Klaus Voelker is theauthor of two very influential books on Brecht, Brecht-Chronik (BrechtChronicle, 1971) and Brecht Biography (1976), among numerous otherworks. Born in Frankfurt in 1938, he has been a theatrical producersince 1969, first in Zurich and then in Berlin, where he currently worksat the Schiller Theater. Mr. Voelker will beintroduced by R. G. Davis, visiting Lecturer at San Francisco StateUniversity and recent co-producer of Brecht's Conversations in Exile onKPFA radio. Please note that on November 2, wecontinue our tribute to Bertolt Brecht, commemorating the thirtiethanniversary of his death, with a program of Brecht and Eisler inHollywood (Hangmen Also Die, directed by Fritz Lang), and Brecht andWeil in Germany (The Threepenny Opera, directed by G. W. Pabst). Kuhle Wampe (Whither Germany?)Brecht collaborated with Ernst Ottwald on the script of Kuhle Wampe,directed by a young Bulgarian, Slatan Dudow, with music by Hanns Eisler.It was, according to Siegfried Kracauer (writing in 1947), "the first,and last, German film which overtly expressed a communist viewpoint";the full title is Kuhle Wampe, or To Whom Does the World Belong? (KuhleWampe oder Wem gehort die Welt?). It tells of a working class familydriven by unemployment to live in a tent colony outside Berlin (known asKuhle Wampe). A mood of hope emerges in the last third of the film whenAnni, the protagonist, breaks with the enforced despair of their livesto join the workers' sports movement organized by the radical laborunions. Needless to say, the film was banned only a year later. As aportrait of working-class life in Berlin on the eve of Hitler's rise,and of the political battles that preceded it, the film is both movingand fascinating. Eisler himself was intimately involved in the project,composing the music as the film was being shot. Tonight's archival printis in German; a complete written synopsis will be provided. "Scoring music for films was more than an adjunctto Hanns Eisler's symphonic and theater music. While teaching at the NewSchool for Social Research in New York in 1940, he received aRockefeller Grant for 'systematic research in motion picture music.' Theresults of his research are found in his book Composing for Film (1947),assisted by Theodore Adorno. Eisler, a student of Arnold Schoenberg, wasable to use many of his film scores in other compositions. The musicfrom Kuhle Wampe later turns up as his Suite No. 3. 'Solidaritatslied',an internationally famous pro-working class (pro-Communist) song comesfrom this film as well. It was written c. 1931-32, when Eisler andBrecht were also working on The Mother and The Measure Taken." R. G.Davis