Paul Dessau

Paul Dessau

Birth : 1894-12-19, Hamburg, Germany

Death : 1979-06-28

History

Paul Dessau (19 December 1894 – 28 June 1979) was a German composer and conductor. He collaborated with Bertold Brecht and composed incidental music for his plays, and several operas based on them.

Profile

Paul Dessau

Movies

Farewell
Original Music Composer
In August of 1914, amidst the public ecstasy surrounding the impending war, Hans Gastl, the young son of a Munich bürger, makes a decision: he will not take part in this war. This resolution signifies a turning point in his life; a farewell to his class and his family.
Paul Dessau
Himself
The film’s subtitle identifies it as a “study of the constructive discontent of a composer”. It is a portrait of the pugnacious musician Paul Dessau (1894 – 1979), who was controversial in East Germany, as a teacher. It follows the composer as he rehearses the “Bach Variations” with the Berlin state opera orchestra, as well during classes at the Polytechnic School I in Zeuthen, where he strives to teach the students a critical attitude. In an interview, Dessau bemoans the simplification of artistic media and elucidates the meaning and necessity of “hard sounds in an era that is not soft”. As we see when he works, “pleasure requires effort” … “art is never comfortable. Building socialism is not comfortable at all. That’s why I’m in favour of the uncomfortable”.
400 cm³
Music
GDR anti-Vietnam propaganda film with footage of East Germans donating blood to be sent to the Viet Cong soldiers.
Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder - Eine Chronik aus dem Dreißigjährigen Krieg
Music
Das russische Wunder
Music
Kavkazský křídový kruh
Music
Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder
Music
During the Thirty Years' War, the camp-follower Anna Fierling, called "Mother Courage", travels the length and breadth of Europe with her covered wagon. She does not care if it's Catholics or Protestants she trades with as long as business thrives. She loses her three children as a result of the war: bold and spirited Eilif, sincere and upright Swiss Cheese and mute Katrin, who saves the children of Halle by beating a drum on a farmstead roof In wartime, the Fierling children's virtues prove to be deadly. Yet, Mother Courage, remains incorrigible. She will not have anyone "spoil the war" for her and so sets out once more after the soldiers with her wagon.
Unternehmen Teutonenschwert
Music
Du und mancher Kamerad
Music
Found footage documentary about the rise of the nazi party and the second world war.
The Black Castle
Music
A Man investigates the disappearance of two of his friends who were the guests of a sinister Austrian count.
The Vicious Circle
Original Music Composer
In Hungary, a rich baron discovers that there are extensive oil deposits underneath nearby properties owned by villagers. He manages to convince all the property owners to sell to him, except for a few properties owned by Jewish families. Infuriated at their refusal to sell to him, he attempts, with the help of some corrupt local police, to have the men charged with the murder of a local woman, who in reality actually committed suicide.
Ruthless
Music Supervisor
Horace Vendig always gets what he wants. Even as a poor youth, he charmed his way into high society by getting the father of his friend, Martha, to foot the bill for his Harvard education. When Vic, another childhood pal, is invited to Horace's mansion for a party, he brings along Mallory Flagg, who happens to bear a striking resemblance to Martha. As Vic and Horace reunite, old resentments rise to the surface.
The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry
Music
George Sanders stars in this engrossing melodrama about a very domineering sister who holds a tight grip on her brother -- especially when he shows signs of falling in love.
House of Frankenstein
Original Music Composer
Deranged scientist, Gustav Niemann, escapes from prison and overtakes the director of a traveling chamber of horrors, soon reviving the infamous Count Dracula, the frozen Frankenstein Monster, and the Wolf Man.
Mr. Skeffington
Additional Music
A beautiful but vain woman who rejects the love of her older husband must face the loss of her youth and beauty.
Final Accord
Original Music Composer
A famous violinist enlists in a music school in order to woo one of the students.
The Novel of Werther
Music
Herr Werther, a new magistrate to the Grand Duchy of Walheim who is a violinist and poet, seems to have fate on his side as he meets and pursues a beautiful local woman, Charlotte. But as Werther sets to propose marriage, Charlotte reluctantly tells him she has been promised to another, Werther's superior, Judge Hochstätten. Werther and Charlotte decide to keep their romance from the judge and each descends into depression. Will they be able to keep their feelings a secret?
Gibraltar
Music
A British officer poses as a traitor in order to infiltrate a team of terrorists who are sabotaging ships, while a seductive cabaret dancer is working for the mysterious genius who runs the enemy spy ring.
Carrefour
Music
A wealthy industrialist, Roger de Vetheuil, married, feels assured of aging in peace. Then appears a blackmailer who accuses him of being a usurper, actually called Jean Pelletier, a mobster well known to police. Vetheuil, judging himself slandered, refuses to listen to his tormentor and goes to the police. The man speaks. The scandal is public soon ...
Yoshiwara
Original Music Composer
Based on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in the Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer, and a rickshaw man.
French White Cargo
Music
Two journalists from different papers are looking for the same story. They want to know, who a group of gangsters getting young women from Europe to South America, where they are forced to work in brothels. But the gangsters have their own battels against each over, so the journalists can escape the danger, in which they've brought themselves.
Taras Bulba
Music
In war against the Poles, the leader Cossack sees itself betrayed by one of his threads, been in love the girl of an enemy.
White Ecstasy
Music
Leni, a daring young girl, is visiting for the second time a ski-resort. The local ski-teachers agree to organize a "fox-hunt" for her. Leni and Hannes are "the foxes", and about 40 other skiers will have to catch them, starting with a 15 minutes delay. It's not the story that makes this film, but the extremely spectacular, thrilling shots about skiing.
The Great Longing
Music
During lunch break at the movie studio, the extras rush to the canteen Hans Adalbert Schlettow, Maria Paudler and Luis Trenker are chatting. Eva von Loe a beautiful young extra rushes past; she is looking for her fiancé, Paul Wessel, who is also an extra. She has to return to the set where the famous director Regisseur Hall is shooting a scen. He is dissatisfied with his star, Carla Marventa, who is wrong for the scene he must photograph. Hall notices Eva, but laughs at her desire to replace Marventa. At that moment Conrad Veidt comes on the scene and assumes that Eva is the star.
Alice's Monkey Business
Music
Alice and Julius, while out hunting big game, find themselves brought before the court of the Lion King.