Bertolt Brecht

The Seven Deadly Sins tells the story of two sisters, Anna I and Anna II. The sisters set out from the banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana to find their fortune in the big cities, intending to send their family enough money to build a little house on the river. Along the way they encounter the seven deadly sins. Meanwhile, the fleshpots of Mahagonny attract many visitors, but prove disappointing and expensive; God orders the inhabitants to hell, but they revolt, claiming they are there already"

A small town in Western Germany is the last stop for 26,000 pigs per day and a brief home for masses of Eastern European temporary workers. The workers of the largest slaughterhouse in the country are fighting for survival, while German activists who stand up for their rights are fighting against the local authorities. At the same time, Munich high school students are working on the play "Saint Joan of the Stockyards" and trying to grasp the old text and German capitalism of our days. Interwoven with the young people's examination of the text in the rehearsals, the film deals in various fragments with conditions and facets of temporary work and labour migration in Germany.

Documentary about Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble.

As London's East End scrubs up for the coronation, Mr and Mrs Peachum gear up for a bumper day in the beggary business. Keeping tight control of the city's underground – and their daughter’s whereabouts.

"Cause of Death Unknown" - Carola Neher (1900-1942) actress, singer and feminist. Brecht wrote the role Polly Peachum for her. She practiced boxing with Marlene Dietrich. After Hitler seized power, thousands of German communists and anti-fascists fled to the Soviet Union, the "fatherland of the working people". The tragedy of German communism is that the vast majority of them perished or were lost during Stalin's "cleansing". Carola Neher is one of the fate figures of that time. In the 20s, she belonged to the narrow circle of Brecht actresses. The film accompanies her son Georg Becker in search of his mother's traces in the sinking Soviet Union.

On the verge of professional breakthrough, a young Bertolt Brecht reflects on relationships.

A hard-hitting new production of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by the Catalan collective La Fura dels Baus at the Teatro Real de Madrid. Composed in the 1930s by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, this is a mordant satire on capitalism and the inexorable industrialisation of a society in which the ultimate crime is not having money. In twenty scenes the authors tell the story of a city lost in the middle of a desert and run by three thugs; in Mahagonny food, sex, gambling and violence rule supreme.

A behind-the-scenes look at The Public Theater's production of Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage" that examines the playwright's life and ideas.

A marginal version of Brecht’s piece, “Baal”.

A marginal version of Brecht’s piece, “Baal”.

Here meet personal memory, working knowledge, research interests and anecdotes together to vivid memory about the most important German dramatist of the 20th century. When the director Peter Voigt, former assistant director of Brecht at the Berliner Ensemble in 2004, finds a wallet with pictures and captions from the American exile, he pursued this track and discovered that Brecht has always worked with photography and film. Peter Voigt puts together an exciting collage of this film and photo material. A conversation with Erdmut Wizisla, the head of Bertolt Brecht Archives, moderated by Harald Müller, forms the dramatic bond of the film.

Macheath (Mack the Knife), notorious bandit and womanizer, runs afoul of Jonathan Peachum when he marries Peachum's daughter Polly in a ceremony of doubtful legality. Peachum's resolve to have Mack sent to the gallows is complicated by the fact that Mack's old army buddy is the chief of police, Tiger Brown. Peachum and his wife commence a series of strategems to ensnare Mack: bribing prostitutes to turn him in, exercising their influence over the police, and ultimately threatening to ruin the coronation of Queen Victoria by having all the beggars in London (whom Peachum controls) line the parade route. Mack is imprisoned, escapes, and is imprisoned again. When his hour of execution arrives, however, a mounted messenger appears with the Queen's reprieve, which includes a baronetcy and an annual pension of 10,000 pounds.

Macheath (Mack the Knife), notorious bandit and womanizer, runs afoul of Jonathan Peachum when he marries Peachum's daughter Polly in a ceremony of doubtful legality. Peachum's resolve to have Mack sent to the gallows is complicated by the fact that Mack's old army buddy is the chief of police, Tiger Brown. Peachum and his wife commence a series of strategems to ensnare Mack: bribing prostitutes to turn him in, exercising their influence over the police, and ultimately threatening to ruin the coronation of Queen Victoria by having all the beggars in London (whom Peachum controls) line the parade route. Mack is imprisoned, escapes, and is imprisoned again. When his hour of execution arrives, however, a mounted messenger appears with the Queen's reprieve, which includes a baronetcy and an annual pension of 10,000 pounds.

A young man cruises through the nightly city. He meets people, silhouettes, strange and scary. They all end up in a dim night club.

Depicts the consumerism of the mythical city of Mahagonny, conveying all its ripe decadence. A Hollywood Babylon full of pyramidal towers, carved elephants, commodified sex and licensed gluttony. An opera in three acts, live from the Salzburger Festspiele, 1998. Conductor: Dennis Russell Davies. Stage Director: Peter Zadek.

