I watched this curiosity due to my fascination with the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. This is a filmed version of his play The 3-penny Opera, a musical. It is not the kind of musical one is used to, such as Hollywood musicals. Regardless, the film and play are an indictment of bourgeoisie society. It uses irony and satire to creating its scathing criticism of society and individuals. The Brechtian technique is not too apparent here, but that is reflected in that Brecht subsequently sued the company and the filmmakers for ruining his work. Still, I found there was more than enough interesting stuff in the film to keep me from turning off.
The film presents an almost apocalyptic view of society, penetrating through all the filth and hypocrisy. For a film made in the 30’s, this film is quite remarkable. The filmmaking craft is impeccable; the shots are extremely well created. Then again, Germany at the time was one of the cinema powerhouses of the old days, so it is not too surprising. For a film based on a play, it is quite far removed from theatre. This is a musical, so there are a few musical numbers, but very different from what one would expect, being mostly used to Hollywood musicals. But the songs themselves are really good, the score is good, and the lyrics are great. Somewhat, though, they don’t seem to fill the gap enough, there could surely have been more songs. Still, what goes on screen is enough to create the drama, although this could hardly be categorized as a drama film. The sometimes quiet moments are contrasted with scenes of high intensity. The film is also very funny, in its own way. The hypocrisy and evil is so wonderfully portrayed, the characters are for the most part a blast, particularly the main character, who is a schemer and ladies man. The characters antics are quite amusing, and this is one of the main attractions of the film. Brecht has always been great at using stereotypes in a very unique way, and this shows clearly here. Another amusing character is the beggar’s king. He basically runs a business where he makes poor people dress up as dreadfully as possible to make people have pity and give money, then take in some of the profit. A wonderful character, in a quite unusual business, and it summarizes much of what the film is about.
Brecht hated this film, and to some degree I can see why. Yeah, it is true that Brecht didn’t quite appreciate the full extent of the artistic value of cinema. The film doesn’t quite utilize the techniques of Brecht’s Epic Theatre, and it doesn’t try to alienate or create the effect that theatre was supposed to, according to Brecht. Other than the musical numbers, the film doesn’t use any techniques such as Brecht used. In this respect, the film is fairly classical and uses techniques already fairly established in cinema. And actually, the film could have been stronger if it used the techniques of Brecht, to create some fluency between the source material and the film. The film doesn’t quite work according to the ideas and theories of Brecht. Although I am usually adamant that films should be liberal when adapting source material, such as literature or theatre, in this instance it could have helped. I still like the film, but one feels if it should ever have been made in the first place, it is a bit unnecessary. Still, some of the greatest directors of all time, in particular Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, made their best film based on literary source material. The problem here though is that while the film doesn’t adhere to the rules of Brecht, and don’t enlarge his themes, the film in itself doesn’t really say that much otherwise, which is its biggest flaw. Although I do think that Brecht did go a bit out of his way in suing the filmmakers, as they in many ways did do quite a good job, and in the end, so what, they created a film out of his play, but it doesn’t really hurt his original material, and in the end, it seems like he is nitpicking a bit.
There are lots of merits to this film, but overall it wasn’t the greatest film experience I’ve had. There is a lot of wonderful stuff here, but mostly as a result of the great source material the film adapted. I feel the filmmaker wasn’t quite able to make it his own, and neither was he able to make it very Brechtian. It is an interesting little curiosity, and Criterion actually released it, in a quite outstanding edition, with lots of neat extras. If you love Brecht, then this is worth checking out, but otherwise, the average film buff won’t find that much interesting material in here.
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