The Threepenny Opera

(Die Dreigroschenoper)

featuring

Rudolf Forster, Lotte Lenya, Carola Neher, Reinhold Schunzel,

Even though it occasioned Bertolt Brecht’s “Threepenny Lawsuit” (he settled for damages), G. W. Pabst’s film is an important one, retaining many Brechtian elements from the original play and some of Kurt Weill’s songs. Featuring legendary performances by Lotte Lenya and Rudolf Forster, it remains a classic of leftist cinema in its ironic commentary on the character of bourgeois social relations. The film survived Nazi attempts to destroy all copies. If Pabst has “subverted the play’s subversiveness, it is to the end of a poetic anarchy, irrational, beautiful, and precise [place], where surrealism, expressionism, and Marxism find a remarkable—if fleeting-common ground” (Tony Rayns).

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Léo Lania
  • Béla Balázs
  • Ladislaus Vajda
Based On
  • the play by Bertolt Brecht

Cinematographer
  • Fritz Arno Wagner
Language
  • German
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • Digital
  • 110 mins
Source
  • Janus Films

Event Accessibility

If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 642-1412 (during open hours) with as much advance notice as possible. More information on accessibility services.