The Threepenny Opera proclaims itself "an opera for beggars," and it was in fact an attempt both to satirize traditional opera and operetta and to create a new kind of musical theater based on the theories of two young German artists, composer Kurt Weill and poet-playwright Bert Brecht. The show opens with a mock-Baroque overture, a nod to Threepenny's source, The Beggar's Opera, a brilliantly successful parody of Handel's operas written by John Gay in 1728. In a brief prologue following the overture, a shabby figure comes onstage with a barrel organ and launches into a song chronicling the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, "Mack the Knife." The setting is a fair in Soho (London), just before Queen Victoria's coronation. In this production, Weill champion HK Gruber led the Ensemble Modern in a performance of Weill's complete original score, the first time it had been heard in Germany in many years. This production was broadcast on German television (3sat).

The Threepenny Opera proclaims itself "an opera for beggars," and it was in fact an attempt both to satirize traditional opera and operetta and to create a new kind of musical theater based on the theories of two young German artists, composer Kurt Weill and poet-playwright Bert Brecht. The show opens with a mock-Baroque overture, a nod to Threepenny's source, The Beggar's Opera, a brilliantly successful parody of Handel's operas written by John Gay in 1728. In a brief prologue following the overture, a shabby figure comes onstage with a barrel organ and launches into a song chronicling the crimes of the notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath, "Mack the Knife." The setting is a fair in Soho (London), just before Queen Victoria's coronation. In this production, Weill champion HK Gruber led the Ensemble Modern in a performance of Weill's complete original score, the first time it had been heard in Germany in many years. This production was broadcast on German television (3sat).

A fearless Antigone, refusing to allow the dishonored body of her murdered brother Polynices to be devoured by vultures and dogs, defies the Thebian tyrant Creon by burying him.

Mise-en-scène, at the Comédie-Française, of La Vie de Galilée by Bertolt Brecht. This is the last staging by Antoine Vitez.

Based on a novella by Bertolt Brecht.

Based on a short story by Bertolt Brecht.

The hardships faced by a woman trying to survive a bloody civil war while caring for the abandoned child of the deposed former ruler.

A tory based on classical theatre play "Mother Courage and Her Children" by Bertolt Brecht.

Baal is an amoral poetic genius who, after a life of debauchery, betrayal and violence, is about to cut his ties to the world and meet his doom. A high society party is where the end begins.

Baal is an amoral poetic genius who, after a life of debauchery, betrayal and violence, is about to cut his ties to the world and meet his doom. A high society party is where the end begins.

Germany 1939. Hans and Lene marry the day before the war breaks out, and Hans is sent to the Eastern front. During a bombing raid their daughter Anna is born. The house is destroyed and Lene and Anna moves in with relatives in Berlin. Hans survives the war but he is not the same person as in 1939, and he and Lene find it difficult to live together again.

Harry Smith’s final film; an epic four-screen projection. Smith worked on this cinematic transformation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1929) for over ten years and considered it his magnum opus. The film was shot from 1970 to 1972 and edited for the next eight years. The “program” of the film is meticulous, with a complex structure and order. The Weill opera is transformed into a numerological and symbolic system. Images in the film are divided into categories— portraits, animation, symbols and nature— to form the palindrome P.A.S.A.N.A.S.A.P. The film contains invaluable cameos of important avant-garde figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Patti Smith, and Jonas Mekas, intercut with installation pieces from Robert Mapplethorpe’s studio, New York City landmarks of the era, and Smith’s visionary animation.

Based on the Bertolt Brecht play, the movie follows the farmer Puntila, who when he's sober is a real pig but whenever he gets drunk becomes very generous. Puntila is trying to get his daughter to get married, but the problem is that his drunk self wants her to marry another man than his sober personality wants.

John Dexter’s brilliant production, James Levine’s masterful conducting of the eclectic score, and a sensational cast come together to make this Kurt Weill–Bertolt Brecht masterpiece a riveting evening of music theater. At the center of the action is Jimmy Mahoney (Richard Cassilly), a logger who stumbles onto the city of Mahagonny, where (almost) anything is allowed. Teresa Stratas gives a mesmerizing performance as Jenny, the prostitute who takes up with Jimmy, until he is executed for the greatest of all crimes in Mahagonny—to not have any money. The legendary Astrid Varnay, in her final Met appearances, is Leocadia Begbick, and Cornell MacNeil sings Trinity Moses.

Brecht's company of actors tells the story of Bertolt Brecht: his theatre, plays, poetry and his life.

"Don't Be Seduced" - Gothenburg's Brecht-ensemble performs songs and texts of Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler.

