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1 A Genius of Our Own: The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens • Beethoven Duet • A DVD Release by the DEFA Film Library A Genius of Our Own- The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens_The Flying Dutchman 06.05.14 08:16 Seite 2
A Genius of Our Own: The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens y writes: “For a shocked and overwhelmed German population, music offered a locus of refuge, a space for r a r b i L
contemplation and consolation. Bach and Beethoven above all seemed important at this time, a lifeline to m l i F
another Germany and to eternal values.” Thacker also notes that this implicit need on the part of Germans A 8 F coincided serendipitously with the Allied “scramble for the cultural high ground.” Already in 1945, concerts, E D
e h t
open to all classes and segments of society, regardless of being able to purchase a ticket, proceeded to y b
e
bring music to a German population that the Allies were trying to entice away from the morass of National s a e
9 l Socialism. e R
D
A pattern was established in 1950, as state and cultural apparatuses joined to honor Johann Sebastian V D
A
Bach. Thacker has charted West and East German activities and plans surrounding the Bach Year of 1950, •
t e
showing what he calls “a contest for ownership of Bach, and by extension, the whole classical tradition of u D
10 n German culture.” More specifically, through the trendsetting celebration in 1950 and those following it, e v o h t
historically and politically important cultural content was transmitted in the GDR, including to the much-praised e e B
typical East German worker. Moreover, these celebrations provided an opportunity to renegotiate musical •
s n
and cultural history. Thus, the structure and interpretive strategies of the events in 1950 were reproduced in e v o h t
subsequent years for other composers: Beethoven (1952), Handel [the Handel Festival ( Händel Festspiele ), e e B
11 s begun in 1952, continues today], Schubert (1953), and Mozart (1956). Composers such as these were ’ A F E
depicted as essential to an understanding of “German national character.” As Wilhelm Girnus, an official in D
d n a
the Ministry of Higher and Technical Education, asked in 1951: “What after all would remain of our German R D G
national character without our folk tales, without our folk sagas ( Faust , etc.), without the oratorios of Bach, e h T
without Beethoven’s ‘Ninth,’ without the poetry of Goethe, without his ‘Wilhelm Meister,’ without the wood - : n
12 w O
cuts, drawings and etchings of Dürer?” r u O
Beethoven thus played an important organizing role for early GDR society, as he has in numerous other f o
13 s u
contexts, nations, and time periods. Declarations of admiration for great artists, peppered with polemical i n e G attacks on the “American cultural barbarians” ( die amerikanischen Kulturbarbaren ), highlighted the democratic A potential—indeed, the necessarily revolutionary understanding—of important artistic figures like Beethoven, and the ways in which the Germans’ superior cultural understanding could overcome the “cosmopolitan attempts at disruption” ( kosmopolitische Zersetzungsversuche ) by Americans and their jazz. 14 Through her reading of Georg Lukács’ understanding of history and its proponents, Elaine Kelly has examined the ways in which Romantic composers and their works—unlike literary and philosophical figures of the Romantic period—found acceptance in what would become the socialist canon and were not consigned to a neglected cemetery of things irrelevant to the socialist worldview. 15 Kelly notes that these composers could not immediately be appropriated for socialist/state purposes, however, as the intensely individualistic and artistically tumultuous worldview of Romanticism was problematic by default, disconnected as it was from a view of society as a collective enterprise. 16 This began to shift by the early 1970s, however, with the rise of a new postwar generation of composers. 17 Kelly describes the ways in which Beethoven’s works were selected to suit the needs of the GDR’s socialist-realist narrative, especially in the 1950s and ‘60s. East German critics preferred Beethoven’s middle period; but even this segment of Beethoven’s oeuvre was sampled with selective attention to detail. Contradictions in Beethoven’s style, his thematic choice of material, and his own estimation of the (lack of) importance of some of his “trivial” and more bourgeois works all yielded inconsistencies in official reverence for this ostensibly pure, democratic genius. 18 By the late 1970s, the official version of what had transpired in the early years of the GDR glorified the
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A Genius of Our Own: The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens y
