Witness 11

Last updated
Witness 11
Directed by Sean Mitchell
Written by Sean Mitchell
Produced byHelen Jang Mitchell and Sean Mitchell
Starring Oleg Liptsin
Paul Guadarrama
CinematographyChris Lawing
Music byLarry Groupe
Production
company
Metaphora Studios
Release date
  • 2012 (2012)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Witness 11 is a 2012 short drama film directed by Sean Mitchell and starring Oleg Liptsin, Paul Guadarrama and Matt Shelton. [1] It is based on the testimony of renowned German poet and playwright, Bertolt Brecht, during the height of the 1940s Red Scare. [2]

Contents

The film was shot in 2012 at the Berkeley City Club in Berkeley, California. [3]

Premise

Called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. [4] (HUAC) during their notorious Hollywood Ten [5] investigation, famed German playwright Bertolt Brecht must choose between betraying himself and his friends, and imprisonment. In the end, Brecht testified that he had never been a member of the Communist Party. [4]

Cast

Related Research Articles

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, subtitled "A parable play", is a 1941 play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. It chronicles the rise of Arturo Ui, a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster, and his attempts to control the cauliflower racket by ruthlessly disposing of the opposition. The play is a satirical allegory of the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany prior to World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Losey</span> American theatre and film director (1909–1984)

Joseph Walton Losey III was an American theatre and film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s, he moved to Europe where he made the remainder of his films, mostly in the United Kingdom. Among the most critically and commercially successful were the films with screenplays by Harold Pinter: The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epic theatre</span> Theatrical genre

Epic theatre is a theatrical movement that arose in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creation of new political dramas. Epic theatre is not meant to refer to the scale or the scope of the work, but rather to the form that it takes. Epic theatre emphasizes the audience's perspective and reaction to the piece through a variety of techniques that deliberately cause them to individually engage in a different way. The purpose of epic theatre is not to encourage an audience to suspend their disbelief, but rather to force them to see their world as it is.

<i>Life of Galileo</i> 1943 play by Bertolt Brecht

Life of Galileo, also known as Galileo, is a play by the 20th century German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and collaborator Margarete Steffin with incidental music by Hanns Eisler. The play was written in 1938 and received its first theatrical production at the Zurich Schauspielhaus, opening on the 9th of September 1943. This production was directed by Leonard Steckel, with set-design by Teo Otto. The cast included Steckel himself, Karl Paryla and Wolfgang Langhoff.

<i>Mother Courage and Her Children</i> 1939 play by Bertolt Brecht

Mother Courage and Her Children is a play written in 1939 by the German dramatist and poet Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), with significant contributions from Margarete Steffin. Four theatrical productions were produced in Switzerland and Germany from 1941 to 1952, the last three supervised and/or directed by Brecht, who had returned to East Germany from the United States.

<i>Shadows and Fog</i> 1991 film by Woody Allen

Shadows and Fog is a 1991 American black-and-white comedy film directed by Woody Allen and based on his one-act play Death (1975). It stars Allen, Mia Farrow, John Malkovich, Kathy Bates, David Ogden Stiers, Jodie Foster, Donald Pleasence, Lily Tomlin, John Cusack, Madonna, and Kenneth Mars. It was filmed on a 26,000-square-foot (2,400 m2) set at Kaufman Astoria Studios, which was the biggest set ever built in New York. It was also Allen's last film for Orion Pictures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slatan Dudow</span> Bulgarian-born film director and screenwriter

Slatan Theodor Dudow was a Bulgarian born film director and screenwriter who made a number of films during the Weimar Republic and in East Germany.

Mr Puntila and His Man Matti is an epic comedy by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. It was written in 1940 and first performed in 1948.

<i>The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent</i>

The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent is a Lehrstück by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, written in collaboration with Slatan Dudow and Elisabeth Hauptmann. Under the title Lehrstück it was first performed, with music by Paul Hindemith, as part of the Baden-Baden festival on 28 July 1929, at the Stadthalle, Baden-Baden, directed by Brecht, designed by Heinz Porep.

In the Jungle of Cities is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. Written between 1921 and 1924, it received its first theatrical production under the title Im Dickicht at the Residenztheater in Munich, opening on 9 May 1923. This production was directed by Erich Engel, with set design by Caspar Neher. The cast included Otto Wernicke as Shlink the lumber dealer, Erwin Faber as George Garga, and Maria Koppenhöfer as his sister Mary. Im Dickicht was produced at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater in Berlin, where Brecht had been employed as a dramaturg. The production opened on 29 October 1924, with the same director and scenographer, but in a cut version with a new prologue and the title Dickicht: Untergang einer Familie. Fritz Kortner played Shlink and Walter Frank played George, with Franziska Kinz, Paul Bildt, Mathias Wieman, and Gerda Müller also in the cast. Willett and Manheim report that this production "was not a success".

