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GDR Films Various Authors GDR Bulletin Volume 2 Issue 2 April Article 2 1976 GDR Films various authors Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/gdr This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License. Recommended Citation authors, various (1976) "GDR Films," GDR Bulletin: Vol. 2: Iss. 2. https://doi.org/10.4148/gdrb.v2i2.334 This Announcement is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in GDR Bulletin by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact [email protected]. authors: GDR Films GDR BULLETIN NEWSLETTER FOR LITERATURE AND CULTURE N THE GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC Vol. II, No. 2 April, 1976 GDR BULLETIN minority movements in the USA today are Published four times a year. Correspon• examples in this area. Finally, one may dence should be addressed to: Patricia choose to deal with the pedagogical prob• Herminghouse, editor, Dept. of Germanic lem of teaching literature dealing with revolution or teaching revolutionary thought. Languages and Literatures, Box 11C4, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. Papers should be no more than 8 pages single- or to spaced and should be submitted by the begin• Regional Contributing Editors: ning of May to the coordinators for this Helen Fehervary, Ohio State University Forum: Ileana Rodriguez and Marc Zimmerman, Louis Helbig, Indiana University Sixth St., Minneapolis, Minn. i or Frank Hirschbach, University of Minnesota 1020 55'+1+, 3ob Holub, University of Wisconsin-Madison, H.G. Huettich, University of Southern German Department, Linden Drive, California 1220 8th Floor Van Hise Hall, Madison, Wise. 53706. Theodor Langenbruch, Georgia Inst, of Questions concerning the appropriateness of Technology topics should likewise be directed to the coordinators. Collective projects are en• Editorial Assistant: couraged. Richard Burkhart, Washington University ************ STUDENTS PERFORM PLENZDORF FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES On April 2h and 25, 1976, the University CALL FOR PAPERS of Connecticut will present the American premiere of Ulrich Plenzdorf's drama, "Die The Midwest Marxist Literary Group is neuen Leiden des jungen W." The performance, currently soliciting papers for this year's under the direction of Herbert Lederer, will Marxist Forum at the Midwest Modern Language be performed by German department students from the first year through the graduate Association meeting, Nov. k-b in St. Louis. The topic which has been tentatively ap• level. The production is based on Lederer's proved is "Literature and Revolution in the own bilingual adaptation, interspersing Bicentennial Year". This subject provides English commentary into the German text, a wide range of possibilities for prospec• so that it will be accessible to an audi• tive contributors. One possibility is the ence with a minimal knowledge of German. analysis of revolution (not restricted to ************ the American Revolution) as reflected in literature. Studies of a cross-cultural GDR FILMS nature (e.g. the effect of the French, Cuban, or Vietnamese Revolution on European, Ameri• The following resumes of the GDR films now can, or Third World writers) are included being distributed in the U.S.is reproduced under this heading. Another alternative from the February calendar of the concerns a focus on the development of revo• 1976 Pacific Film Archive, 2621 Durant Ave., lutionary movements which have not or did Berkeley, California, as was the informa• not culminate in wide-scale confrontation. tion in the last issue of the Bulletin. Studies of the Jakobiner movement in Ger• Films can be rented through Audio Brandon, many in the late century or aspects of 1bth 3^ MacQuesten Parkway, Mount Vernon, N.Y. Published by New Prairie Press, 1976 10550. 1 -2- GDR Bulletin, Vol. 2 [1976], Iss. 2, Art. 2 THE LEGEND OF PAUL AND PAULA (DIE LEGENDE VON THE SEVENTH YEAR (DAS SIEBENTE JAHR) PAUL UND PAULA) THE SEVENTH YEAR describes seven days of a week during the "The term 'legend' used for this love story is justified at least in one seventh year of a marriage between a heart surgeon and her actor important aspect: love is depicted as something wonderful which husband. The director, Frank Vogel, has stated of his film: "There promotes and challenges man in his entirety. Carow, Plenzdorf and are too few contemporary films in which a woman and her problems their star Angelica Domrose present the need for love and its occupy a central and pivotal position. Too frequently the woman fulfillment as something natural, most human. They do not with• plays an auxiliary and accessory role within the story that is being hold anything from us and we see and hear that Paula enjoys love. narrated. This is really a contradiction given the place women Anyone may say