Note: This article originally appeared on a site devoted to comparing two different versions of the same story. I decided to discontinue the site because the amount of work that went into the articles was well beyond the attention they received. I'm republishing this one here because it pertains to a film that I've already …
Category: Ulrich Thein
The Sailor’s Song
The Sailor's Song (Das Lied der Matrosen) is a dramatic retelling of the Kiel Mutiny, a revolt by sailors in 1918. The event helped end World War I, virtually ended the reign of Wilhelm II, and—at least in this DEFA account of the story—sowed the seeds for the establishment of the German Communist Party (KPD). …
Track in the Night
In America, we tend to parse out films about crime into specific categories, such as heist films, detective films, film noir, mysteries, and so on. In both East and West Germany, these films are lumped into one big group: Kriminalfilme, or “crime films,” usually referred to as “Krimis.” Many West German Krimis center around a …
East German Cinema Blog 