{"id":39572,"date":"2023-04-21T20:19:02","date_gmt":"2023-04-22T00:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=39572"},"modified":"2023-04-21T20:19:42","modified_gmt":"2023-04-22T00:19:42","slug":"the-bootleg-files-vom-baumlein-das-andere-blatter-hat-gewollt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/21\/the-bootleg-files-vom-baumlein-das-andere-blatter-hat-gewollt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Vom B\u00e4umlein, Das Andere Bl\u00e4tter Hat Gewollt"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 829: <\/strong>\u201cVom B\u00e4umlein, Das Andere Bl\u00e4tter Hat Gewollt\u201d (1940 animated short made in Nazi Germany). <\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> On the Internet Archive and on YouTube.
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\nAMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> No sane U.S. label is going to put it into home entertainment release. <\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Nein.<\/p>\n

The filmmakers of Nazi Germany were pathetically jealous of their counterparts in Hollywood. After all, the German cinema suffered a creative brain drain after Hitler\u2019s rise to power in 1933, with the greatest talents leaving for other countries while significantly inferior pro-Nazi talents remained behind.
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The absence of creative talent during the Nazi-era cinema is painfully on display with a seven-minute animated film from 1940 called \u201cVom B\u00e4umlein, Das Andere Bl\u00e4tter Hat Gewollt.\u201d That roughly translates into \u201cFrom the Little Tree That Wanted Other Leaves,\u201d and it was inspired by a well-known poem by Friedrich R\u00fcckert, a 19th century poet whose work was revered in his native land. <\/p>\n

R\u00fcckert\u2019s poem concerns a little pine-needle tree in the middle of a forest. The tree is upset because it is the only one in its area that has needles instead of leaves \u2013 and due to the sting of its needles, it has never experienced the sensation of being touched.<\/p>\n

One day, the tree makes a wish for its needles to be turned into leaves made of pure gold. Overnight, the tree is miraculous transformed and its branches are rich with gold leaves that are so shiny that a bird can see its own reflection in a leaf. But in the evening, an intruder in the forest spots the golden tree and plucks away all but one of its leaves, stuffing the bounty into a large bag while abandoning the denuded tree to the night air.<\/p>\n

At this point, unfortunately, filmmaker Heinz Tischmeyer detours away from R\u00fcckert\u2019s poetry. Whereas R\u00fcckert\u2019s poem stated \u201cA farmer walked through the woods \/ With a big sack and a long beard,\u201d Tischmeyer remembered who was salting his schnitzel and changed the farmer into a caricature of a Jewish man. This anti-Semitic caricature earns the wrath of a blackbird that squawks angrily, but that does not stop the Jewish man from robbing the tree of its golden foliage.<\/p>\n

The unhappy tree then wishes to have leaves made of glass \u2013 why glass, of all things, is unclear. But, once again, the tree wakes up in the morning and its branches are bedecked with glass leaves. Alas, Mother Nature is working against the tree and a storm blows up, with fierce winds that break all of the glass leaves.<\/p>\n

The tree then wishes to have green leaves like the other trees. Once again, morning brings a new look for the tree \u2013 along with a she-goat with full udders that promptly eats all the newly arrived green leaves.<\/p>\n

You might think that the tree would wish for a lumberjack to put it out its misery, but instead it wishes to be put back to its original state with needles instead of leaves. That wish is also granted, and the tree laughs merrily and its return to normalcy while the other trees in the forest \u2013 who were silent all through this weird story \u2013 suddenly start laughing at the tree. And all the forest creatures join in the laughing. Whether German audiences were also laughing back in 1940 is unknown \u2013 certainly, no one else in Europe found the Germans very funny at that point in time.<\/p>\n

The animators borrowed a page from the Disney cartoons by making \u201cVom B\u00e4umlein, Das Andere Bl\u00e4tter Hat Gewollt\u201d in color \u2013 using their own second-rate Agfacolor process since they could not access the boldly hued three-strip Technicolor. The entire film has off-screen narration, with one voice actress reciting most of the poem and another doing the dialogue for the tree. We never see the tree talking, which is peculiar since the other trees in the forest have faces while this ridiculous little tree doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

As for the animation, \u201cVom B\u00e4umlein, Das Andere Bl\u00e4tter Hat Gewollt\u201d is so crudely made that you have to wonder why they even bothered. The artwork is flat and dreary, and the animators have no clue how to spatially integrate their characters into a setting. For something that was supposedly the work of filmmaking professionals, the short is among the most amateurish animated films ever made. And had it not included that miserable anti-Semitic caricature, it is unlikely that anyone would want to see it.<\/p>\n

\u201cVom B\u00e4umlein, Das Andere Bl\u00e4tter Hat Gewollt\u201d did not get a U.S. release in 1940 and was unknown on this side of the Atlantic until many years after it was made \u2013 after World War II was over, the Allied occupation forces in Germany seized the country\u2019s Nazi-era films. Films with anti-Semitic themes were kept out of view and remained unavailable for many years. An unauthorized posting has been on the Internet Archive site since 2014 and another unauthorized posting turned up on YouTube a year ago \u2013 but unless you have a curiosity about the cinema of Nazi Germany, there is no reason to waste seven minutes on this awful short.<\/p>\n