The Revolt of the Fishermen (Russian Восстание рыбаков, Wosstanije rybakow) is a feature film and early sound film based on the novel Revolt of the Fishermen of Santa Barbara by Anna Seghers, which was made between 1931 and 1934 on behalf of the German-Russian Mezhrabpomfilm company in the Soviet Union. The original intention was to produce a German and a Russian version directed against the growing Nazi movement. Due to considerable organizational deficits and differences between the film company and the director, only the Russian version could be completed. This was the feature film debut of German director Erwin Piscator.
The film deals with a strike among the workers of the Bredel shipping company. The strike is triggered by an accident during fish processing, which the workers attribute to the excessive pace of work on the shipping company's fishing fleet. After the death of a strike leader, the strike escalated and spread from deep-sea fishermen to independent coastal fishermen in the region. The film was shot in the Ukraine, the Russian peninsula of Kola and Moscow.
In its editing effects, long tracking shots and lighting direction, the Revolt of the Fishermen is stylistically similar to the works of Soviet film directors Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin from the transition period from silent to sound film. However, due to the technique of the moving camera and its independent sound direction, the feature film also contrasts with the Russian film tradition.Piscator, Erwin (1980). [From the preface to the French edition of Politisches Theater], in: Piscator, Erwin : Theater, Film, Politik. Selected Writings. Edited by Ludwig Hoffmann. Berlin: Henschel. pp. 386-399, here p. 392
The Revolt of the Fishermen premiered in the Soviet Union in October 1934. An export version with subtitles was distributed in other European countries the following year. The film was presented for the first time in West Germany during the 6th West German Short Film Festival in March 1960. It has since been presented in film societies, arthouse cinemas and film festivals such as the Berlinale 2012, but the "precarious condition of copies slowed down a wider reception".Agde, Günter (2012). Im Widerstreit der Bilder. Utopias and Topoi, in: Günter Agde, Alexander Schwarz (eds.): Die rote Traumfabrik: Meschrabpom-Film und Prometheus (1921-1936). Bertz + Fischer, Berlin, pp. 77-89, here p. 89
Plot The Revolt of the Fishermen deals with a strike among the impoverished deep-sea fishermen and sailors of the coastal town of Port Sebastian (also: San Sebastian), which is triggered by deteriorating working conditions on the ships of the shipowner Bredel.The plot is based on reconstructed copies of the film, which are based on the subtitled export version from 1935. Copies of the export version exist both in the state feature film archive Gosfilmofond in Belyje Stolby near Moscow and in various Western European film archives. It is not known whether the original version of the 1934 feature film has survived. The fishermen on one of Bredel's ships bring in the catch. A shark has come on board as by-catch and tries to eat a small fish while it is still dying. The sailors gutting the fish are repeatedly told to work faster. The pace of work on the ships in Bredel's fishing fleet has increased considerably, as the shipowner now only employs three men per shift instead of four. When a worker cuts off his thumb with a shark knife, the fishermen spontaneously stop working in protest.
In view of the accident, the deep-sea fishermen call on the captain to reduce the work intensity. Four men per shift are to be employed again. When the captain rejects this demand, the deep-sea fishermen decide to go on strike. The fishing fleet had to return to the port of the main town of Port Sebastian.An excerpt from the German version of the screenplay, which covers the film plot up to the decision to strike, is included: Piscator, Erwin (1986). A working biography in 2 volumes. Volume 2, Moscow - Paris - New York - Berlin 1931-1966, edited by Knut Boeser and Renata Vatková. Berlin: Edition Hentrich, pp. 9-12. At the shipping company office in Port Sebastian, the sailors are deprived of their wages. The garrison commander and the shipowner Bredel witness the orderly departure of the striking sailors. The commander deploys soldiers.
Strike leader Hull calls for a joint strike between the deep-sea fishermen from Port Sebastian and the coastal fishermen from the surrounding area, whose economic situation is slightly better than that of the deep-sea fishermen. However, joint industrial action does not materialize as the shipowner Bredel offers the small-scale fishermen in the area the prospect of one hundred percent more pay for their catch. The small-scale fishermen then set sail for Bredel, but lose half of their catch in stormy seas. The deep-sea fishermen, on the other hand, win their case against the shipping company and initially resume work. Bredel breaks his promise to pay the coastal fishermen a wage supplement. When the coastal fishermen realize that Bredel does not intend to keep his promise, they finally join forces with the deep-sea fishermen from Port Sebastian. In Desak's inn in the small coastal town of St. Barbara, the deep-sea and coastal fishermen discuss a joint labor dispute. However, the meeting is blown up by an act of arson.