cultural work undertaken by the revolutionary survivors of war. Tracing a theoretical genealogy back to the r a r b i L
1930s, a collective of authors explains, in Musikgeschichte der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 1945- m l i F
1976 (transl. Music History of the German Democratic Republic 1945-1976 ) that from the start the GDR had A
19 F prioritized the project of uniting workers and creating a unifying and edifying cultural policy and program. E D
e h t
Ostensibly, the development of music history and the role of music in the GDR “found their main driving force y b
e
in the development of socialist musical-cultural circumstances, [that is,] in the gradual overcoming of those s a e l
contradictions within the artistic process that had emerged in the formation of bourgeois society and con - e R
20 D
tinue to have an effect in the transition to socialism/communism.” Some of this involved the education of V D
A
the East German people, demonstrating that the works of J.S. Bach, for instance, contributed to the democratic •
t e
edification of the populace . u D
n
The class position of some of the creators of the great, canonical works of art also posed a temporary e v o h t
problem for the GDR’s socialist ideology, however. Beethoven’s artistic production, for example, was largely e e B
supported by the patronage of aristocratic circles, whose existence was far removed from the average East •
s
21 n German, as well as the common socialist ideal. Beethoven’s connections to the upper echelons of society e v o h t
were never merely ignored in the hope that no one would notice, however. Instead, film critics and the film - e e B
s makers themselves addressed the issue more or less directly, positing that Beethoven never assimilated and ’ A F
22 E
thus maintained his independence. Numerous means were used to achieve an appropriate image of the D
d n a
artist in question, allowing the GDR’s cultural and political leaders, as well as its citizens to appreciate the R D G
works without a betrayal of class and culture weighing on their conscience. Most of these means involved e h T
choices in how to structure the narrative of a commemoration to portray the cultural greats in the best : n w
possible light. O
r u O
Given changes in the political and cultural climate of the GDR over the course of more than two de - f o
s u
cades, it is important to situate Ludwig van Beethoven and Beethoven – Days in a Life in their respective i n e G
contexts, as each film was doing cultural and social work in relation to how Beethoven was interpreted in its A day. In its early years, the GDR was quick to commemorate whatever important figures it could, in order to shift attention from the country’s (and the region’s) post-war recovery, as well as offer evidence of the fledg ling nation’s legitimacy. Music was a crucial means by which the GDR could reach its goal, for—as Education Minister Paul Wandel wrote to Walter Ulbricht, the leader of the GDR until 1971—“music was an internationally understood language and one that could be exploited to reach out to a wider international audience.” 23 Released in 1954, Max Jaap’s acclaimed Beethoven documentary, Ludwig van Beethoven , arrived close on the heels of the war. Already in a 1952 position statement, the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED, the GDR’s ruling party) had made clear its commitment to honoring Beethoven as a pivotal figure in the development of German culture. Marking Beethoven’s 125th Todestag , the GDR positioned itself opposite the “American imperialists,” who were supposedly threatening to wage another war, while poisoning and destroying the natural fraternal bonds and cultural heritage linking East and West Germans. 24 Important ideological bases for the official commemoration of Beethoven included that he “descended from a simple people” and that the significance of his work emerged from its creator’s “struggle for revolutionary goals.” 25 Jaap’s documentary is a splendid film that reflects both contemporaneous DEFA productions and East Germany as a nascent state. In many ways, the film resembles other works produced by DEFA around this time. The style mimics episodes of Der Augenzeuge (Eyewitness )—the East German newsreel for over thirty years—of which Jaap had been an editor and director. Ludwig van Beethoven was very well received, both
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A Genius of Our Own: The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens y r
in the GDR and internationally, and two years later Jaap directed a similar film about the German literary a r b i L icon Friedrich Schiller. Politically, Jaap’s film seems to have two purposes: first, to present Beethoven’s bio - m l i F graphy while habilitating him for East German ideological and political purposes; and second, to offer a A F E
