10 December – 28 February 2010
“In the huge and excellently equipped studios, Max (Douy) had put up beautiful, strange and dismal decorations. War pictures. Pictures of war as such.”
This is how Simone Signoret describes the decorations created by the Paris-based set designer in the Babelsberg studios. Obviously, she isn’t familiar with the works that DEFA set designer Oskar Pietsch is developing at the same time.
The goal of the project is a big, international film: Wolfgang Staude is thinking about Cinemascope, colour, and an international cast with French stars Simone Signoret and Bernhard Blier. Brecht wants a black-and-white film that resembles his epic theatre plays and features “his” actors; in particular, he wants Helene Weigel for the leading role. After lengthy discussions, compromises are made and Staudte starts shooting the film in August 1955. In September – after only 14 days of shooting – he has to discontinue the project since all attempts to strike an agreement have failed.
The exhibition was the first one to present an intriguing comparison between the set designs created by Pietsch and Douy and the costume figurines by Walter Schulze-Mittendorf. Furthermore, several original documents – such as the diary of production director Albert Wilkening – showed the development and failure of this extraordinary film project.