Forgive me for being human
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Forgive me for being human |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1988 |
| length | 92 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Lew Hohmann |
| script |
Christiane Mückenberger Lew Hohmann Klaus Wischnewski |
| production | DEFA studio for documentary films on behalf of the television of the GDR |
| music | Ulrich Thiem |
| camera | Werner Kohlert |
| cut |
Karin Wudtke Heide Hans |
| occupation | |
| |
Forgive me for being human. Friedrich Wolf. Questions to his children. Memories of Contemporaries is a documentary film by the DEFA studios for documentary films that was made for GDR television under the direction of Lew Hohmann in 1988 .
action
At the end of the 1980s, the film team is on their way to Lukas Wolf, Friedrich Wolf's eldest son , who lives in the state of New York in the USA . In their luggage they have a letter from his half-brother Markus Wolf from the GDR . The brothers have not seen each other since 1933; Lukas, on the other hand, met his half-brother Konrad Wolf once in New York City , where they got along very well straight away, after many years of separation. A photograph from a Sunday in the twenties with four children from two marriages is shown, which was taken in Stuttgart . The oldest child Johanna and Lukas come from the first marriage with Käthe Gumpold, Markus and Konrad come from the second marriage with Else Dreibholz.
Johanna doesn't want to answer questions from the film team, but Lukas tells a lot about his childhood. How he got his name, he learns from a book by his father. Markus Wolf also reports from his childhood and he also read a diary entry from his father, who wrote a little poem on the occasion of his birth. Then Lena Simonowa, born in 1934, has her say. Friedrich Wolf already met her mother in Stuttgart, but Lena was born while emigrating . Then there is Catherine Gittis, Friedrich Wolf's daughter with a German anti-fascist who was born in France in 1940. Her name is initially Marianne, but the French have not allowed a German child to bear the name of the French national figure. His last son, the physicist Thomas Naumann , was born in 1953, his mother is a dance teacher. Wolf also wrote a little poem for Thomas. Thomas himself no longer has any direct memories of his father, who dies three and a half months after his birth.
Now the life of Friedrich Wolf is told from his birth. The film looks back to his grandparents and shows his whole life, loosened up by many photographs and his own texts, which are presented by Thomas Langhoff . The children also tell a lot about themselves and their father. Since Konrad Wolf is no longer alive at the time of filming, interviews from previous years are used. The painter Conrad Felixmüller tells in an older film about the collaboration with Friedrich Wolf, in which he designed the stage set for the world premiere of his play Das bist du in the Saxon State Theater, Schauspielhaus . The actor Gerhard Bienert reports on the premiere of the play Cyankali in 1929 in the Lessing Theater in Berlin , at which Friedrich Wolf was also present. Furthermore, friends like Eva Siao and Jacob Fause as well as the sister of his second wife, Grete Dreibholz, have their say in interviews .
Production and publication
Forgive me for being human. Friedrich Wolf. Questions to his children. Memories of Contemporaries was filmed by the KAG document on ORWO-Color , with several historical black-and-white sequences , on behalf of GDR television . The comments were written by Klaus Wischnewski and Lew Hohmann. The dramaturgy was in the hands of Annerose Richter and Rosemarie Funk (research).
The first broadcast took place on December 19, 1988 in the first program of the television of the GDR in a shortened version. The full version of the film was broadcast for the first time on March 7, 1989, also in the first program on East German television.
criticism
Angelika Rätzke said in the Berliner Zeitung :
“Wolf's life between departure and arrival is a life full of private and political conflicts. The film attempted to interpret them, to place them in a biographical and social context without insisting on the accuracy of the time table. So there was no smooth picture, no memorial that one just had to look up to. Lew Hohmann's direction provoked questions about all the wishes, hopes, errors, disappointments and loves. "
The lexicon of international films writes that this is a film that describes the do-gooder Friedrich Wolf with intimate knowledge and critical respect and that attempts to classify his social and artistic program.
Web links
- Forgive me, I'm a human being in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Neues Deutschland from December 19, 1988, p. 8
- ^ New Germany of March 7, 1989, p. 8
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of March 9, 1989, p. 9
- ↑ Forgive me for being human. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 24, 2019 .