By the end of the 1960s, it was obvious to all but the most iron-headed autocrats that East Germany was facing a crisis of culture. Despite every effort to seal the public off from the invidious influences of the West, information was getting through, and the young people of the GDR were becoming more and …
The Golden Goose
Most East German films received little if any distribution in the West. If you lived in Poland or Russia, you might see some of them pop up in theaters (particularly the Indianerfilme), but only a handful made it to the movie houses in New York and London. There were a few exceptions, and most of …
The Dove on the Roof
In the early 1970s, the East German authorities made yet another U-turn in their attitude toward the arts. Honecker had replaced Ulbricht as the General Secretary, and he wanted to demonstrate that as long as a film “proceeds from the firm position of socialism, there can be no taboos.”>1 Artists, writers, and filmmakers took him …
Divided Heaven
East Germany’s history is surprising, paradoxical, and weird. Just when you thought things were going to lapse into a bleak recreation of 1984, the government would make a U-turn on some policy and relax the rules. Nowhere is this more evident than in the film community, where periods of creative freedom were followed by vicious …
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 …
Blood Brothers
In 1990, actor/director Kevin Costner made a film called Dances With Wolves. The film told the story of a U.S. Army soldier stationed out West who learns the ways of the local Indian tribe and eventually finds himself at odds with the white people invading the land. The film was hailed as revolutionary for its …
Solo Sunny
In the mid-seventies, Wolfgang Kohlhaase—arguably the GDR’s best screenwriter—became friends with a talented young film reviewer named Jutta Voigt. Ms. Voigt met Kohlhaase at “Die Möwe” (The Seagull)—a popular Künstlerklub (art club), where film people and other artists met—and introduced him to an exotic social misfit named Sanije Torka. Torka was the daughter of Crimean …
Somewhere in Berlin
The East German film studio, DEFA, was founded in May 1946. During the first few years in post-war Germany, it was literally the only game in town. While the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) in the west dragged its feet on film production (mostly at the behest of Hollywood), the east got the …
The Gleiwitz Case
The Gleiwitz Case (Der Fall Gleiwitz) is director Gerhard Klein’s 1961 film about an event in southern Poland that was used by Hitler to start World War II. Hitler knew he couldn’t start a war without provocation, and since none was forthcoming, he did what any good tyrant would do: he created one. After all, …
East German Cinema Blog 