Excessive seriousness has never been a problem for Hollywood. Designed for the sole purpose of making money, Hollywood films only give us something to think about when it looks like that approach will improve the bottom line. In stark contrast, DEFA was all about making thoughtful, serious films. An approach that led to some criticism, …
Category: Comedy
Chemistry and Love
The Silent Star is sometimes cited as the first East German science fiction film, but that's not entirely correct. Before the state was officially founded, when it was still known as the Soviet Sector, DEFA put out its first science fiction film—Chemistry and Love (Chemie und Liebe). It’s a breezy comedy that takes place in …
Not to Me, Madam!
Not to Me, Madam! (Mit mir nicht, Madam!) is what is referred to in German as a Verwechslungskomödie, and in English as a comedy of errors. The English term dates back to Shakespeare and is taken from his play of the same name. Although originally a theatrical term, there are plenty of movies that fall …
Beloved White Mouse
The musical comedy is not a genre anyone would associate with East Germany. It was born in Hollywood and reached its acme under Arthur Freed at MGM. Musical comedies are happy affairs, light as meringues, colorful, and carefree—not qualities that immediately spring to mind when one thinks of the GDR. But DEFA made several musicals, and …
All My Girls
As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, the communist countries were way ahead of the West when it came to women’s rights. At the time of the Wende, over half the judges in East Germany were women, as were at least a third of the doctors. However, there were certain areas where women were decidedly underrepresented. …
Midnight Revue
Communist musicals are in a class by themselves. So much so that in 1997, filmmaker Dana Ranga made them the subject of her fascinating documentary East Side Story—required viewing for anyone interested in the films of the GDR or other Eastern Bloc countries. In a world as grim and gray as East Germany could be, …
Motoring Tales
Motoring Tales is the title translation used for this film by both the DEFA Library at UMass Amherst and Progress Film-Verleih in Germany. The actual title, Automärchen, works better in German. They could have just as easily called it Car Fables, or Auto Stories. If I were a lazy film critic/studio marketing wonk, I would …
DEFA Disko 77
In 1977, disco fever swept the world. The Bee Gees—formerly a Beatles-influenced band—had reinvented themselves as the kings of the nightlife, John Travolta was teaching people how to dance, and skin-tight polyester shirts were flying off the shelves. In West Berlin, an Italian music producer named Giorgio Moroder met an American singer named Donna Summer …
Jakob the Liar
There are a few East German films that, in spite of the political differences, are acknowledged as classics on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Stars, The Murderers Are Among Us, and The Rabbit is Me have all entered that exclusive group, but—with the exception of Stars—these films did not receive much attention until after …
Carbide and Sorrel
By the early 1960s, the Cold War was hotter than ever. The Cuban revolution in 1959, the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 led to a situation where people on both sides of the Iron Curtain were expecting World War III to start at any minute. So …
East German Cinema Blog 