Round Heads and Pointed Heads is an epic parable play written by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, in collaboration with Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri, Elisabeth Hauptmann, and the composer Hanns Eisler. The play's subtitle is Money Calls to Money and its authors describe it as "a tale of horror." The play is a satirical anti-Nazi parable about a fictitious country called Yahoo in which the rulers maintain their control by setting the people with round heads against those with pointed heads, thereby substituting racial relations for their antagonistic class relations. The play is composed of 11 scenes in prose and blank verse and 13 songs. Unlike another of Brecht's plays from this period, The Mother, Round Heads and Pointed Heads was addressed to a wide audience, Brecht suggested, and took account of "purely entertainment considerations." Brecht's notes on the play, written in 1936, contain the earliest theoretical application of his "defamiliarization" principle to his own "non-Aristotelian" drama.

The Trial of Lucullus is a short didactic radio play by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht written in verse. It was completed in 1940. In it, the great Roman general Lucullus appears after death before a judge and jury of the underworld, who are to decide whether he should be condemned to Hades or admitted to the Elysian fields. The jury, representing the lower classes, allows Lucullus to call as witnesses portrayed on a triumphal frieze. All the evidence is against Lucullus, except for the fact that he introduced the cherry tree to Europe, grieved over the destruction of books, and was possessed of a fine culinary experience.

<i>The Threepenny Opera</i> (film) 1931 film

The Threepenny Opera is a 1931 German musical film directed by G. W. Pabst. Produced by Seymour Nebenzal's Nero-Film for Tonbild-Syndikat AG (Tobis), Berlin and Warner Bros. Pictures GmbH, Berlin, the film is loosely based on the 1928 musical theatre success of the same name by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. As was usual in the early sound film era, Pabst also directed a French language version of the film, L'Opéra de quat'sous, with some variation of plot details. A planned English version went unproduced. The two existing versions were released on home video by The Criterion Collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hollywood blacklist</span> Mid-20th century banning of suspected Communists from US entertainment

The Hollywood blacklist was an entertainment industry blacklist put in effect in the mid-20th century in the United States during the early years of the Cold War, in Hollywood and elsewhere. Actors, screenwriters, directors, musicians, and other American entertainment professionals were barred from work by the studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House Un-American Activities Committee</span> US investigative committee, 1938–1975

The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist ties. It became a standing (permanent) committee in 1946, and from 1969 onwards it was known as the House Committee on Internal Security. When the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bertolt Brecht</span> German poet, playwright, and theatre director (1898–1956)

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre and the Verfremdungseffekt.

Jutta Brückner is a German film director, screenwriter and film producer. She directed nine films between 1975 and 2005. Furthermore, she has written essays in film theory, film reviews and radio plays. She lives in Berlin and was Professor for narrative film at Berlin University of the Arts. She was the head of the jury at the 31st Berlin International Film Festival and is a member of multiple Film Juries and advisory committees.

The Playwright's Theatre Club was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1953 by Paul Sills, David Shepherd and Eugene Troobnick. The theatre was noted for its original treatment and productions of classic plays as well as premiering original works, and was credited for the creation of The Compass Players and The Second City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hamid Samandarian</span> Iranian film director

Hamid Samandarian Persian: حمید سمندریان; May 6, 1931 – July 12, 2012) was an Iranian film and theater director and translator. He staged numerous dramas including No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen, The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and Marriage of Mr. Mississippi by Friedrich Durrenmatt.

Dansen is a short play by German playwright and dramatist Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) written in 1939. Although not as widely recognized and produced due to its short length, the play is a good representation both of Brecht's writing style and political beliefs. It serves as an allegory for the actions of European countries during World War II via the experiences of the pig farmer Dansen as he deals with a stranger who is terrorizing local business owners.

References

  1. Sanchez, Don (20 March 2012). "Berkeley filmmaker raising money for short online". ABC 7 News . KGO-TV . Retrieved 21 January 2014.
  2. Davison, Casey (16 July 2015). ""Witness 11" To Be Featured in St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase".
  3. Taylor, Tracey (20 March 2012). "Film about Bertolt Brecht being shot at Berkeley City Club". Berkeleyside. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  4. 1 2 Brecht HUAC hearing
  5. Ceplair, Larry (2011). Anti-Communism in Twentieth Century America: A Critical History. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. p. 77.