A group led by the moderate fisherman Kerdhuys decides against going on strike and wants to go fishing for Bredel the day after the unsuccessful meeting in St. Barbara. In the morning, Martin Kedennek, an individualist from St. Barbara, and his people, who want to go on strike against the shipping company, ambush Kerdhuys and his comrades-in-arms. Kedennek tries to stop Kerdhuys from breaking the strike with a knife. When Kedennek attacks Kerdhuys, he is struck down by a bullet from one of the soldiers mobilized by the garrison commander. The next morning, there is another direct confrontation in the dunes between strikers and a group of coastal fishermen led by the well-off boat owner Bruyk, who - like Kerdhuys the day before - want to set sail for Bredel. Andreas, a young fisherman who lives with the Kedennek family, also joins the strikebreakers for the sake of appearances. Secretly, however, Andreas is planning an explosive attack on Bruyk's fishing boat.
The mood in the coastal fishing communities is tense. The mourning fishermen from the entire coastal region flock to Martin Kedenek's funeral. The shipowner Bredel arranges for more soldiers to be sent to St. Barbara as he fears an escalation of the conflict. Bredel asked the clergyman to hold back the mourners at the grave. The situation at the gravesite threatens to get out of hand. The fishermen's displeasure at a sermon by the priest, who strongly condemns Kedennek's actions, erupts in a cry from the widow, Marie Kedennek. Marie Kedennek knocks the Bible out of the clergyman's hand and tears it up. Meanwhile, the soldiers in St. Barbara are looking for the revolutionary sailor Hull from Port Sebastian, whom Bredel has identified as the real ringleader of the strike movement. The soldiers trash Desak's pub and rape Marie, a prostitute who works for Desak as a temporary help and who is having an affair with Andreas. The funeral is interrupted by explosions on Bruyk's ship, which Andreas has caused. The explosions are the signal for a revolt by the coastal fishermen against the shipowner and the summoned military, who approach the cemetery in firing lines.
Fierce fighting breaks out between the insurgent fishermen and their wives and the military, during which the saboteur Andreas is shot dead as he flees. After conquering strategically important military positions, the numerically superior insurgents led by strike leader Hull win the unequal battle. In the turmoil of the uprising, Bredel manages to escape.
Relationship to the original literary work The feature film is based on the novel Revolt of the Fishermen of St. Barbara by Anna Seghers, for which the author was awarded the Kleist Prize in 1928. Piscator made significant changes to the story. He turned the pessimistic ending of the original, in which the fishermen's misery is described in detail, into a militant appeal for the popular front against Nazi Germany. The director pointed out that he had initially moved the plot of the film "from northern Spain to northern Germany", thus enabling the main characters "to come into contact with those who had a similar social position at the time[.] It corresponded to the small fisherman, the small farmer." Piscator's geographical considerations initially relate to the unfinished German version of the film. Film scholar Günther Agde also interprets the completed Russian film version from 1934 as a " virtually placeless, but clearly non-Russian film."Agde, Günther (2012). Mit dem Blick nach Westen, in: Günter Agde, Alexander Schwarz (eds.): Die rote Traumfabrik: Meschrabpom-Film und Prometheus (1921-1936). Berlin: Bertz + Fischer. pp. 141-147, here p. 143 - The Russian film version from 1934 is virtually placeless, partly because the sets and props bear both German and Russian inscriptions. Piscator originally wanted to reach a German film audience and the unionized and politically unorganized classes in Germany, who seemed to him to be particularly susceptible to National Socialism. Anna Seghers had already shown that these classes were "dependent to the point of being drained".Goergen, Jeanpaul (1993). Vosstanie rybakov („Aufstand der Fischer“). Berlin: Selbstverlag. p. 15 He, on the other hand, wanted to illustrate how it was possible to remain independent by organizing oneself into a trade union.
According to theater scholar Peter Diezel, Piscator's film adaptation was in line with the strategic guideline of Thälmann's KPD leadership of the "anti-fascist united front and the inclusion of the petit-bourgeois classes". However, this manifested itself as a "rather brutal approach" towards Anna Seghers, as it meant nothing less than a "deconstruction of her narrative text".Diezel, Peter (2008). Erwin Piscators Film "Aufstand der Fischer". In: Argonautenschiff. Yearbook of the Anna-Seghers-Gesellschaft Berlin und Mainz e. V. Ed.: Anna-Seghers-Gesellschaft, Berlin und Mainz e. V. Issue 16. Berlin. pp. 68-79, here p. 72 To this end, as he later summarized, Piscator had introduced a seamen's union in his film adaptation, who worked on the "trawlers sent out by large fisheries and had started a strike over the removal of the fourth man in a work group." Meanwhile, the small-scale fishermen continued to work and had thus essentially become strikebreakers; a series of won and lost strikes followed. According to Piscator, however, "since the organized helped the unorganized, even when it was no longer about their own cause, these strikes turned from purely economic to political actions and - at least I hoped so - into a call against a system like the one the Nazis intended."