Kurt Gerron - Trapped in Paradise

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Movie
German title Kurt Gerron - Trapped in Paradise
Original title Prisoner of Paradise
Country of production Canada , United States , Germany , United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 2002
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Malcolm Clarke ,
Stuart Sender
script Malcolm Clarke
production Malcolm Clarke,
Karl-Eberhard Schäfer
for Média Vérité,
Café Productions
music Luc St. Pierre
camera Michael Hammon
cut Glenn Berman ,
Susan Shanks
synchronization

Kurt Gerron - Trapped in Paradise about the actor and director of the 1920s and early 1930s is an Oscar-nominated documentary by Malcolm Clarke and Stuart Sender from 2002. The film was first shown on television in Germany on March 14, 2004.

content

The film follows the life of Kurt Gerron from a well-known cabaret artist and actor of the 1920s and early 1930s to the imprisoned and forced director of the Nazi propaganda film about the German concentration camp (ghetto) Theresienstadt, which was no longer shown in cinemas .

In the 1920s, Gerron quickly made contact with the cabaret scene and was soon discovered by the filmmakers. They often cast him as villains and criminals, with his breakthrough coming with his role as a magician alongside Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel and in the theater as the actor of Macheath (sic!) In Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera .

After 1933 Gerron first emigrated to Paris , but could barely gain a foothold in the film landscape there and finally went to the Netherlands , where he was a successful director. He turns down offers from former colleagues who have fled to the USA, such as Peter Lorre and Josef von Sternberg , to emigrate - sometimes he's too busy with current projects, sometimes he refuses to travel other than in the first grade.

After two years of cabaret in Scheveningen , Gerron performed in the Hollandschen Schouwburg, then known as the Joodsche Schouwburg , and was finally deported to the German Westerbork concentration camp and from there to the Theresienstadt concentration camp . Here he founded his cabaret carousel and, despite serious reservations, took on the task of making a propaganda film about the camp under the control of the Nazis. While Gerron's commitment to the film Theresienstadt even exceeds the expectations of the client, Gerron becomes a non-person with some of the camp prisoners. After the film was over in October 1944, Gerron was deported on the last transport from Theresienstadt to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp and murdered there immediately upon arrival.

reception

The film about him was recorded mixed. The New York Times called the first few minutes of the film, in which the plan and content of the propaganda film Theresienstadt is presented, an “overwhelming case” of a “tremendous story of deception and death”. The portrayal of Kurt Gerron's life does not meet expectations with regard to the beginning of the film (“doesn't quite hold up”). The real question of what price a man sells his soul for is not answered. The film did not end on purpose, but ended rather haphazardly, which was an indication that the filmmakers could not do justice to the intimidating subject matter.

The Society for Exile Research criticized the film, which did not bring any new knowledge about Gerron and instead worked with "clever and sensation-seeking film tricks" to close gaps in Gerron's biography. The period between 1920 and 1933 is only briefly presented, the depiction of the exile is "really disappointing", among other things because known facts are ignored and the viewer is presented with "dubious testimony from contemporary witnesses" instead. Numerous substantive errors (Gerron played Brown and not Macheath in the threepenny opera "Tiger") and "daring assertions" by the filmmakers would make it clear that the film "is nothing more than a commercial product with which one wants to impress ignorant viewers . "

Awards

Kurt Gerron - Gefangen im Paradies was nominated for an Oscar in the category " Best Documentary (Long Form) " in 2003 , but could not prevail against Bowling for Columbine .

In 2003, Malcolm Clarke received the Directors Guild of Canada DGC Team Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Documentary.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "powerful story of delusion and dissolution"; See Elvis Mitchell : Putting a Smiley Face on a Nazi Camp . The New York Times, December 12, 2003.
  2. ↑ "... this one seems to just drift to a close rather than pronounce an end. This can be a result of wrestling with a daunting subject and not being up to its demands. " Cf. Elvis Mitchell: Putting a Smiley Face on a Nazi Camp . The New York Times, December 12, 2003.
  3. ↑ Katja B. Zaich: Kurt Gerron - Caught in Paradise . In: New newsletter from the Society for Exile Research , June 2004, 8–9 ( online ; PDF; 240 kB).