Playwright, film-maker, and novelist, born in Nowawes, NE Germany. He fled Nazi Germany, and settled in Sweden in 1939, becoming famous with his first play, The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (1964), known more simply as Marat/Sade. His next play, The Investigation (1965), was a documentary based on transcripts of the Auschwitz trials. The Song of the Lusitanian Bogey (1967) was a more cogent attack on the capitalist system. He also wrote the autobiographical novels Leave Taking (1961) and Vanishing Point (1962).
Peter Ulrich Weiss (November 8, 1916 – May 10, 1982) was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality.
Life
Weiss was born in Nowawes (Neubabelsberg), near Berlin, to a Hungarian Jewish father and Christian mother. After the German occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938, his family moved to Sweden, and Weiss himself removed to Switzerland.
Weiss was married three times: to the painter Helga Hen, 1943;
In 1970 Weiss suffered a heart attack. One of the most known films made by Peter Weiss is an experimental one, "The Mirage" (1959) and the second one - it is very seldom mentioned - is a film Weiss directed in Paris 1960 together with Barbro Boman,a film with the title "Play Girls" or "The Flamboyant Sex" ("Schwedische Mädchen in Paris" or "Verlockung" in German). Among the short films by Weiss "The Studio of Doctor Faust" (1956) shows the extremely strong link of Weiss to a German cultural background.
Weiss' best-known work is the play Marat/Sade (1963), first performed in West Berlin in 1964, which brought him widespread international attention. In Marat/Sade, Weiss uses a technique which, to quote from the play itself, speaking on the play within a play within itself (and no, that is not a confused statement): "Our play's chief aim has been to take to bits great propositions and their opposites, see how they work, and let them fight it out."
Weiss was honored with the Charles Veillon Award, 1963;
Selected works
All works were originally written in German unless otherwise noted.
Plays
1949 Der Turm (The Tower) 1952 Die Versicherung 1963 Nacht mit Gästen (Night with Guests) 1963/5 Die Verfolgung und Ermordung Jean Paul Marats dargestellt durch die Schauspielgruppe des Hospizes zu Charenton unter Anleitung des Herrn de Sade (The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade) - generally known as Marat/Sade 1963/8 Wie dem Herrn Mockinpott das Leiden ausgetrieben wird (How Mr. Mockinpott was cured of his Sufferings) 1964 Die Ermittlung (The Investigation) 1967 Gesang vom lusitanischen Popanz (Song of the Lusitanien Bogey) 1968 Diskurs über die Vorgeschichte und den Verlauf des lang andauernden Befreiungskrieges in Viet Nam als Beispiel für die Notwendigkeit des bewaffneten Kampfes der Unterdrückten gegen ihre Unterdrücker sowie über die Versuche der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika die Grundlagen der Revolution zu vernichten (Discourse on the Progress of the Prolonged War of Liberation in Viet Nam and the Events Leading up to it as Illustration of the Necessity for Armed Resistance against Oppression and on the Attempts of the United States of America to Destroy the Foundations of Revolution) - generally known as Viet Nam Diskurs 1969 Trotzki im Exil (Trotsky in Exile) 1971 Hölderlin 1974 Der Prozeß - adaptation of Franz Kafka's novel 1982 Der neue Prozeß (The New Trial)Fiction
1944 Från ö till ö (written in Swedish; German: Die Besiegten) 1948 Der Vogelfreie (published as Dokument I in Swedish (1949) and in German as Der Fremde under the pseudonym Sinclair) 1951 Duellen (written in Swedish; German: Das Duell) 1952 Der Schatten des Körpers des Kutschers (The Shadow of the Coachman's Body) 1956 Situationen (written in Swedish; III: 1981) (The Aesthetics of Resistance)Other writings
1956 Avantgarde Film (written in Swedish) 1968 Rapporte 1970 Rekonvaleszenz 1971 Rapporte 2 1971-1980 NotizbücherWeiss also directed some experimental films.
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