Goya

Konrad Wolf's adaptation of Lion Feuchtwanger's novel "Goya oder der arge Weg der Erkenntnis" (1951) (published in English as This is the Hour: A Novel about Goya), set in Spain as it is transitioning from feudal rule under the yoke of fundamentalist Catholicism and free and liberal France, at least in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, depicts the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) as an artist torn between loyalty to the king and career on the one hand, and criticism of Church and State on the other. GOYA (GDR/USSR 1971) is the most artistically significant of the eight 70-mm films made at DEFA between 1967 and 1973 - and one of the film studio’s most elaborate productions. Two versions (German and Russian) of this parable about the relationship between art and power were shot over a period of eleven months in Yugoslavia (including in Dubrovnik), Bulgaria, the Crimea (Yalta), and the Caucasus, with actors from eight countries, 3,000 costumes, wagonloads of props and 120 paintings and original prints by Goya. (hjf)