Kuhle Wampe Presentation for NEH Seminar

UN-KUHLE WUMPE (TO WHOM DOES THE WORLD BELONG?)

SEMINAR

TriviaTrivia

ProductionProduction

ContextContext

LORI KENT

Written and partially directed by

BERTOLD BRECHTDirection: Slatan Dudow.

Cinematography: Gunther Krampf Music: Hanns Eisler

c. 1932

UN-SEMINAR PRESENTATION:

Everyone needs help from everyone. - Bertolt Brecht

http://wiu.edu/users/brecht10//brecht_english/brecht_chronology.html

It is rumored that Brecht had ____ mistressessimultaneously throughout his adult life.

A. OneB. TwoC. Three

It is rumored that Brecht had ____ mistressessimultaneously throughout his adult life.

A. OneB. TwoC. Three

Cinema was a short lived novelty for the German

upper classes beginning in 1895…they soon lost interest. Next, cinema producers targeted the working classes.

The first public performance using the Bioscop was organized in the restaurant Feldschlößchen in Berlin-Pankow, Berliner Straße 27…it was later renamed the Tivoli.

A LARGER CONTEXT: THE ACADEMY AWARDS

NOTES ABOUT PRODUCTION

• THE CREATORS OF THE FILM WERE ACCOMPLISHED IN THEIR FIELDS

• CENSORED/EDITED TWICE BEFORE RELEASE

• OVER A YEAR IN THE MAKING (DUE TO INTERRUPTIONS)

• 60% OF THE FILM WAS SHOT IN “EVERYDAY SETTINGS”

• THE FIRST SOUND FEATURE BY THE LEFT.

• FEATURED LEFTIST THEATER AND AGIPROP GROUPS SUCH AS GRUPPE JUNGER SCHAUSPIELER AND DAS ROTE SPRACHROHR

• LOW BUDGET AND FINANCIALLY TROUBLED

• PROMETHEUS FOLDED THEN PRASENS FILM COMPANY COMPLETED THE PRODUCTION

NOTES ABOUT PRODUCTION

• THE CREATORS OF THE FILM WERE ACCOMPLISHED IN THEIR FIELDS

• CENSORED/EDITED TWICE BEFORE RELEASE

• OVER A YEAR IN THE MAKING (DUE TO INTERRUPTIONS)

• 60% OF THE FILM WAS SHOT IN “EVERYDAY SETTINGS”

• THE FIRST SOUND FEATURE BY THE LEFT.

• FEATURED LEFTIST THEATER AND AGIPROP GROUPS SUCH AS GRUPPE JUNGER SCHAUSPIELER AND DAS ROTE SPRACHROHR

• LOW BUDGET AND FINANCIALLY TROUBLED

• PROMETHEUS FOLDED THEN PRASENS FILM COMPANY COMPLETED THE PRODUCTION

NOTES ABOUT PRODUCTION

• THE CREATORS OF THE FILM WERE ACCOMPLISHED IN THEIR FIELDS

• CENSORED/EDITED TWICE BEFORE RELEASE

• OVER A YEAR IN THE MAKING (DUE TO INTERRUPTIONS)

• 60% OF THE FILM WAS SHOT IN “EVERYDAY SETTINGS”

• THE FIRST SOUND FEATURE BY THE LEFT.

• FEATURED LEFTIST THEATER AND AGIPROP GROUPS SUCH AS GRUPPE JUNGER SCHAUSPIELER AND DAS ROTE SPRACHROHR

• LOW BUDGET AND FINANCIALLY TROUBLED

• PROMETHEUS FOLDED THEN PRASENS FILM COMPANY COMPLETED THE PRODUCTION

NOTES ABOUT PRODUCTION

• THE CREATORS OF THE FILM WERE ACCOMPLISHED IN THEIR FIELDS

• CENSORED/EDITED TWICE BEFORE RELEASE

• OVER A YEAR IN THE MAKING (DUE TO INTERRUPTIONS)

• 60% OF THE FILM WAS SHOT IN “EVERYDAY SETTINGS”

• THE FIRST SOUND FEATURE BY THE LEFT.

• FEATURED LEFTIST THEATER AND AGIPROP GROUPS SUCH AS GRUPPE JUNGER SCHAUSPIELER AND DAS ROTE SPRACHROHR

• LOW BUDGET AND FINANCIALLY TROUBLED

• PROMETHEUS FOLDED THEN PRASENS FILM COMPANY COMPLETED THE PRODUCTION

NOTES ABOUT PRODUCTION

• THE CREATORS OF THE FILM WERE ACCOMPLISHED IN THEIR FIELDS

• CENSORED/EDITED TWICE BEFORE RELEASE

• OVER A YEAR IN THE MAKING (DUE TO INTERRUPTIONS)

• 60% OF THE FILM WAS SHOT IN “EVERYDAY SETTINGS”

• THE FIRST SOUND FEATURE BY THE LEFT.