that louder or softer tones might be more occupy in the life of our society. The concerns of the film, however, adequate. What I consider important is that nothing is being advertised. Nothing is viewed through a keyhole, but with the door are not iron-clad rules for me. But what happens today interests me open, free, natural and self-understood, as I have hardly known it much more than an historical occurrence." THE SEVENTH YEAR, from any other DEFA film. Unfortunately there are a few weak as a probing work dealing with contemporary life in the GDR, was spots which the authors have inserted into their splendid dish. It both praised and attacked in the press; one critic, Harmut Albrecht, seems to me that one must not present the social environment, the noted of the central character in a line which sounds like inverted world of labor so simply and polemically with such powerful praise: "Her inner conflict is, however, not sufficiently clearcut in partners as Paula. And this is what happens here ... I am at a loss to the staging: the absolutely necessary reference of her collective understand why a child must die from a road accident so that Paul problems and solutions of problems to the central figure is not creates trouble with Paula. Doesn't Paul offer other causes for consistent enough" Written and Directed by Frank Beyer (born conflicts and difficulties? And Paula's death? Does the legend need 1929, first film 1958, 7 features to date). With Jessy Rameik it at all? Does her death raise the effect of her example, the demand Wolfgang Kieling, Ulrich Thein. (1969, 82 mins, English titles) on Paul, the transposition of the imaginary story into the social reality of the public?" —Peter Ahrend in the GDR journal Welt- buhne (October 4, 1973). Directed by Heiner Carow. Screenplay by Carow and Ulrich Plenzdorf. With Angelica Domrose, Winfried MY DEAR ROBINSON (MEIN LIEBER ROBINSON) Glatzeder, Rolf Ludwig. (1973, 104 mins, color, 35mm, English Writing of MY DEAR ROBINSON in Kino DDR, Karl-Hein Tetzer titles) no es: "Cameraman Roland Grafr'origjnal, interesting and gifted has directed his first film. The title of the film is MEIN LIEBER ROBINSON. In humor and poetry the film tells the story of a playful 18-year-old boy, caught in his own world of fantasy, who A A THE unexpectedly becomes a father and examines his thoughts and £^S,!X .^,¥U£ AJ& PLAYING FIELD (DER NACKTE feelings in a naive, strange and often comical way. Caused by his MANN AUF DEM SPOTPLATZ) friends workmates and the mother of his child to reflect upon his According to Museum of Modern Art (New York) film curator sHuaUon he manages to take stock of himself, and confesses his love S.1}^^ .Mancla: "°ne of the more interesting recent films, THE and responsibilities." Directed by Roland Graf. Screenplay by Graf NAKED MAN IN THE PLAYING FIELD by the experienced and Klau^ Poch". With Jan Bereska, Gabrielle Simon, Alfred Muller. director Konrad Wolf, meditates on the role of the artist and his (1972, 81 mins, English titles) relation to the community for which he creates. This personal, psychological film attempts to_ deal with an inner as well as an extenor reality, and In so doing" may foreshadow another trend in the: cinematic future of the German Democratic Republic." One cntl?' Fr!id ?ehletj ""ted: "There is, in the first place, an DO YOU KNOW URBAN? impression of modesty and unobtrusiveness. There are only a few "Ulrich Plenzdorf has written a novel based on a true story by the rumsi in our production which are, just as this one, bereft of journalist Gisela Karau, about young people in the contemporary anything spectacular or intensely strained. There is nothing like world. These are young people who are searching for their place in a 0 e n otl onauty i™?. ^ . > 1 • • • That modesty has a lot to do with the socialistic society. There are those who have already found their artistic-political morality of the authors of this film, in relation to niche, and who yet are still searching. The formation of a socialist S e s to personality is a continuous process which does not come to an end & j J eC aS ^ !J I the 0 1 Kurt Bowe stalcs as m £ i rv I, Py , ,^-^ the sculptor by reaching some 'goal' . The film contains scenes pregnant with Kemmel. Directed by Konrad Wolf. With Ursula Karusseit. (1974 100 nuns, 35mm, Color, English titles) serene, reflective and thoughtworthy episodes. And there are also the problems, conflicts, and difficulties which arise every day among people who are living together. Happily the film is not buried under a mound of pedagogical speech. The film conveys a neighborly I WAS NINETEEN (ICH WAR NEUNZEHN) feeling which makes it easy for the spectator to relate to the action A very personal film by Konrad Wolf, son of the famous physician on the screen." —Horst Knietzsch.
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