showcase for GDR and Soviet musical talent and the 1952 Beethoven celebrations. Highlights of the film D
e h t include a screenplay by author Stephan Hermlin, skilled camerawork by A.M. Draeger, Harry Kadoch, y b
e
Wolfgang Müller-Senn and Erich Nitzschmann, and stellar performances by five music ensembles: the Berlin s a e l Staatskapelle, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Leipzig Radio Symphony e R
26 D Orchestra, and the Moscow State Beethoven Quartet. V D
A
The majority of the film is spent delivering a third-person look back at Beethoven’s world. The viewer •
t e
sees buildings and rooms in which Beethoven lived and worked, and historic illustrations including paintings, u D
n e
drawings and engravings. These images convey quite well the different settings in which Beethoven grew v o h t
up, studied, thought and composed. The views we gain of the German and Austrian countryside provide us e e B
•
with (usually unsubtle) literal and figurative representations of the composer’s mental and emotional state; s n e
the occasion of a carriage ride to a residence at which he will be able to work, for instance, shows us a v o h t
tranquil summer day with calm breezes blowing through trees, while star-crossed love delivers dark clouds e e B
s and violently rushing rivers. The film also affords glimpses into Beethoven’s domestic environment with short ’ A F E D
tours of important rooms, like those in the house of his birth, often with tracking shots that maneuver through d n a doorways or move along bookshelves, in one case leading up to an imposing bust of the composer himself. R D G Surprisingly—and in striking contrast to the Seemann film—here Beethoven’s deafness is almost coin - e h T
cidental; it is simply not a focal point or one of the biographical milestones toward which the film’s narrative : n w O builds. One might consider this to be one of the many interesting things about Beethoven, especially in that r u O
he composed so much majestic music at what would naturally seem to be a physiological and technical dis- f o
s u advantage. Instead, in Jaap’s documentary Beethoven’s political leanings and philosophical beliefs become i n e G highly important. The film also showcases (although not explicitly) the 125th Todestag celebrations and the A musical abilities of East Bloc ensembles. The concert performances are skilled and well executed. The final sequence—which shows one of the frequent concerts for “the people,” i.e. laborers and factory workers— is slightly less impressive in its presentation, as several of the attendees unfortunately seem to be slightly uninterested. In discussing the related genres of the genius film (beginning in National Socialist cinema) and the artist film, Sabine Hake observes that the protagonists of these earlier films illustrated the position of the “great man” within society, often articulating his greatness through patriotism and nationalism and simul - taneously showing his extraordinary disconnection from his contemporaries. 27 Part of a cult of classicism or, more generally, of humanistic heritage, these films served implicitly and explicitly to bolster and provide evidence for the state’s commitment to German culture. Hake remarks that they successfully “confirmed the relevance of the classics for the present,” but simultaneously “contributed to grandiose self-representations of the political leadership and its manipulation of the humanistic legacy.” 28 In both these senses, the ostensible goal of Jaap’s Ludwig van Beethoven —to connect Beethoven’s biography and musical production to the contemporary East German state—was a success. Made more than twenty years later, Horst Seemann’s 1976 feature film, Beethoven – Days in a Life appeared amid portentous changes in GDR cultural policies. In the early 1970s, what had been a somewhat fearful cultural atmosphere in the latter half of the 1960s—following the 1965 Eleventh Plenum of the SED’s Central Committee and its hostile criticism and censorship of artists, including the banning of a dozen
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A Genius of Our Own: The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens y
films—apparently began to clear. The start of the new decade signalled an era in which there were to be r a r b i
“no taboos” in socialist art and literature, according to the 1971 declaration of the new General Secretary of L
m l i
the SED, Erich Honecker. But cultural policies soon began tightening up again and the year that Seemann’s F
A F
biopic was released also saw the momentous and notorious expatriation of the critical East German singer- E D
e h t
songwriter Wolf Biermann. y b
