Charlotte

Plot Summary: Frans Weisz's Charlotte (1980) is an earnest, tasteful bio-pic that focuses on the uneasy triangle of Charlotte (Birgit Doll), her stepmother Paula (Elisabeth Trissenaar), a famed opera singer whom Salomon whimsically names in her opus "Paulinka Bimbam," and Paula's voice teacher, Alfred Wolfsohn, called Amadeus Daberlohn in Salomon's dramatis personae, and played by Derek Jacobi with an edge of madness that does credit to his character's egomaniacal charisma. The teenage Charlotte finds inspiration in the flamboyant Amadeus (he looks like a young Jean-Luc Godard) and his notion that the artist must descend into death to embrace life. He, perhaps partly to further his designs on Paulinka, encourages her ardor and her art. Whatever his motives, he is the muse she invokes when she embarks on her epic artistic endeavor...from the Wochester Pheonnix Art Archive

	with... Yoka Berretty: Frau Morgan Peter Capell: Grandfather Max Croiset: Albert Birgit Doll: Charlotte Salomon Buddy Elias: Herr Schwartz Peter Faber: Frits Blech Leonard Frank: Alexander Loebler Lous Hensen: Frau Deutscher Patricia Hodge: Teacher Brigitte Horney: Grandma
and... Derek Jacobi: Daberlohn Irene Jarosch: Magda Shaun Lawton: Reporter Ton Lensink: Dr. Moridini Maria Machado: Frau Schwartz Harke de Roos: Dirigent Johanna Sophia: Gisela Shireen Strooker: Mukki Elisabeth Trissenaar: Paulinka Eric Vaessen: Herr Deutscher


During World War II, while living in exile in France, the young German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (1917–1943) created Life? or Theatre?: A Play With Music, comprising almost eight hundred small gouache (opaque watercolor) paintings. In this work, Salomon combined painting with text and musical cues to tell a compelling and autobiographical coming-of-age story set amid increasing Nazi oppression and a family history of suicide. Although the artist died in Auschwitz — a fact that deeply affects our view of the work — Life? or Theatre? survived and stands as a testament to Salomon’s life and singular artistic vision. Structured like a play, Life? or Theatre? is divided into a prelude, a main ection, and an epilogue, which are further divided into scenes and sections. The prelude focuses on Charlotte’s youth in Weimar and Nazi Berlin; the main section on her artistic inspiration and lover, Amadeus Daberlohn; and the epilogue on her life in exile. The images, painted with only primary colors and white, range from expressionist portraiture to montages of time and space that combine multiple moments within the same page.	Charlotte's suicidal mother, Franziska, describes the afterlife she yearns for and promises to tell her daughter what Heaven is like in a letter which she will personally deliver as an angel. Salomon's caption: "Franziska: 'In Heaven everything is much more beautiful than here on earth - and when your Mummy has turned into a little angel she'll come down and bring her little lambkin, she'll bring a letter, telling her what it's like in Heaven, what it's like up there in Heaven.' Franziska was of a somewhat sentimental disposition. She would often take the child to bed with her and tell her about a life after death in celestial spheres, a life that was said to be simply glorious and for which she seemed to have a terrible yearning, and she often asked Charlotte whether it wouldn't be wonderful if her mother were to turn into an angel with wings. Charlotte agreed that it would, only she asked her mother not to forget to tell her in a letter - which she was to deliver personally as an angel and deposit on Charlotte's windowsill - what it was like up there in Heaven."
These images are from the Jewish Museum 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street (between Fifth and Madison) New York, NY 10128 Phone: 212.423.3200. Please visit their webpage for more images and information about the life and work of Charlotte Salomon.