The Threepenny Opera
June 1, 2008
G.W. Pabst directs Bertolt Brecht’s famous stage sensation with only a little of the biting social commentary that made it the toast of Berlin in ’28, but with enough of the play’s emphasis on capitalist corruption and the seemingly inseparable line between criminal and politician/police, that it was banned by the Nazi’s two years later. Mackie Messer (Rudolf Forster) is the king of London’s underworld, in leagues with the chief of police, but when he makes off with a capitalist’s daughter, even his old friend has little power to save him from the gallows, until, remarkably, the criminal element suddenly transform into the capitalist powers-that-be, and the proletariat element on the street is left to wander the darkness, as the rich get richer and corruption rules outright. Criterion’s stuffed DVD has everything you’d want to know about the film’s troubled history, from lawsuits filed by Brecht and composer Kurt Weill for utilizing so little of the original play and score, to critical analysis of the stunning set designs of Andrej Andrejew and remarkably fluid camera of master cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner, which help make the film one of the best of the post-silent Weimer era.
by Adam Suraf