Seemann’s Beethoven arrived as part of a 1970s wave of so-called heritage films ( Erbefilme ) that took as e s a e l
their subjects material from the most cherished periods of the classical heritage of the German-speaking e R
29 D
lands: the Classicism and Romanticism of the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. Heritage films V D
A
were part of a resurgence of these motifs and a reconnection to earlier interest in these artists, as the •
t
impulse evident when Jaap made his documentary had waned by the early 1970s. By the time Seemann e u D
30 n
made his film, the motivation for using such classical material was different. In the first half of the 1960s— e v o h after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961—filmmakers had set out to create films that were more t e e B
critical and contemporary in their focus. Seán Allan quotes the DEFA script editor Klaus Wischnewski, who •
s n
wrote in Neues Deutschland in 1966: “Now that the border has been made secure, at last we can get down e v o
31 h to the business of intensifying the critical aspect of our cinema.” While the cinematic work of the 1950s had t e e B
s
bolstered the GDR’s cultural legitimacy and socialist genealogy (with, for example, films on Schiller and Ernst ’ A F Thälmann, respectively), the cinema of the 1960s increasingly led to friction with the SED leadership because E D
d n
of the prevalence of controversial social issues in the films. This tension rapidly curtailed the tolerance of a
R D
the post-Wall environment, leading to the banning of a number of films. In the 1970s, then, as the pendulum G
e h T
swung back to historical motifs, it was in part because it allowed filmmakers to escape censorship, while : n w
also thematizing an estrangement that some felt in East German society. O
r u O
The so-called artist films ( Künstlerfilme ) of 1970s and 1980s East German cinema can be linked to both f o
s
domestic and international political and cultural considerations. Allan understands the proliferation of this u i n e G
genre to be a particular expression of the “alienation of the individual” within GDR society, noting Seemann’s A Beethoven film, as well as Konrad Wolf’s Goya (1971) and Der nackte Mann auf dem Sportplatz (1973, The Naked Man on the Athletic Field ), Egon Günther’s Lotte in Weimar (1975), and Lothar Warneke’s Addio, piccolo mia (1978). 32 Allan argues that Wolf’s films, especially, were significant in “demythologizing” the artist and her/his position in society, as well as the social function served by artistic creation and the place of works of art in socialist life. 33 These issues appear in Beethoven – Days in a Life as well. Most commentaries and reviews remark that the film is not a “normal artist biography.” 34 Instead, the collaboration between Seemann and screenwriter Günter Kunert produced “an attempt to make a contribution to the discussion on the freedom of art and artists.” 35 The Beethoven we see in Seemann’s film is a flawed human, without doubt a genius, but troubled and difficult in his complexity. To be sure, this feature film in no way attempts the goals of a documentary and offers a kind of contrast to Jaap’s film in style and content. Its use of selected motifs, structure, and formal elements delivers its narrative in a way that truly allows us to experience the effects of the multiple-Beethoven phenomenon extant in the GDR (and elsewhere). Thus, Beethoven – Days in a Life comes to be a glorification of individuality, unique genius, and artistic creation or inspiration. 36 Naturally, perhaps, Seemann’s film resembles Jaap’s in its delight in Beethoven’s music. In both, skilled performers highlight Beethoven’s artistic productivity and timeless appeal. In Seemann’s film, we hear from the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the DEFA Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Staatskapelle, the Suske Quartet and the Central Orchestra of the National People’s Army. At various points we hear the Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica,” Op. 55), the Symphony No. 5 (Op. 67), the
5 A Genius of Our Own- The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens_The Flying Dutchman 06.05.14 08:16 Seite 6
A Genius of Our Own: The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens y r
Piano Sonata No. 8 (“Pathétique,” Op. 13) in a solo performance by Dieter Zechlin, and the Symphony No. 9 a r b i L (“Choral,” Op. 125). Interestingly, when the latter film was released, the GDR was already making preparati - m l i F ons for the 1977 celebration of Beethoven’s 150th Todestag , an event that again featured performances and A F E D
speaking dignitaries. e h t
The Beethoven we encounter in Seemann’s film, portrayed by Lithuanian actor Donatas Banionis, seems y b
e
to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Beethoven in Jaap’s film. While there are certainly con - s a e l e
