Erwin Piscator’s ‘Volksbühne’ and ‘Piscatorbühne’ (1893-1966) were the center of left-wing theater activity along with Brecht. As many of the great theater names of the early 20th century either left films (Reinhardt, Antoine) or made them (Mejerchol’d, whose two films are lost), we can be happy that this theater legend (whose output included plenty of Gorky, Schiller’s Robbers, Hasek’s Schwejk, and much later an internationally renowned War and Peace) also left a film – especially as he was famous for his creative use of film on stage, proof positive of his interest in the new medium.

As always, even the greatest theatrical achievements remain a mystery for later generations (the better the original, the more horrible the filmed reproductions usually are). Aufstand der Fischer, Piscator’s adaptation of Anna Seghers’ strong novel, has a burning presence, regardless of its ultimate achievement which might be uneven. The circumstances surely contributed to the fragmentary nature of the film. It was made in the Soviet Union, as later Gustav von Wangenheim’s Der Kampf and Herbert Rappaport’s Professor Mamlock and other films would be, a symmetrical reversal of the Soviet directors, from Pudovkin onwards, who worked in Germany, especially under the aegis of Mežrabpom, the company that had already originated the production of Piscator’s film in 1931. In 1933 his working engagement was transformed for obvious reasons into political exile. He was a man of many escapes: from Hitler, then from Stalin in 1936 (in spite of or because of the “Russian Revolution being a decisive factor in all his work”, as John Willett put it), then from McCarthy’s America in 1951.

The imagery of Revolt of the Fishermen is related to Eizenštejn both in its naked style and in the savagery of its images, starting with shots reminiscent of the ending of Strike, with the violent handling of fish and direct address that points out that this is exactly like the usurped workers. Basics on the nature of capitalism and its economics follow, as they should in good agitprop, with special poignancy about the horror of national socialism (“socialism where all the sh, including sharks, have the same rights”). The crowd scenes and their chorus-like direction is a direct sign of the style of the man who, according to one theater historian, represented “the boldest advance made by the German stage during the 20th century”. It’s both satisfactory and wanting, as the one-dimensionality of Piscator’s approach – a certain atness in everything that is “only” individual, the episodes don’t really lead to each other – is probably much more pronounced than in his theater. As in the words that Piscator once stated programmatically (“sensuality replaced by didacticism and fantasy by documentary reality”), it’s really didacticism and satire that have the upper hand.

Let’s be grateful for this little piece of evidence of a long career with so many surprising turns, including a Workshop in New York in the 1940s with people like Marlon Brando and Tennessee Williams participating…

Peter von Bagh