|
Volume CXXXII, Number 10 |
 |
The truth about Jacob the Liar
TED REINERT
ORIENT STAFF
With 25 films to his credit, acclaimed German filmmaker Frank Beyer visited campus last weekend as guest of the German department. Beyer visited classes, gave a public talk on making movies in East Germany, and introduced and answered questions about his film Jacob the Liar, the only East German film every nominated for an Academy Award, at a screening of the film last Saturday.
"I would say he's one of the most prominent directors we've had" come to Bowdoin, said German professor Helen Cafferty, who arranged the visit. Beyer studied at the Prague Film School with Milos Forman (Amadeus, The People vs. Larry Flynt). He has made more than 25 films.
His film Naked Among Wolves (1963), based on a true story about resistance fighters in the Buchenwald concentration camp saving a Jewish child is, according to Cafferty, the first movie that ever showed a concentration camp. Jacob tells the story of people in a Jewish ghetto in Poland during World War II. Jacob Heym chances to hear a news report and learns that the Russian forces are nearby. He tells the good news to a friend who has lost hope, but to convince and thus save his friend, he lies about his incredible source. Word soon gets around that Jacob Heym hides a forbidden radio. Jacob is forced to be clever to keep this illusion of hope alive.
This beautiful, poetic film stars Vlastimil Brodsky, Erwin Geschonneck, and Henry Hübchen. Beyer planned the film with writer Jurek Becker in the sixties, but after his 1966 film Trace of Stones was deemed politically inappropriate and banned, he was not allowed to work with the state-run feature film studio DEFA. Beyer worked in theater and television for several years while Becker turned his idea into a novel; then, in 1974, they were able to make the film.
At his Sunday night talk "Making Films in East Germany" in Beam Classroom, Beyer shared an anecdote from his autobiography When the Wind Turns, published last year. He recalled a conversation with Becker in which they predicted how Americans would make the film, including how they would do it as a thriller with a happy ending. Their predictions came true in the 1999 Hollywood remake starring Robin Williams.
Beyer talked about his career and how changes in cultural politics affected his career. In 1965, amidst political changes, filmmakers were accused of spreading pessimism, and half of DEFA's production was halted. Party leaders changed their minds about Traces of Stones, based on a popular novel of which they approved, at the last minute. The film was shown briefly in a few small cinemas with pre-organized riots in response and was subsequently pulled. It would not be released again until 1989, when it became a box office success.
Clips were shown from Five Cartridges (1960), Carbide and Sorrel (1963), Trace of Stones (1966), and Nikolaikirche (1995), a film about a family in Leipzig in the last years of East Germany. Beyer also visited German classes on Friday and Monday, and ate lunch with students on Monday. Beyer's visit to Bowdoin concluded a two month speaking tour of American and Canadian colleges. He will resume work on a new comedy in 2003.
|
FastCounter by bCentral |