Stone Age ballad
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Stone Age ballad |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1961 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Ralf Kirsten |
| script | Ralf Kirsten Heinz Kahlau Marieluise Steinhauer (Dramaturgy) |
| production |
Alexander Lösche for DEFA |
| music | Wolfgang Lesser |
| camera | Günter Haubold |
| cut | Christel Röhl |
| occupation | |
| |
Stone Age ballad is a German film adaptation of DEFA of Ralf Kirsten from the year 1961 . It is based on the novel Anna Lubitzke by Ludwig Turek .
action
The year 1946: Berlin was in ruins and a group of women - Anna Lubitzke, Martha Breuer, Mother Knorz, Clarissa Stoltze, Hermine Säuberlich, Ziska and Inge - cleared up the rubble. They are paid for this by the building contractor Scharrhahn, who, together with his secretary Tuchelmann and various middlemen, earns his living by pushing cement. The group of women is kept together by Anna Lubitzke, who ensures discipline and, as a foreman, always receives instructions and quantities from Scharrhahn. Her role causes displeasure among lazy workers like the singer Ziska. Anna lost her husband in the war. One day, Ferdinand, a homecomer, is sitting in front of her door with potatoes that he cannot cook. Anna takes him in. He is a trained locksmith and quickly gets work. He and Anna trust each other and timidly fall in love.
The SED -man Berger someday appear even when scratching tap. He stipulates that a works council must be elected from among the rubble women in his company. Although Scharrhahn wants to get his lover Ziska through, the women decide for Anna. She takes her job seriously. When she realizes that the constantly smoking Hermione is in a bad way, she accompanies her home. Hermione lives in a half-bombed house. Your belongings can be packed in a bag. Anna is shaken and brings Hermione to Mother Knorz, who has already taken in an orphan boy. Hermione stays with her for a few days, but the group has made up their minds. She wants to build her own house for Hermione. Martha is providing the property. The women - Ziska has since left because she wants to be a barmaid - are now working more than before to be able to divert stones for the construction, and the workers' friends also take part in the organization. Together they build a small house for Hermione and finally celebrate the inauguration together. Scharrhahn was outraged by Berger that the women had stolen "his" stones. He blames Anna, whom he would like to have dropped. He has already found a replacement for her in a snooty, brutal woman, but the workers are giving the new ones the cold shoulder. The days of Scharrhahn are numbered again. His traffickers are arrested and he hastily flees with the company treasury. With a trick, the workers manage to deceive one of the sliders' money carriers and thus get some of the slider money. Together with Berger, they initiate the arrest of the sliders. Berger, in turn, states that women now have to organize themselves. Looking back, Anna realizes that they did it on their own and that the Stone Age after 1945 is over.
production
Stone Age Ballad was published in 1960 under the working title Anna Lubitzke and Guten Morgen, Berlin! turned. The costumes were created by Elli-Charlotte Löffler and Lydia Fiege , while Willy Schiller designed the film . The film is subdivided by songs that comment on the events as in Brecht 's Epic Theater . The lyrics are from Heinz Kahlau. As a worker Clarissa Stoltze, Gina Presgott reads a poem that Gisela Steineckert wrote.
Stone Age ballad had its premiere on January 12, 1961 in the Volkshaus in Berlin . The following day it was shown in GDR cinemas. In 1991 the film was shown as part of the Panorama series at the Berlinale .
criticism
The contemporary criticism of the GDR recognized the experimental character of the film, which leads to a “high degree of symbolic, memorable stylization”, but criticized that the individual characters remain without development and the plot is lost through experimentation - “Tension is that Result. ”Other critics found the“ heroines too smooth ”.
The film-dienst called the Stone Age ballad an "dramatically outstanding film experiment for open-minded viewers." In retrospect, Erika Richter described the film as "cinematically ambitious ...", but realized with "naive directness"; Against the background of Ralf Kirsten's further artistic development, however, the film is one of DEFA's “necessary errors”.
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 583-584 .
Web links
- Stone Age ballad in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Stone Age ballad at filmportal.de
- Stone Age ballad at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Stone Age Ballad on defa.de
- ↑ See berlinale.de
- ^ HU: An unsuccessful experiment . In: Neue Zeit , January 15, 1961.
- ↑ See heroines too smooth . In: National newspaper, January 19, 1961.
- ↑ Stone Age Ballad. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Erika Richter: Between the building of the wall and the clearing of the wall 1961 to 1965 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 160.