Film History, Volume 18, pp. 21–45, 2006. Copyright © John Libbey Publishing ISSN: 0892-2160. Printed in United States of America Learning from the enemy: DEFA-French co-productions of the 1950s Learning from the enemy: DEFA-F rench co-productions of the 1950s Marc Silberman etween 1956 and 1960 East Germany’s state- DEFA’s rather provincial production values. Although owned film company DEFA released in rela- this conjecture was not entirely off the mark, in fact Btively quick succession four major feature films the story is morecomplexandin itscomplexity reveals co-produced with French companies. Al- some striking insights into the interplay of cold-war though it also developed limited partnerships with politics, cultural policy, and film production in the West German, Swedish, and Italian production com- GDR (and France) during the 1950s. panies during the 1950s, the French initiatives seemed to have enjoyed a privileged status for the The scope of the co-productions German Democratic Republic (GDR). Not only did The DEFA-French cooperation constitutes no more negotiations involve high-ranking political authorities than a footnote to the broader narrative of postwar in East Berlin, but the productions also brought to European co-productions and in some ways follows the DEFA studios in Babelsberg, situated near similar conditions and constraints in terms of policies Potsdam at the southwestern edge of (West) Berlin, and expectations.1 After World War II bilateral cinema some of France’s best-known cinematic talent, in- agreements among European partners were sought cluding internationally celebrated film stars like to offset the influx of American imports and the Gérard Philipe, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Ber- growing tendency of American majors themselves to nard Blier, and Jean Gabin. At the time the films capitalise on the relatively cheap labour of European enjoyed good runs both in the GDR and in France, studios through their own co-production agree- although none of them were considered critical suc- ments. France and Italy led the way with the result cesses. Today they are largely forgotten, mentioned that about 30 per cent of France’s annual movie in film histories or memoirs only in passing and rarely output consisted of co-productions by the end of the included in retrospectives or otherwise available for 1950s. While France in fact had no bilateral cinema distribution and screening. The four films to which I agreement with the GDR, nothing prevented a refer are: Gérard Philipe’s Die Abenteuer des Till French producer from negotiating a ‘co-participa- Ulenspiegel/LesAventuresdeTillL’Espiègle(TillUlen- tion’ contract with DEFA, whose considerable tech- spiegel’sAdventures,alsoThe Bold Adventure,1956), nical resources and politically over-determined Raymond Rouleau’s Die Hexen von Salem/Les Sor- economic strategy made for an attractive partner cières de Salem (The Witches of Salem, also The under certain circumstances.2 Crucible, 1957), Jean-Paul Le Chanois’s two-part Die Typically such cooperative cinema projects Elenden/Les Misérables (1959), and Louis Daquin’s draw on transnational traditions of popular and genre Trübe Wasser/Les Arrivistes (Muddy Waters, 1960). Upon first encountering them, I surmised that their Marc Silberman is Professor of German at the Univer- genealogy might somehow be linked to German sity of Wisconsin; his research and publications deal communists in Paris exile during the 1930s who, upon with the literature, culture, and cinema of twentieth- century Germany. Correspondance: German Depart- returning to (East) Germany, renewed their contacts ment, 818 Van Hise Hall, University of Wisconsin, in order to introduce a more international flavour to Madison, WI 53706, USA. e-mail: [email protected] FILM HISTORY: Volume 18, Number 1, 2006 – p. 21 22 Marc Silberman title The Crucible, an allegory for the anti-communist ‘witch hunts’ of the McCarthy hearings in the United States Congress. Les Misérables became the fourth French cinematic remake of Victor Hugo’s classic historical epic about the quest for justice by op- pressed citizens in the first third of the nineteenth century. The final co-production was an adaptation of Balzac’s novel, La Rabouilleuse (1842), presenting a trenchant study of bourgeois pettiness and venality set against the Restoration of the 1820s. Ironically, Les Misérables, adapted from a quintessentially French text, reaped criticism in France for being anti-national because the streets of Paris had been recreated – in of all places – studios outside Berlin. This led director Jean-Paul Le Chanois to defend the practice as a purely economic decision that in no way compromised his artistic point of view, which he characterised as being conceived from the