• FEATURED LEFTIST THEATER AND AGIPROP GROUPS SUCH AS GRUPPE JUNGER SCHAUSPIELER AND DAS ROTE SPRACHROHR

• LOW BUDGET AND FINANCIALLY TROUBLED

• PROMETHEUS FOLDED THEN PRASENS FILM COMPANY COMPLETED THE PRODUCTION

NOTES ABOUT PRODUCTION

• THE CREATORS OF THE FILM WERE ACCOMPLISHED IN THEIR FIELDS

• CENSORED/EDITED TWICE BEFORE RELEASE

• OVER A YEAR IN THE MAKING (DUE TO INTERRUPTIONS)

• 60% OF THE FILM WAS SHOT IN “EVERYDAY SETTINGS”

• THE FIRST SOUND FEATURE BY THE LEFT.

• FEATURED LEFTIST THEATER AND AGIPROP GROUPS SUCH AS GRUPPE JUNGER SCHAUSPIELER AND DAS ROTE SPRACHROHR

• LOW BUDGET AND FINANCIALLY TROUBLED

• PROMETHEUS FOLDED THEN PRASENS FILM COMPANY COMPLETED THE PRODUCTION

NOTES ABOUT PRODUCTION

• THE CREATORS OF THE FILM WERE ACCOMPLISHED IN THEIR FIELDS

• CENSORED/EDITED TWICE BEFORE RELEASE

• OVER A YEAR IN THE MAKING (DUE TO INTERRUPTIONS)

• 60% OF THE FILM WAS SHOT IN “EVERYDAY SETTINGS”

• THE FIRST SOUND FEATURE BY THE LEFT.

• FEATURED LEFTIST THEATER AND AGIPROP GROUPS SUCH AS GRUPPE JUNGER SCHAUSPIELER AND DAS ROTE SPRACHROHR

• LOW BUDGET AND FINANCIALLY TROUBLED

• PROMETHEUS FOLDED THEN PRASENS FILM COMPANY COMPLETED THE PRODUCTION

NOTES ABOUT PRODUCTION

• THE CREATORS OF THE FILM WERE ACCOMPLISHED IN THEIR FIELDS

• CENSORED/EDITED TWICE BEFORE RELEASE

• OVER A YEAR IN THE MAKING (DUE TO INTERRUPTIONS)

• 60% OF THE FILM WAS SHOT IN “EVERYDAY SETTINGS”

• THE FIRST SOUND FEATURE BY THE LEFT.

• FEATURED LEFTIST THEATER AND AGIPROP GROUPS SUCH AS GRUPPE JUNGER SCHAUSPIELER AND DAS ROTE SPRACHROHR

• LOW BUDGET AND FINANCIALLY TROUBLED

• PROMETHEUS FOLDED THEN PRASENS FILM COMPANY COMPLETED THE PRODUCTION

Prometheus Film-Verlieh und Vertriebs-GmbH was solvent in 1925 because they served as the distributors of:

a. Cabinet of Dr. Cagliarib. Battleship Potemkinc. Gold Rush

Prometheus Film-Verlieh und Vertriebs-GmbH became financially successful in 1926 because they served as the distributors of:

a. Cabinet of Dr. Cagliarib. Battleship Potemkinc. Gold Rush

Verfremdungseffekt, or distantiation effect, that was primarily used in Brecht’s Epic theatre. This effect aimed to break the link between the spectator and her identification with the hero of the play, and

to shock her out of her uncritical capture by the entertainment.

With the intervention of distantiation, spectators could participate in the construction of meaning and possibly

even become able to distinguish between ‘ideological’ reality and ‘actual’ reality – the

social relations that shape their lives.

Kirn, Gal (2007) ‘Kuhle Wampe: Politics of Montage, De-montage of Politics?’, Film-Philosophy, vol. 11, no. 1, p.5

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-best-german-beer-drinking/id385112689

Context of Berlin – Urban, Industrialized, Crowded, Troubled

Context of Berlin – Urban, Industrialized, Crowded, Troubled

Introduction to Family

Context of Berlin – Urban, Industrialized, Crowded, Troubled

Introduction to Family

Glimpse of “Community”

Context of Berlin – Urban, Industrialized, Crowded, Troubled

Introduction to Family

Glimpse of “Community”

161 seconds of cultivated and semi-cultivated nature

Context of Berlin – Urban, Industrialized, Crowded, Troubled

Introduction to Family

Glimpse of “Community”

161 seconds of cultivated and semi-cultivated nature

Camp

Engagement Party

Engagement Party

Comradeshipthrough Sport

Engagement Party

Comradeshipthrough Sport

Political Theater

Engagement Party

Comradeshipthrough Sport

Coffee Conversation: Critiqueof Global Capitalism

Political Theater

Mother smiles once. What is the context?

“THE MOOD SET WAS PASSIVE AND DEPRESSING…DETERIORATED HOUSING.”

THE MONTAGE COMBINED WITH AGITATIVE MUSIC WAS USED TO “STIMULATE OPPOSITION MORE THAN SYMPATHETIC SENTIMENTALITY.”

