Klaus Maria Brandauer leads a threadbare revolution that'll unravel everything you know about worker solidarity.
The film essentially uses the original text of the play. The weavers, who toil away at home, deliver their goods to the manufacturer Dreißiger and receive their meager wages. Led by the young weaver Bäcker and the former soldier Moritz Jäger, they form a resistance group and storm the manufacturer's villa, who barely manages to save himself and his family. As the revolt spreads, the king sends in the military to quell the uprising. The old weaver Hilse, who refuses to participate in the uprising for religious reasons, is hit by a stray bullet while sitting at his loom and dies.
Acting
Brandauer's Jäger smolders with revolutionary charisma.
Writing
Gerhart Hauptmann's 1892 text still cuts like broken glass.
Director
Fritz Umgelter
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Hauptmann's 1892 play caused a literal riot at its Berlin premiere—police were called to the theatre. This 1980 adaptation arrived as West German worker movements were fragmenting.
Fritz Umgelter was primarily a television director; this rare theatrical film release preserves the original Silesian dialect that mainstream cinema usually avoided.
DE