original text’s perspective, that is, from the perspective of France.3 Le Chanois’s pragmatic and ‘nationalist’ view – certainly representative for the French part- ners of all four features – suggests the need to recenter the very definition of a national cinema through the dialectic of co-productions catalysed in the West by the economic imperative of international competition under cold-war conditions. For the French producers the cooperation with the DEFA studios was, then, first and foremost an economic opportunity. The postwar years of 1945–59 were a boom period for the French movie industry, yet producers faced strong competition from the dynamic blockbusters of the American ma- jors. Drawing on DEFA’s production capacity (the largest studios in Europe, virtually limitless extras, highly trained technicians) allowed these companies to produce movies with a big-budget look ‘on the Fig. 1. Set cinema, e.g. adaptations of great works of literature, cheap’, features that could compete with the block- designers Serge musical entertainment, or historical costume dramas busters coming from Hollywood. For the French film Pimenoff (Pathé constructed around great heroes. This was the case directors, who were less concerned with the details Cinéma, second for the DEFA-French co-productions, although – as of financing, DEFA placed in their hands resources from right) and we shall see – the actual commitments and expec- that they otherwise could never have commanded. Karl Schneider (DEFA, with hat) tations of the respective partners rarely coincided. In Moreover, working with the studios of an Eastern discuss with two the first co-production, Till Ulenspiegel is the legen- European socialist country may well have resonated French painters dary Flemish hero who fought for liberty and the not only with their progressive political commitments the design of the national independence of the Low Countries from – they were all active in left-wing organisations such Paris façades in a imperial Spanish rule in the sixteenth century, in a as the labour union Conféderation générale du travail Babelsberg backlot film adapted from the 1868 novel by Belgian writer (CGT; Philipe, Le Chanois, Daquin) and/or the Parti . Die Elenden/Les Charles de Coster. The second film’s titular ‘witches Misérables. Communist Français (PCF; Rouleau, Le Chanois, [Photo courtesy of Salem’ refer to a well-documented historical trial Daquin) – but arguably also with intellectuals’ resis- of BA-FA, Berlin, in seventeenth-century Massachusetts that Arthur tance in France to the hegemony of American film Sign. 3494.] Miller had dramatised successfully in 1953 under the capital. FILM HISTORY: Volume 18, Number 1, 2006 – p. 22 Learning from the enemy: DEFA-French co-productions of the 1950s 23 In East Germany the priorities stacked up dif- cultural imperatives. One effect was the centralisa- ferently. The state-run DEFA production company tion of cinema production under direct state super- was the largest cultural institution in East Germany. vision. Beginning in 1952 the State Commission for The Communist Party (soon unified in a shotgun Film (Staatliches Komitee für Filmwesen) was estab- marriage with the Social Democrats and named the lished under the direct authority of the state’s Council SED, ‘die sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands’ of Ministers with parallel subordinate committees at or Socialist Unity Party) charged DEFA with the re- regional and district levels. The rigid hierarchical sponsibility of creating a popular cinema with politi- structure of a large state bureaucracy overseen by a cal functions. Defined by a strong egalitarian ‘state secretary’ at the highest governmental level tendency, the task was to produce high quality films ensured economic, political, and ideological control for mass consumption that would educate and in- in all domains of film production and exploitation but form the public about the evils of the past and led to ever more didactic and politically tendentious address the viewer as the imaginary socialist citizen feature films. of the future. Endowed with the roles of educating After Stalin‘s death in March 1953, and wide- the people and transforming society, DEFA was also spread political street turbulence in June 1953, the susceptible to control by party and government offi- State Commission was dissolved and the Ministry of cials, and this political and ideological supervision of Culture replaced it in 1954 in order to provide a kind studio productions bore the mark of deeply in- of buffer between the party, the administration, and grained suspicions about mass media. Conse- those who produced culture. Within this Ministry a quently the mandate to entertain and simultaneously special oversight section called