The Bridge (Die Brücke) was a 1949 film made by DEFA about displaced persons at the end of WWII. It has little in common with Bernhard Wicki’s 1959 well-known film of the same name except its relative time frame. In this film, a group of evacuees in a resettlement encampment encounter hostility from the people … Continue reading The Bridge
Category: Wolfgang Staudte
My Wife Wants To Sing
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, … Continue reading My Wife Wants To Sing
The Kaiser’s Lackey
The Kaiser’s Lackey is based on a book by Heinrich Mann. The actual title, Der Untertan, doesn’t translate well into English. As a consequence, it has been rendered variously as The Patrioteer, The Loyal Subject, The Man of Straw, and The Underdog. IMDB calls it The Man of Straw, which does have a poetic quality … Continue reading The Kaiser’s Lackey
Rotation
As its title suggests, a recurring image throughout Rotation is the wheel. The wheel in this case appears in various forms, from the cylinders of the printing press that acts as the film’s Greek chorus, to the carousel at a fair where Hans Behneke, the film’s protagonist, is forced to work during the Weimar Republic’s … Continue reading Rotation
The Story of Little Mook
It would be wrong to assume that every film that came out of the east had a didactic purpose or a communist message, just as it would be wrong to assume that every Hollywood film is intended to promote the joys of capitalism. The primary goal of some movies is to entertain, and that was … Continue reading The Story of Little Mook
The Murderers Are Among Us
The Murderers Are Among Us (Die Mörder sind unter uns), still stands as one of the greatest films to come out of East Germany.
East German Cinema Blog 