Challenged by a new student, tutor and theorist Galileo co-opts emerging telescope technology and discovers irrefutable proof of the heretical notion that the earth is not the center of the universe. But in a rigid society ruled by an uneasy alliance of aristocracy and clergy already undermined by the Plague and the Reformation, science is a threat and enlightenment is a luxury. Faced with either death at the hands of the Inquisition or recantation to a hypocritical but all-powerful Papacy, Galileo must choose between his own life and the restless scientific curiosity that he has spurned family, friends, and wealth to pursue.

In the spring of 1974, a camera team from Studio H&S succeeded against the explicit orders of the Junta’s Chancellery, entered into two large concentration camps in the north of the country - Chacabuco and Pisagua - leaving with filmed sequences and sound recordings.

The city of Mahagonny, founded by three criminals, becomes a place for people looking for their luck or money. One among them is the lumberjack Jim Mahoney. However, he is disappointed by what the city is.

Animation of Bertolt Brecht's namesake poem recited by Mario Viegas

With the help of his assistant Anja, Ottocaro Weiss intends to put the plague on stage: circumstances beyond his control and a lack of fresh talent have forced him to close down his flea circus. For Weiss, the plague means the «extinction of everything that makes life miserable and low and freedom along with it. Unbeknownst to him, he has won the support of a patron who is of the exact opposite opinion: for Johannes Wagner, the plague is an organising principle, and, aided by his agent Moosbrugger, he is able to smuggle a new number onto the programme. Whereas Ottocaro Weiss means to represent the plague theatrically, what appears on stage is the scientific reality of the rat-borne infestation.

The rise to underworld eminence of the notorious Chicago gangster Artuto Ui - who bears a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler.

Set in contemporary Rome, the film shows through a series of encounters with “ancient” Romans, how the economic and political manipulation by ancient Roman society led to Caesar’s dictatorship. - British Film Institute

When the gods appear in disguise the only person who shows them hospitality is the young girl Shen Te and for this she is awarded by them. After a while she finds her new life has also brought new problems.

Volker Schlöndorff transposes Bertolt Brecht’s late-expressionist work to latter-day 1969. Poet and anarchist Baal lives in an attic and reads his poems to cab drivers. At first feted and later rejected by bourgeois society, Baal roams through forests and along motorways, greedy for schnapps, cigarettes, women and men: ‘You have to let out the beast, let him out into the sunlight.’ After impregnating a young actress he soon comes to regard her as a millstone round his neck. He stabs a friend to death and dies alone. ‘You are useless, mangy and wild, you beast, you crawl through the lowest boughs of the tree.’

An inexplicable showdown between two men and the downfall of a family that has moved from the prairies to the jungle of the big city.

A television drama about a trial against a merchant who killed one of his employees.

Madame Bertini, a newly widowed 70-year-old miser, has lived a sheltered life in squalour. She determines to venture into the modern world and have as much fun as possible, and in doing so finds that she loves it. She blows her life savings, much to the disapproval of the young people around her.

The Gangster Macheath secretly marries the daughter of beggar king Peachum. When Peachum finds out, he instructs the police chief Brown to arrest and hang Macheath. If not, all the beggars of Soho will disturb the upcoming coronation.

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.

Galileo, an eminent professor and scientist in the 17th century Venetian Republic, is short of money. A prospective student tells him about a novel invention, the telescope, that is being sold in Amsterdam.

Brecht's play Fear and Misery of the Third Reich consists of a series of playlets, portraying National Socialist Germany of the 1930s as a land of poverty, violence, fear and pretence. Nazi antisemitism is depicted in several of the sketches, including "the Physicist", "Judicial Process", and "the Jewish Wife".

During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny and his daughter Mascha.

During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, surgeon Dr. Franticek Svoboda, a Czech patriot, assassinates the brutal "Hangman of Europe", Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich, and is wounded in the process. In his attempt to escape, he is helped by history professor Stephen Novotny and his daughter Mascha.

Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpaid back rent. The young man, brother of the protagonist Anni, removes his wristwatch and throws himself from a window out of despair. Shortly thereafter his family is evicted from their apartment. Now homeless, the family moves into a garden colony of sorts with the name “Kuhle Wampe.”

About a civilian who is press-ganged into a machine-gunner's squadron and transformed into the perfect soldier.

About a civilian who is press-ganged into a machine-gunner's squadron and transformed into the perfect soldier.

The French-language version of the The Threepenny Opera with a different cast from the German version.

In London at the turn of the century, underworld kingpin Mack the Knife marries Polly Peachum without the knowledge of her father, the equally enterprising 'king of the beggars'.

The Mysteries of a Hairdresser’s Shop describes the absurd goings-on of a by no means ordinary hair salon, where men with great beards wait in vain for a shave while the barber takes a nap.

The Mysteries of a Hairdresser’s Shop describes the absurd goings-on of a by no means ordinary hair salon, where men with great beards wait in vain for a shave while the barber takes a nap.