Dissent as responsibility: Manfred Durniok’s Central European coproductions Mephisto (1981), Taken for a Ride (1983) and Colonel Redl (1985)

Abstract

West German producer Manfred Durniok (1934–2003) played a crucial role in channelling the work of critical filmmakers from East to West. Straddling the Iron Curtain, Durniok financed international coproductions, imported Central European and Asian films into the West, and facilitated the festival exhibit of politically critical films. This article traces Durniok’s cultural mediation between the West and state-run film studios such as DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, 1946–1992, East Germany) and Mafilm (1911-present, Hungary). His business model with such studios allowed Durniok to realise critical films via coproduction that would otherwise have been unthinkable within the constraints of socialist national cinemas. Durniok shared an understanding of ‘dissent as responsibility’ (Václav Havel) with two directors with whom he worked closely: Hungarian István Szabó (1938) and East German Frank Beyer (1932–2006). Durniok produced two of Szabó’s pictures that brought the Hungarian director’s acclaim in the West and propelled his international career: Mephisto (1981) and Colonel Redl (1985). Similarly, in 1982, Durniok sponsored Beyer’s road movie Bockshorn (Taken for a Ride, 1983) that enabled the director’s breakthrough in the West and his career in television post-1989. Durniok not only financed these East-West coproductions in the 1980s, but also contributed to a form of cultural mediation that responded to artists’ need to voice their political dissent in film.