Life? or Theatre? Leven? of Theater?
Quintus Films BV, Netherlands
Six months after she completed her magnum opus Leben? oder Theater?, Charlotte Salomon wrote a letter to her great love. The letter, which has never been published, sheds new light on the shocking reality behind her autobiographical series of paintings
being made, Charlotte’s stepmother Paula Salomon-Lindberg handed the makers a painted letter that had never been published, but she asked them not to use the content of this letter in the film. Charlotte wrote the letter, addressed to her great love ‘Amadeus Daberlohn’ (Alfred Wolfsohn), in Nice six months after completing Life? or Theatre? and several months before her arrest in 1943. This letter is Charlotte’s only testimony about her life in exile in Villefranche sur Mer and Nice. It is also - as far as we know- the only existing document in which she speaks in the first person, not in a contemplative way, but as herself. It provides us with a deep insight into the life of this young German Jewish artist and sheds new light on the shocking reality behind her autobiographical series of paintings entitled Leben? oder Theater? In the letter, Charlotte writes about the people who had a great influence on her in this last ‘French’ period of her life. These figures, who are ‘supporting actors’ in the feature film, become the central characters in this documentary. They are brought to life by interviews, newsreel footage, archive material, photographs, reports and dramatised reproductions. Then there are all those people who made Charlotte’s work known to the world. As they are interviewed they will be for the first time confronted with the facts revealed in Charlotte’s letter.
Synopsis Charlotte Salomon was born in Berlin in 1917 and was murdered at Auschwitz at the age of 26. While in exile in the South of France from 1940 until her deportation in 1943, she created more than 1,000 small gouaches. From these, she gathered nearly 800 into a work that she titled Life? or Theatre?, a play with music that employs images and texts with musical and cinematic references. A narrative of Charlotte’s experiences as a talented, cultured and assimilated German Jew depicts a life lived in the shadow of Nazi persecution and a family history of suicide, but also reveals moments of intense happiness and hope. The tone of the gouaches becomes increasingly raw and urgent as Charlotte is more deeply embroiled in grim personal and political events. The result is a deeply moving meditation on life, art and death. Charlotte’s art, discovered after the war in the South of France where she had left it for safe keeping, was first exhibited in Amsterdam in 1961 and has gained steadily in reputation ever since. Thirty years ago, Frans Weisz made the feature film Charlotte, based on Life? or Theatre?’. While the feature film Charlotte was
Director’s statement In the documentary we will make use of archive footage, newly shot material, gouaches of Charlotte, fragments from the feature film, existing and new interviews, photographs, and so on. The interviews to be made are against a Chromakey background, so that the people can literally be incorporated into Charlotte’s life’s work. The film will be partly in colour, partly in black-and-white. The idea is to depict her life in ‘fiction’ (her original work and the feature film) in colour and ‘reality’, brought to us through the letter and the various stories, in black-and-white/decoloured. This will make that part more similar to the (cinematic) reality of the years 1939-43. But in the documentary to be made, we go further. The camera moves literally straight through the film screen on which images from that fictional reality, from Life? or Theatre? and the feature Charlotte are projected – and we find ourselves in the reality as described by Charlotte.
36 NPP 2010
Director Frans Weisz Having had to abandon his original ambition to become an actor