trasting traits, however, the two Beethovens in this “duet” are dual sides of the same East German coin. R
D V
Although never devoid of emotion, the elevated, highly ideological workaholic Beethoven of the 1950s has D
A
•
become a more fully realized and dynamic character. Unlike the protagonist of Jaap’s film, Seemann’s
t e Beethoven is mercurial, difficult, and chaotic. The deafness that affects his life and artistic production plays u D
n e
a contrastingly large role in this narrative. We often see Beethoven with an ear trumpet as he tries, some - v o h t
times in frustration, to listen to his interlocutors. From his inability to keep a long-term housekeeper, to the e e B
•
disruptive montages that show his love relationships and mental and emotional inner workings, this later s n e
Beethoven does not allow the viewer to merely sit back and revel in the time-honored estimation of the v o h t e
music. Still considered a national treasure in the GDR (as he is by many of his Viennese contemporaries in e B
s ’
the film), this composer is more tragic and flawed, delivering a vivid picture of his subjective experience. A F E D Some of the differences between the two Beethovens are to be expected, given the different aims of the d n a two films. Jaap’s film is a documentary linked explicitly to an official commemoration with a national “mar- R D G
keting” goal. Seemann’s is a fictional work arising in a different cultural and artistic context, at a time when e h T
:
the individual was growing estranged from socialist society. And yet there are also similarities. Seemann’s n w O
Beethoven is not one to ingratiate himself with his noble patrons; instead he remains, as in Jaap’s film, the r u O
“people’s Beethoven” in his explicit and oft-expressed appreciation of representative government and popu - f o
s u lar sovereignty, as well as basic material needs, such as household accounting and socks that need darning. i n e G
Referring throughout to other icons of German cultural heritage, such as Kant and Goethe, Beethoven strives A for equality, as does the noble sentiment of the conclusion of his Ninth Symphony, borrowed from Friedrich Schiller: all men become brothers ( Alle Menschen werden Brüder! ) [ sic ]. 37 There are also unintended simi- larities between the films. As in Jaap’s featured concerts for the (somewhat disinterested) common worker, Seemann shows us the simultaneous connection and disconnection between fellow humans, for example in the juxtaposition of toiling fieldworkers with well-dressed gentlemen strolling in the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace. In the end, though, the viewer is left with Seemann’s image of Beethoven plodding down the street amid bustling traffic in busy 1970s Berlin: the talented, individualistic genius with strongly held principles, misunderstood and alone in society. Max Jaap’s Ludwig van Beethovan and Horst Seemann’s Beethoven – Days in a Life draw us into two fascinating time periods and enable us to witness for ourselves their respective negotiations and uses of Beethoven as an important German cultural figure. Testifying to the evolving social and cultural development of the GDR, Jaap’s documentary and Seemann’s biopic engage with an astounding amount of historical baggage and cultural expectations. Each of their resulting Beethovens must be seen as serving a socially discursive purpose. But while both Beethovens shared the task of celebrating the canonical German heri - tage, Jaap’s revolutionary and less nuanced genius, on the one hand, and Seemann’s temperamental artist, on the other, deviate from each other in their cultural resonances, demonstrating the composer’s lasting versatility.
6 A Genius of Our Own- The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens_The Flying Dutchman 06.05.14 08:16 Seite 7
A Genius of Our Own: The GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens y r a r b i L Kyle Frackman has been an Assistant Professor of Germanic Studies at the University of British m l i F Columbia since 2012. He has written numerous articles and book contributions and is the author of the forth - A F E D
coming book An Other Kind of Home: Gender-Sexual Abjection, Subjectivity, and the Uncanny in Literature e h t
and Film. Frackman, whose recent research focuses on classical music in DEFA film and transsexuality in y b
e
film, is also co-editing Classical Music in the German Democratic Republic (Camden House). s a e l
______e R
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1. David Pike, The Politics of Culture in Soviet-Occupied Germany, 1945-1949 (Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1992), 457. A
2. Maike Steinkamp, Das unerwünschte Erbe: Die Rezeption “entarteter” Kunst in Kunstkritik, Ausstellungen und Museen der Sowjetischen •
