Georg Wilhelm Pabst

Infobox actor
name = Georg Wilhelm Pabst
bgcolour = silver


imagesize =
caption =
birthname =
birthdate = Birth date|1885|8|25
birthplace = Raudnitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic)
deathdate = death date and age|1967|5|29|1885|8|27
deathplace = Vienna, Austria
othername =
yearsactive = 1901 - 1957
spouse = Gertrude Hennings 1924 - 1967

Georg Wilhelm Pabst (August 25, 1885 - May 29, 1967) was an Austrian film director. Pabst was born in Raudnitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (today's Roudnice nad Labem, Czech Republic), the son of a railroad employee.

Returning from the United States, he was in France when World War I began. He was interned there near Brest until 1919.

Some of his most famous films concern the plight of women in German society, including "The Joyless Street" (1925) with Greta Garbo and Asta Nielsen, "Geheimnisse einer Seele" (1926) with Lili Damita, "The Loves of Jeanne Ney" (1927) with Brigitte Helm, "Pandora's Box" (1928), and "Diary of a Lost Girl" (1929), the last two starring American actress Louise Brooks. He also co-directed with Arnold Fanck a mountain film entitled "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" (1929) starring Leni Riefenstahl.

After the coming of sound he made a trilogy of films that secured his reputation "Westfront 1918" (1930), "The Threepenny Opera" (1931) (based on the Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill musical), and "Kameradschaft" (1931). Pabst also filmed three versions of Pierre Benoit's novel "L'Atlantide" in 1932, in German, English, and French, titled "Die Herrin von Atlantis", "The Mistress of Atlantis", and "L'Atlantide", respectively. In 1933, Pabst directed "Don Quixote" in three versions, once again, German, English, and French.

After making "A Modern Hero" (1934) in the U.S. and "Mademoiselle Docteur" (1936) in France, Pabst returned to Austria and Germany in 1938, he later claimed, to take care of family business. He made two films during the Nazi period, "Komödianten" (1941) and "Paracelsus" (1943).

In 1953, Pabst directed four opera productions in Italy: "La forza del destino" for the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence (conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos, the cast included Renata Tebaldi, Fedora Barbieri, Mario del Monaco, Aldo Protti, Cesare Siepi), and a few weeks later, for the Arena di Verona Festival, a spectacular "Aïda", with Maria Callas in the title role (conducted by Tullio Serafin, with del Monaco), "Il trovatore" and again "La forza del destino". [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,818661,00.html Time Magazin Article about Pabst's "Aida" for the Arena di Verona, August 10, 1953]

Pabst died in Vienna, Austria and was interred at the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna.

Filmography, as director, includes

* "Der Schatz" (1923)
* "Gräfin Donelli" (1924)
* "Die freudlose Gasse" ("Joyless Street", 1925)
* "Man spielt nicht mit der Liebe" (1926)
* "Geheimnisse einer Seele" ("Secrets of a Soul", 1926)
* "Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney" ("Loves of Jeanne Ney", 1927)
* "Abwege" (1928)
* "Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü" ("The White Hell of Pitz Palu", 1929)
* "Tagebuch einer Verlorenen" ("Diary of a Lost Girl", 1929)
* "Die Büchse der Pandora" (1929), aka "Pandora's Box", aka "Lulu"
* "Skandal um Eva" (1930)
* "Westfront 1918" (1930)
* "Kameradschaft" (1931)
* "Die 3groschenoper" ("The Threepenny Opera", 1931)
* "Die Herrin von Atlantis" (1932) three versions: German, French, and English
* "Du haut en bas" (1933)
* "Adventures of Don Quixote" (1933) three versions: German, French, and English; music by Jacques Ibert
* "A Modern Hero" (1934)
* "Mademoiselle Docteur" (1936)
* "Le Drame de Shanghaï" (1938)
* "Jeunes filles en détresse" (1939)
* "Komödianten" (1941)
* "Paracelsus" (1943)
* "Der Fall Molander" (1945)
* "Der Prozeß" (1948)
* "Geheimnisvolle Tiefe" (1949)
* "Cose da pazzi" (1953)
* "La voce del silenzio" (1953)
* "Das Bekenntnis der Ina Kahr" (1954)
* "Es geschah am 20. Juli" (1955)
* "Der letzte Akt" (1955)
* "Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen" (1956)
* "Rosen für Bettina" (1956)

References

Further reading

* Georg Wilhelm Pabst, « Servitude et grandeur de Hollywood », "Le rôle intellectuel du cinéma, Paris", SDN-Institut International de Coopération Intellectuelle, 1937, pp.251-255
* Barthélémy Amengual, "G.W. Pabst", Paris, Seghers, 1966
* Lee Atwell, "G.W. Pabst", Boston, Twayne Publishers, 1977
* Jean Mitry, Histoire du cinéma. Art et industrie, 5 volumes, Paris, Editions Universitaires - J.P. Delarge, 1967-1980
* Siegfried Kracauer, "De Caligari à Hitler. Une histoire psychologique du cinéma allemand", Paris, Flammarion, 1987
* "The Films of G.W. Pabst. An extraterritorial cinema", edited by Eric Rentschler, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1990
* John Baxter, "G.W. Pabst" in International Directory of Films and Filmmakers, Chicago, 1990, pp.376-378
* "G.W. Pabst", herausgegeben von Wolfgang Jacobsen, Berlin, Argen, 1997
* Enrico Groppali, "Georg W. Pabst", Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1983
* Marc Van den Berghe, "La mémoire impossible. Westfront 1918 de G.W. Pabst. Grande Guerre, soldats, automates. Le film et sa problématique vus par la 'Petite Illustration"' (1931), Bruxelles, 2001 [http://art-chitecture.net/publications.php]

External links

*imdb name|id=0655065|name=Georg Wilhelm Pabst
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10306 Find-A-Grave profile for Georg Wilhelm Pabst]