The legend of Paul (Winfried Glatzeder) and Paula (Angelica Domröse) was the biggest GDR cinema hit Photo: KPA
By Oliver Ohmann
The premiere of The Legend of Paul and Paula on March 29, 1973 was a triumph. 20 minutes of applause in the Kosmos cinema. The creators still feared the worst…
Director Heiner Carow was afraid that his film might end up like “The Stone Trail” a few years earlier. A performance and then off into the poison cupboard of the GDR censorship. The two main actors, Angelica Domröse and Winfried Glatzeder, didn’t expect the game to last long either. But it turned out quite differently.
The legend of the passionate, disarming Paula and her love for the lanky, insecure party official Paul became the most successful Defa film. Three million viewers saw it and were enchanted by this complicated love under socialism.
Many scenes were created in Friedrichshain, on Singerstrasse. Again and again you see contrasts in the film. Old building versus new building, passion versus discipline, dream versus reality, fantasy versus everyday stuffiness. In addition, songs like “Go to her” and “If a person lives”, sung by the Puhdys.
Some call “Paul and Paula” kitsch – but most others: KULT!
Screenwriter Ulrich Plenzdorf would have liked to have written and shot a sequel. Glatzeder waved him off: “Only over my dead body!” Berlin honored the lovers with a shore, the Paul-und-Paula-Ufer on their lake, the Rummelsburg Bay.
More about cinema and film in “Klappe! – History of the Film City Berlin” by Oliver Ohmann, published by Elsengold.