The Rabbit Is Me
- Angelika Waller: Maria Morzeck
- Alfred Müller: Paul Deister
- Ilse Voigt: Aunt Hetty
- Wolfgang Winkler: Dieter Morzeck
- Irma Munch: Gabriele Deister
- Rudolf Ulrich: Grambow
- Helmut Schellhardt: Mayor
- Anne Marie Esper: Edith
- Willi Schrade: Sports teacher Ulli
- Carmen - Maja Antoni: school friend
- Willi Narloch: Oskar Kellner
- Bernd Bartoczewski: criminologist
- Maria Besendahl: landlady
- Peter Borgelt: Judge
- Christoph Engel: Major Hellmich
- Hans Hardt- Hardtloff: Chairman of the fishing cooperative
- Rosemarie Herzog: secretary
- Walter Jupe: headmaster
- Hans Klering: Older prisoners
- Erhard Köster: Beetz
- Walter E. Foot: tram workers
- Ruth Kommerell: wife of the first prisoners
- Lothar Warneke: Young man
- Walter Lendrich: Small sergeant in court
- Dieter Vienna: Attorney Hoppe
The rabbit I 'm a by DEFA Studio for Feature Films, Group " Red Circle ", filmed literary adaptation by director Kurt Maetzig that I 'm on the novel Maria Morzeck or The rabbit is based by Manfred Bieler. The film was banned until 1990 in the GDR, as it critically with socialism - especially with the criminal justice system - dealt.
Action
The protagonist Maria Morzeck lives in Berlin, is 19 years old and works as a waitress after graduating from high school. Your dream Slavic fails to study because her brother, Dieter has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment for " seditious incitement ". She falls in love with Paul Deister, a much older married man who - as it turns out - the judge who sentenced Dieter. The process took place under dubious circumstances, also the public was excluded. Maria rejects the idea of using the love for Dieters favor, but she wants to know the whole truth. By and by Paul of the people and laws turns out to be unscrupulous careerists, used for themselves. At the end of Mary leaves him. After the dismissal of her brother from prison, she distances herself from him and wants to take up studies.
Background
Formation
The film takes a critical look at the weaknesses of socialism (particularly the " political criminal justice " ) and is in the context of a temporary phase of liberalization after the VI. Party Congress in January 1963. The former GDR was in an extraordinary situation because of the newly founded state was still under construction. The general optimism in film production proves that the new generation felt ready to take on their role in society. The development of a critical examination was initially funded by the SED. He painted numerous works, including: Do not think I cry, Berlin around the corner, Karla, or trace the stones.
Ban
The new first man in the Soviet Union Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, leader of the CPSU since 1964, pursued a much more conservative course than his predecessor Nikita Khrushchev. This change of course of the Soviet Union also had effects on the GDR and its cultural policy. In the aftermath of the XI. Plenum of the Central Committee of the SED in 1965 were banned twelve films of DEFA - this value is almost equal to the total annual production. It can therefore be stated that the XI. Plenum of the Central Committee of the SED, the end of the new East German film meant. As a result, all the banned films of this era were called Keller movies or rabbits films.
Contemporary comments
Kurt Maetzig, the film's director, describes the circumstances at the time as follows:
"The ban of the film also was not related to the movie itself, but with the reversal of the general climate. [ ... ] This was a time where there is a climate had formed, which was crying out for change. [ ... ] Then came the unspeakable Brezhnev, and made an undisclosed, unofficial visit to the government of the GDR - you do not know what was discussed there, but I can well imagine that he has said, backward, backwards, that will not do so. All these tendencies here with you spread from the economy to the art that all back. ' "
Elsewhere he says:
"I was incredibly disappointed that I did not make it with this film whose premiere was already prepared, which was done and stood for a cause that was so dear to my heart, namely the democratization of our whole life, a step towards a democratic socialism. That was the core content. And to experience the impossible, the biggest disappointment was all for me. [ ... ] It affects all my films after 11 plenary, after the rabbit. After that I somehow struck with the wings and still this and that brought accomplishes that but that was nothing rational. [ ... ] It has probably broken the back of me and I then knew that I must stop. "
Brigitte Reimann wrote on December 12, 1965:
" Something that has particularly struck me: ' The Rabbit ' has been withdrawn by the producers, voluntarily, of course, and from insight. Poor Maetzig. [ ... ] Höpcke and Knietzsch from ND [New Germany ] who were so excited at that time from the rabbit ', their judgment will have of course forgotten. "
Kurt Maetzig tried to justify publicly of 6 January 1966 in the New Germany: the artist is not out of combat, from the contribution to the discussion of Comrade Kurt Maetzig before the party organization department 1 of the DEFA Studios for feature films:
"I have to be very careful to check with me what has really led to the devastating criticism at the 11th plenary on this film. [ I said, ] we would have to make the art of socialist realism effective mass, and asked me: What 's wrong with our films to reach this goal? [ ... ] It was not very far-fetched to fall on the answer that the critical aspect of our films is too low. [ ... ] But it is precisely in the critical aspect that seemed to me to be the Philosopher's Stone in order to get closer to the audience, was a major focus of political error. [ ... ] Today, his partiality pressures from particular in its intransigence towards all deficiencies, weaknesses and failures that inhibit the building of socialism. This view, to ask deficiencies and weaknesses in the foreground and thereon to orient the partiality of the artist, is on closer inspection to be nonsense. The partiality of the artist proves in power, passion and mastery with which he participates with his art in the class struggle. The abandonment of this principle in the art of film leads to an illicit yielding long held gehabter socialist positions. That is why the, rabbits ' have become a harmful film. [ ... ] "
Reviews
" If that had been said at the time so publicly and shown, then the feudal system had so can not receive training, because the questions of law and justice, the type of focus -maker and ' turncoat ', the mixture of moral cowardice and hidden rebellion in the population: which is as unmistakably radical and accurate on and pronounced ".
" Dealing with politics and society of the GDR over the temporal context of addition. The film features outstanding performer and precise dialogues, striking humor and clear-eyed critique of society. "