Slatan Dudow – A Film Essay about a Marxist Artist (GDR 1974, excerpt)
Slatan Dudow – A Film Essay about a Marxist Artist (GDR 1974, excerpt)
Outside of the war raged. One person died after another, sang in debris and ash. Millions of innocent people met a cruel death. And I was sitting somewhere in trembling Europe and writing comedies as if I noticed nothing of all this. And yet I was in fact moved very deeply by the terrible events. Also I found myself often in extreme danger and I knew the sorrows of others at first hand. None of the countless tragic fates was a stranger to me, but I wrote comedies. (ed. Trans.)]
Slatan Dudow about his exile in Switzerland in Slatan Dudow – A Film Essay about a Marxist Artist (1974)
The artistic development and the essence of the film director Slatan Dudow throughout various stages of his life was depicted in Volker Koepp’s documentary Slatan Dudow – A Film Essay about a Marxist Artist (GDR 1974).
Slatan Dudow was born in Bulgaria in 1903. He came to Berlin in 1922 to study architecture, but soon began working as an assistant director. He met Sergei Eisenstein, Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang. His film Kuhle Wampe or who owns the world? (1932), with a screenplay by Bertolt Brecht, depicted the difficult living conditions of workers and was banned. Shortly afterwards Slatan Dudow went into exile in France and then to Switzerland. He wrote plays and satirical comedies. In 1946 he returned to Germany, to East Berlin. His banned film was shown in the GDR. He directed more films at DEFA, including Our Daily Bread (1949) and Destinies of Women (1952).