Besatzungzone und der frühen DDR (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 87. t e
3 . David Clarke and Ute Wölfel, eds., Remembering the German Democratic Republic: Divided Memory in a United Germany (Houndmills, u D
Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). n e v
4 . Klaus Finke, ed., DEFA-Film als nationales Kulturerbe? , Beitra ̈ge zur Film- und Fernsehwissenschaft, Bd. 58 (Berlin: Vistas, 2001). o h t
5. Toby Thacker, “‘Renovating’ Bach and Handel: New Musical Biographies in the German Democratic Republic,” in Musical Biography: Towards e e B
New Paradigms , ed. Jolanta T. Pekacz (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 17–41. •
6. Seán Allan, “Representations of Art and the Artist in East German Cinema,” in DEFA at the Crossroads of East German and International Film s n
Culture: A Companion , ed. Marc Silberman and Henning Wrage (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 93. e v
7. Julian Blunk, “Auferstanden aus Ruinen: Die Konstruktion kultureller Traditionen einer traditionslosen Gesellschaft im Wiederaufbaufilm der SBZ,” o h t
in Contested Legacies: Constructions of Cultural Heritage in the GDR , ed. Matthew Philpotts and Sabine Rolle, Edinburgh German Yearbook 3 e e B (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2009), 7–29. s ’ A
8. Toby Thacker, Music after Hitler , 1945-1955 (Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007), 30. F E
9. Ibid., 70. D
d
10. Ibid., 127. n a
11. Ibid., 148. R D
12. Wilhelm Girnus, “Wo stehen die Feinde der deutschen Kunst?,” in Dokumente zur Kunst-, Literatur- und Kulturpolitik der SED , ed. Elimar Schubbe G
e
(Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1977), 170–77. h T
13. For more on the history of Beethoven reception, see Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, “Beethoven und die Nachwelt,” in Beethoven Handbuch , ed. Sven : n
Hiemke (Kassel: Bärenreiter/Metzler, 2009), 574–609. w O
r
14. “Zum 125. Todestag Ludwig van Beethovens am 26. März 1952: Stellungnahme des Zentralkomitees der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei u O
Deutschlands,” Musik und Gesellschaft , no. 3 (1952): 74. f o
15. Elaine Kelly, “Composing the Canon: The Individual and the Romantic Aesthetic in the GDR,” in Contested Legacies: Constructions of Cultural s u i
Heritage in the GDR , ed. Matthew Philpotts and Sabine Rolle, Edinburgh German Yearbook 3 (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2009), 199. n e G
16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., 200. A 18. Ibid., 201–02. 19. Heinz Alfred Brockhaus and Konrad Niemann, eds., Musikgeschichte der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik , Sammelbände zur Musikgeschichte der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik 5 (Berlin: Verlag Neue Musik, 1979), 2. 20. Ibid., xv. 21. Allan, “Representations of Art and the Artist in East German Cinema,” 95. 22. Brigitte Thurm, “Rätsel der Genialität: Zum Film ‘Beethoven – Tage aus einem Leben,’” Film und Fernsehen , September 1976, 29. 23. Paul Wandel to Walter Ulbricht, November 24, 1949, DY 30/J IV 2/3/70, Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv, Berlin. 24. “Zum 125. Todestag Ludwig van Beethovens,” 72. 25. Ibid. 26. Probably because the performances we hear and watch in the film come from those surrounding Beethoven’s 125th death anniversary (1952), we do not hear the DEFA Symphony Orchestra in this film, although it had been constituted the same year as the celebration. 27. Sabine Hake, German National Cinema , 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2002), 79. 28. Ibid., 145. 29. Daniela Berghahn, “The Re-Evaluation of Goethe and the Classical Tradition in the Films of Egon Günther and Siegfried Kühn,” in DEFA: East German Cinema, 1946-1992 , ed. Seán Allan and John Sandford (NY: Berghahn Books, 1999), 222. 30. Ibid., 224. 31. Seán Allan, “DEFA: An Historical Overview,” in DEFA: East German Cinema, 1946-1992 , ed. Seán Allan and John Sandford (NY: Berghahn Books, 1999), 11. 32. Ibid., 15–16. 33. Allan, “Representations of Art and the Artist in East German Cinema,” 101–02. 34. Frank-Burkhard Habel, Das große Lexikon der DEFA-Spielfilme (Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2000), 57–58. 35. “den Versuch, einen Diskussionsbeitrag zur Freiheit von Kunst und Künstlern zu geben.” Habel, Frank-Burkhard. Das große Lexikon der DEFA- Spielfilme . Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2000. 57–58. 36. Thurm, “Rätsel der Genialität: Zum Film ‘Beethoven – Tage aus einem Leben,’” 29. 37. Other humanist references are made in glimpses the viewer gets of German pages from Homer’s Odyssey and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
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