"Die 3-Groschen-Oper" - Filme der Neuen Sachlichkeit-Finissage

Cinema Quadrat and the Nationaltheater Mannheim are showing the last film in the New Objectivity film series

THE 3-GROSCHEN-OPERA

DEU 1931. D: G. W. Pabst. D: Rudolf Forster, Carola Neher, Reinhold Schünzel, Fritz Rasp, Valeska Gert, Lotte Lenja. 112 min. A.

Film adaptation of the stage play about the gangster Macheath, known as Mackie Messer, who marries Polly and the conflict with her father Peachum, the beggar king of London. Pabst succeeded in creating a masterpiece of early sound film, a gangster ballad from the London underworld, which was quickly banned in 1933 - but continued to be shown to the new generation of National Socialist filmmakers "as a prime example of the best camera, the best direction, the best acting".
An opera as sumptuously conceived as only beggars can dream of, and so cheap that beggars can pay for it: "The Threepenny Opera" by Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann (text) and Kurt Weill (music) was staged under time pressure in just one month and celebrated its premiere on August 31, 1928 at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin. It became the greatest theatrical success of the Weimar Republic.
No wonder that Nero-Film AG quickly took care of the filming rights, which it acquired from the publisher Felix Bloch - not from Brecht - in 1930. Brecht was supposed to work on the basis of a separate contract, but was terminated: Brecht wanted to incorporate the experiences of the stock market crash of 1929 into the film, and the production wanted to make money with the film. Since then, the question has arisen with every new production: how much criticism of capitalism should there be in the gangster ballad?

With an introduction to the legal dispute between Brecht and the film's production company by Dr. Peter Bär
"How can/must Brecht's Threepenny Opera be staged today?": Discussion with Franziska Betz, dramaturge at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, on the NTM's current "Threepenny Opera" production.
In cooperation with the Nationaltheater Mannheim
With champagne reception at the end of the film series on New Objectivity
Admission: €15 regular / €12 reduced / €10 members

Recommendation: reserve your tickets!