Murray, B (1990). Film and the German Left in the Weimar Republic: From Caligari to Kuhle Wumpe. Ausitn: University of Texas Press. p 221

I. METRIC MONTAGE• The fundamental criterion for this construction is the absolute lengths of

the pieces. The pieces are joined together according to their lengths, in a formula-scheme corresponding to a measure of music. Realization is in the repetition of these "measures.” 2. RHYTHMIC MONTAGE

• Here, in determining the lengths of the pieces, the content within the frame is a factor possessing equal rights to consideration. Abstract determination of the piece-lengths gives way to a flexible relationship of the actual lengths.3. TONAL MONTAGE

• In tonal montage, movement is perceived in a wider sense. The concept of movement embraces all affects of the montage piece. Here montage is based on the characteristic emotional sound of the piece-of its dominant. The general tone of the piece.4. OVERTONAL MONTAGE

• This characteristic steps up the impression from a melodically emotional coloring to a directly physiological perception.

5. INTELLECTUAL MONTAGE• Intellectual montage is montage not of generally physiological overtonal

sounds, but of sounds and overtones of an intellectual sort: i.e., conflict-juxtaposition of accompanying intellectual affects.

• See: Eisenstein, S. (1938) “Word and Image”

VERTOV (Дз га В ртов)и́U е́U

….WAS EXTREMELY RADICAL IN HIS

MONTAGE AND HIS TECHNIQUE WAS NOT

TRANSPARENT. HE TRIED TO PLAY WITH

NORMATIVE IDENTIFICATION

(ANTINARRATIVE, ANTI-DIALOGUE – THE SO-

CALLED ‘CINEMA-EYE’). ON THE OTHER

HAND, EISENSTEIN WAS MUCH MORE

PEDAGOGICAL AND HE FORMULATED A

VERSION OF MONTAGE AS ‘CINEMA-FIST’.

See: Deleuze, G. (1986) Cinema I: The Movement-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

If this scene were your inspiration for a country and western song, what would you name it?

Eric O’Donnell Cowboys: East Germany, Rebels of the Vogtlandhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui1W7TQ15vo&feature=related

Franz’ scream is his only utterance.

“This scream is as non-human as the sounds made by [Kafka’s] insect Samsa. Franz’s final scream is contrasted with the steps of his mother. There is no silence after death. The steps persistently echo along the images of their apartment, until the camera finally fixes on the image of the bicycle.”

For a detailed description of the distinction between voice versus sound see Dolar, M. (2006) A Voice and Nothing More. London: MIT Press.

Poem for Franz.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-216676152094085175

Weegee (1941) First Murder

CAMP

THE CREATIVE STRATEGY OF BRECHT:

The spectator was no longer in any way allowed to submit to an experience uncritically (and without practical consequences) by means of simple empathy with the characters in a play. The production took the subject matter and the incidents shown and put them through a process of alienation: the alienation that is necessary to all understanding. When something seems 'the most obvious thing in the world' it means that any attempt to understand the world has been given up.

Bertold Brecht, interview with Luth Otto, in Brecht on Theatre: the Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and tr. by John Willett, Hill and Wang, New York, 1964, p. 70-71

BRECHT’S CRITIQUE OF “REALISTIC” THEATER:The bourgeois theatre's performances always aim at smoothing over contradictions, at creating false harmony, at idealization. Conditions are reported as if they could not be otherwise; characters as individuals, incapable by definition of being divided, cast in one block, manifesting themselves in the most various situations, likewise for that matter existing without any situation at all. If there is any development it is always steady, never by jerks; the developments always take place within a definite framework which cannot be broken through.

None of this is like reality, so a realistic theatre must give it up. .

Bertold Brecht, "Appendices to the Short Organum," in Brecht on Theatre: the Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and tr. by John Willett, Hill and Wang, New York, 1964, p. 271, para. 46.

THE BEST YEARS OF HIS LIFE…

THE BEST YEARS OF HIS LIFE…

WHOIS THEUS?

THE CREATIVE STRATEGY OF BRECHT:

Verfremdungseffekt

Bertold Brecht, interview with Luth Otto, in Brecht on Theatre: the Development of an Aesthetic, ed. and tr. by John Willett, Hill and Wang, New York, 1964, p. 70-71

NOTES ABOUT RECEPTION:

AN ESTMIATED 14,000 PEOPLE ATTENDED PERFORMANCES AT THE ATRIUM THE FIRST WEEK.

IT PLAYED AT 17 OTHER BERLIN THEATERS FOR ANOTHER WEEK.

OVERALL, THE FILM FAILED TO CAPTURE THE PUBLIC’S INTEREST.

THE PRODUCERS FELT THE FILM WAS A SUCCESS, IN PART, BECAUSE OF THE NUMBERS OF PARTICIPANTS IN THE CREATION OF THE FILM–ABOUT 4000+.

Murray, B (1990). Film and the German Left in the Weimar Republic: From Caligari to Kuhle Wumpe. Ausitn: University of Texas Press

MUSIC

Varshaviana • History of the Soviet Union in Ballad and Song

Klarinettenmucki •  Polka Express

Kaddisch • Paul O’ Montis & Ralph Erwin

Gelbe Rose • Medium Terzett

Een Schlager Gaat op Stap • Heinje Davids

Eine Nacht in Monte Carlo • (1931) • Heinz Egon

Karlsbader Sprudelfox •  (1931) • Hermann Leopoldi