Paul Dessau: Let’s Hope for the Best (DVD)

Paul Dessau: Let’s Hope for the Best
A film by Anne-Kathrin Peitz

Paul Dessau (1894-1979) has been a violin prodigy, became Otto Klemperer's assistant and finally an accomplished conductor. He wrote operetta and film music - from mountain films with Leni Riefenstahl by director Arnold Fanck to Walt Disney's animated films.

As a convinced communist, Paul Dessau settled over to the GDR in 1948. He worked with Bertolt Brecht as well as his fourth wife, the stage directing idol Ruth Berghaus, and had a significant influence on the socialist music scene and stage art. He became a GDR state composer who was mainly celebrated on the outside, but sharply criticized on the inside.

"Paul Dessau: Let's Hope for the Best" by Anne-Kathrin Peitz sketches an artist's life between conformity and repulsion, political idealism and musical individuality, in which the changeable German-German history of the 20th century is strikingly condensed as if under a burning glass.

The film portrait consciously traces the contradictions in Dessau's character, life and work and embeds the man and his music in the historical context. The cinematic approach to the protagonist and his sound cosmos becomes a jigsaw puzzle, both literally and figuratively, whose individual - often disparate - pieces slowly come together to form an overall picture. Interview partners - from politician Gregor Gysi to former concert hall director Frank Schneider or the American jazz composer Jack Cooper as well as composer and pianist Steffen Schleiermacher - try to create a portrait of Paul Dessau not only with words, but actually by doing a puzzle.

Bonus feature: “Fünf Tierverse” by Paul Dessau & Bertolt Brecht (songs with video animations)

Author & director: Anne-Kathrin Peitz
Editing: Claudia Cellarius
Camera: Björn Kowalewsky
Audio: Jakob Schneider

DVD picture: 16:9 – NTSC
DVD sound: PCM Stereo
Original language: DE/ENG
Subtitles: ENG/DE
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Running time: 53 mins