semitism on the basis of a historical case, as well as The Last Act and It Happened on July 20, both of which were shot in 1955 and deal with the Third Reich, are quite remarkable attempts at themselves deal with the shadows of the past. Pabst was able to produce four films in 1949 with funds from the City of Vienna, but the devastating failure of his own directorial work Mysterious Depth led to the end of the project and his career and his reputation grew more and more through commissioned works such as B. his last two films Rosen für Bettina and Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen (both 1956) damaged. Pabst's illness of Parkinson's in 1957 finally made it impossible to continue his film work.

Pabst is buried in a grave of honor at the Vienna Central Cemetery (Group 32 C, Number 31) . In 1968 Georg-Wilhelm-Pabst-Gasse in Vienna- Favoriten was named after him.

Filmography

Silent movies:

Sound films:

Awards

literature

  • Hans-Joachim Schlegel: Films at the time of the occupation. Miloš Havel, Otakar Vávra and GW Pabst in Prague during the Protectorate . In: Johannes Roschlau (Red.): Between Barrandov and Babelsberg. German-Czech Film Relations in the 20th Century . edition text + kritik , Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88377-949-2 , pp. 102–110
  • Gottfried Schlemmer, Bernhard Riff, Georg Haberl (Eds.): GW Pabst . MAkS publications, Münster 1990, ISBN 3-88811-600-7
  • “My honor means loyalty.” Worksheets for film evaluation (on: “Duel with death.” (Sic).) Without author. Citizenship education center of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia
  • Andre Kagelmann u. Reinhold Keiner: “Death begins to reap people and animals casually.” Reflections on Ernst Johannsen's novel Vier von der Infanterie and GW Pabst's film WESTFRONT 1918. In: Ernst Johannsen: Vier von der Infanterie. Her last days on the Western Front in 1918. Ed. dens. Kassel: Media Net-Edition 2014. pp. 80–113. ISBN 978-3-939988-23-6
  • Kay Less : 'In life, more is taken from you than given ...'. Lexicon of filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Austria between 1933 and 1945. A general overview. ACABUS-Verlag, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86282-049-8 , pp. 640-643

Web links

Commons : Georg Wilhelm Pabst  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

notes

  1. ↑ DIED: JOACHIM TIBURTIUS . In: Spiegel Online . tape June 24 , 1967 ( spiegel.de [accessed December 16, 2019]).
  2. ↑ unfinished; based on the novel Die Sternengeige by Alfred Karrasch
  3. ↑ based on the novel of the same name by Rudolf Brunngraber . A researched indictment, a court drama, and an appeal for an enlightened society. Pabst presented his film at the Venice Film Festival in 1948 and was nominated for the Golden Lion (not received). Ernst Deutsch , however, was chosen as the best leading actor in Venice, and Josef Meinrad shone in an early role as an examining magistrate
  4. ↑ was initially forgotten; Film was shown again in Vienna in 2011 at the annual retrospective on dealing with National Socialism. Information on the retrospective . See also literature, without author.
  5. ↑ 16 pages small format. Script and direction Paul May . Leading actors Ralf Nauckhoff, Anneliese Reinhold, Ernst Waldbrunn . 114 min b / w Rating: valuable
personal data
SURNAME Pabst, Georg Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pabst, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian director
DATE OF BIRTH August 25, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Raudnitz , Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1967
Place of death Vienna