Robert Baberske

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Robert Baberske (born May 1, 1900 in Rixdorf near Berlin, † March 27, 1958 in Berlin ) was a German cameraman .

Life

Baberske was a hobby actor in theater associations as a teenager. Through his brother he met the cameraman Karl Freund and became his assistant. As an assistant to Karl Freund, Baberske was involved in the production of several films by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau from 1920 to 1925 . Working as a camera assistant, he learned the work of a cameraman. From 1926 he worked independently behind the lens.

For Walther Ruttmann's documentary Berlin - The Symphony of the Big City , Baberske shot Berlin street scenes together with Reimar Kuntze and László Schäffer with a hidden camera . Baberske worked as a second cameraman until 1932 with Eugen Schüfftan , Franz Planer and Fritz Arno Wagner, among others . After that he was first cameraman, in 1934 he got a permanent position at Ufa in Neubabelsberg and mostly filmed entertainment and adventure films; as upscale productions for example Detlef Sierck's musician film Schlußakkord (1936) and for the production company Wien-Film the love story Sommerliebe (1942) by Erich Engel . Frequent collaborations arose with the directors Robert A. Stemmle , Georg Jacoby and Erich Waschneck , for whose anti-Jewish film Die Rothschilds Baberske was also available.

Baberske had earned a reputation as a confident and experienced master of the use of light and, as his first work after the end of the war in 1947, he took over the recordings of the film King of Hearts for Artur Brauner's production company . Immediately afterwards he found a job with DEFA at his old job in Babelsberg. Baberske became the cameraman of Slatan Dudow's time-critical films such as Our Daily Bread (1949) and The Fates of Women (1952), Baberske's first color film. For the Arnold Zweig film adaptation Das Beil von Wandsbek (1951), directed by Falk Harnack , Baberske was also highlighted by the critics because of its suggestive intensity created from light and shadow. With Wolfgang Staudte , Baberske also created cinematic works of lasting value in the early years of DEFA, in particular the satire Der Untertan (1951) based on Heinrich Mann and the film adaptation of the Wilhelm Hauff fairy tale The Story of Little Muck (1953).

Baberske was married and had two children. In the mid-1950s, he developed a brain tumor and died after a long illness at the age of 57. He was buried in Berlin-Neukölln , but his grave has already been abandoned. A street in Potsdam-Drewitz was named after him.

Filmography (selection)

Camera assistant

camera

literature

  • Martin Koerber: Robert Baberske, cameraman. In: Close-up Neukölln. Cinemas, cameras, copying machines. Argon, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-87024-153-5 , pp. 97-103.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ HU Eylau, Berliner Zeitung , May 13, 1951.
personal data
SURNAME Baberske, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cameraman
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Rixdorf , Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 27, 1958
Place of death Berlin