Spring Awakening

Spring Awakening (1929)

Drama

Moritz Stiefel faces expulsion due to poor marks. When he is caught with an essay titled “Shame and Lust”, he is indeed kicked out – instead of classmate Melchior Gabor, who actually penned it. Gabor was drawing on his experiences with neighbourhood girl Wendla. Then Wendla turns up pregnant. Stiefel descends into despair ... Exploitation between Eros and Thanatos in this “sexual tragedy of youth” based on Frank Wedekind’s play. Setting the film in the 1920s provided a chance to explore “modern” youth culture, complete with cigarettes, jazz music, the gramophone, and a goodly bit of alcohol. Richard Oswald, a master of films of manners and young sex beginning in the 1910s, fully explores the temptations of the youthful body, even early childhood flirtatiousness. At the same time, with his target audience in mind, the film laments the bigotry and double standards of the adult world.

Director: Richard Oswald
Writers: Herbert Rosenfeld, Friedrich Raff.

Casts

	Toni van Eyck as Wendla
	Ita Rina as Ilse
	Carl Ballhaus as Moritz
	Rolf von Goth as Melchior Gabor
	Paul Henckels as Stiefel
	Mathilde Sussin as Mrs. Bergmann
	Willy Clever as Fahrendorf
	Valy Arnheim as
	Fritz Rasp as
	Bernhard Goetzke as

Crew