Richard Oswald

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Richard Oswald (actually: Richard W. Ornstein , sometimes incorrectly Ostwald ; born November 5, 1880 in Vienna , † September 11, 1963 in Düsseldorf ) was an Austrian film director and screenwriter . His best-known films include Spring Awakening (1929), Der Hauptmann von Köpenick (1931), Storm over Asia (1938) and I Was a Criminal (1945).

Life

Oswald studied at the Vienna Dramatic University. He borrowed his stage name from a character from Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts . Like many directors, Oswald came to film from the theater . In 1899 he made his stage debut with the South German Novelty Ensemble in Berchtesgaden and came to Znojmo the following year . It was there that Oswald met his colleague Bernd Aldor , whom he was later to bring in front of the camera several times in leading roles during the First World War. Until 1912 Oswald appeared on stages in Preßburg , Vienna and Düsseldorf . Here he met his wife Käte Oswald and married her that same year. Also in 1912 both went to Berlin , where Oswald appeared on a tiny theater stage and also directed there.

Richard-Oswald-Film AG share of April 1921
The former Princess Theater at Kantstrasse 163 in Berlin , which Oswald ran from 1919 to 1926 as the "Richard-Oswald-Lichtspiele"; Poster from 1911, anonymous artist

Oswald's first film director was the film Iwan Koschula from 1914. His film The Iron Cross (1914), made at the beginning of the First World War, was confiscated and banned due to pacifist tendencies. In 1916, Oswald founded his own production company, Richard Oswald-Film GmbH, and made around 100 films. He tried out almost every genre. Richard Oswald worked with Werner Krauss , Lupu Pick and Reinhold Schünzel and discovered Lya de Putti and Conrad Veidt for the film.

Oswald is considered to be the founder of the so-called moral or educational film . With the participation of the sex researcher Magnus Hirschfeld , he devoted himself to taboo topics and criminal acts towards the end of the First World War; Abortion (§ 218 StGB) and spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Let there be light! (1917/18) and homosexuality (§ 175 StGB) in Anders als die Andern (1919).

In 1919 Oswald acquired the Princess Theater at Kantstrasse 163 in Berlin , which he continued until 1926 as "Richard-Oswald-Lichtspiele". With Eerie Tales , Oswald shot an early representative of the horror film . In 1922 his company was expanded to a stock corporation . As a result, some large-scale productions did not bring the desired commercial success. The company filed for bankruptcy as early as 1926 .

Together with Heinrich Nebenzahl , Oswald founded Nero-Film AG in 1925 , for which, for example, Fritz Lang M (1931) and Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933) and Georg Wilhelm Pabst filmed Pandora's Box (1929) and Western Front 1918 (1930). The first sound film by Oswald, Vienna, du City of Songs (1930), was a hit with the public. Oswald made the leap into the age of talkies. Several more commercially successful films followed.

Richard Oswald was a Jew . The seizure of power by the National Socialists ended his career in Germany . Oswald emigrated with his wife and two children Ruth and Gerd in 1933 via Austria , France , the Netherlands and England to the USA in November 1938 . During his emigration he only made films at irregular intervals. His film I Was a Criminal , which was premiered in 1941 and which was made in 1941, attracted particular attention , an interesting and idiosyncratic variation on the Hauptmann von Köpenick material with Albert Bassermann in the lead role, which Oswald made for the first time in 1931 with great success filmed in Berlin. Oswald's last feature film was The Lovable Cheat in 1949 .

Richard Oswald died on September 11, 1963 in Düsseldorf, he was just visiting Germany.

His son Gerd Oswald worked as a film director and producer.

Filmography

literature

  • Helga Belach, Wolfgang Jacobsen (Ed.): Richard Oswald. Director and producer. Edition text + criticism, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-88377-369-7 .
  • Wolfgang Jacobsen:  Oswald, Richard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 637 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Jürgen Kasten, Armin Loacker (Ed.): Richard Oswald. Cinema between spectacle, education and entertainment, Filmarchiv Austria, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-901932-68-2 .
  • 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 , p. 379 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Lamprecht: German Silent Films 1913-1914 . Deutsche Kinemathek eV, Berlin 1969, p. 532 .
  2. ↑ Burkhard Sülzen (responsible): Prinzess-Theater Lichtspiele (cinema) Kantstr. 163 (Berlin) on plakatkontor.de
personal data
SURNAME Oswald, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ornstein, Richard W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian film director and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1963
Place of death Dusseldorf