Literature & Film - Berlin - page 568

Some of the best films about the Nazi era include Wolfgang Staudte's Die Mörder sind
unter uns (Murderers Among Us, 1946); Fassbinder's Die Ehe der Maria Braun (The Mar-
riage of Maria Braun, 1979); Margarethe von Trotta's Rosenstrasse (2003), and Oliver Hier-
schbiegel's extraordinary Der Untergang (Downfall, 2004), depicting Hitler's final days.
The first round of postreunification flicks were light-hearted comedy dramas. A standout
is the cult classic Good Bye, Lenin! (2003), Wolfgang Becker's witty and heart-warming tale
of a son trying to re-create life in the GDR to save his sick mother. It was Florian von Don-
nersmarck who first trained the filmic spotlight on the darker side of East Germany, with
The Lives of Others (2006), an Academy Award-winner that reveals the stranglehold the
East German secret police (Stasi) had on ordinary people.
MARLENE DIETRICH
Marlene Dietrich (1901-92) was born Marie Magdalena von Losch into a good middle-
class Berlin family. After acting school, she first captivated audiences as a hard-living,
libertine flapper in 1920s silent movies, but quickly carved a niche as the dangerously
seductive femme fatale. The 1930 talkie Der Blaue Engel(The Blue Angel) turned her
into a Hollywood star and launched a five-year collaboration with director Josef von
Sternberg. Dietrich built on her image of erotic opulence - dominant and severe but
always with a touch of self-irony.
Dietrich stayed in Hollywood after the Nazi rise to power, though Hitler, not immune
to her charms, reportedly promised perks and the red-carpet treatment if she moved
back to Germany. She responded with an empty offer to return if she could bring
along Sternberg - a Jew and no Nazi favourite. She took US citizenship in 1937 and
entertained Allied soldiers on the front.
After the war, Dietrich retreated slowly from the public eye, making occasional ap-
pearances in films but mostly cutting records and performing live cabaret. Her final
years were spent in Paris, bedridden and accepting few visitors, immortal in spirit as
mortality caught up with her.
Today
These days, 'Germany's Hollywood' is no longer in Munich or Hamburg but in Berlin, with
an average of 300 German and international productions being filmed on location and at the
Filmstudios Babelsberg each year. Well-trained crews, modern studio and postproduction fa-
cilities, government subsidies and authentic 'old world' locations regularly attract such Hol-
lywood royalty as Quentin Tarantino ( Inglorious Basterds, 2009) and George Clooney