Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Writing

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Born 1921-01-05 · Konolfingen, Bern, Switzerland

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (5 January 1921 – 14 December 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophical crime novels, and macabre satire. Dürrenmatt was a member of the Gruppe Olten, a group of left-wing Swiss writers who convened regularly at a restaurant in the city of Olten. Dürrenmatt was born in Konolfingen, canton of Bern, the son of a Protestant pastor. His grandfather, Ulrich Dürrenmatt, was a conservative politician. The family moved to Bern in 1935. Dürrenmatt began studies in philosophy, German philology, and German literature at the University of Zürich in 1941, but moved to the University of Bern after one semester where he also studied natural science. In 1943, he decided to become an author and dramatist and dropped his academic career. In 1945–46, he wrote his first play It Is Written. On 11 October 1946, he married the actress Lotti Geissler. Dürrenmatt traveled in 1969 to the United States, in 1974 to Israel, and in 1990 to Auschwitz in Poland. In 1975 he played himself in the film End of the Game. Dürrenmatt also enjoyed painting. Some of his own works and his drawings were exhibited in Neuchâtel in 1976 and 1985, as well as in Zürich in 1978. His wife Lotti Geissler died on 16 January 1983. Dürrenmatt married another actress, Charlotte Kerr, in 1984. In 1990, he gave two famous speeches, one in honour of Václav Havel ("Die Schweiz, ein Gefängnis?/Switzerland a Prison?"), upon discovering he had been spied on for five decades, along with 800,000 of his left-leaning fellow citizens, by the Swiss secret service; the other in honour of Mikhail Gorbachev ("Kants Hoffnung/Kant's Hope"). Dürrenmatt often compared the three Abrahamic religions and Marxism, which he also saw as a religion. Dürrenmatt died from heart failure on 14 December 1990 in Neuchâtel. Since 2000, his works are exhibited in Centre Dürrenmatt, a part of the Swiss National Library. Like Bertolt Brecht, Dürrenmatt explored the dramatic possibilities of epic theatre. Next to Brecht, he has been called its "most original theorist". When he was 26, his first play, It Is Written, premiered to great controversy. The story of the play revolves around a battle between a sensation-craving cynic and a religious fanatic who takes scripture literally, all of this taking place while the city they live in is under siege. The play's opening night in April 1947, caused fights and protests in the audience. Between 1948 and 1949, Dürrenmatt wrote several segments and sketches for the anti-Nazi Cabaret Cornichon in Zürich; among these, the single-act grotesque short play Der Gerettete (The Rescued). ... Source: Article "Friedrich Dürrenmatt" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

The Visit poster
7.2

Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...

The Visit

1964

No artwork available
7.0

The play is set in a painter's studio, where we find Nobel Prize author Wolfgang Schwitter, who has died and come back to life, as he will a second time in the course of the play. Declared clinically dead, Wolfgang Schwitter has fled the hospital, with its doctors and gadgets, to Nyffenschwander's studio, where years before he had begun his literary career and where he now wants to die, yet cannot.

The Meteor

1969

It Happened in Broad Daylight poster
7.4

The search for a child murderer drags a once-respected detective into an all-consuming obsession.

It Happened in Broad Daylight

1958

Die Panne poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

Die Panne

1957

No artwork available
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Achterloo IV

1989

End of the Game poster
5.0

Hans Baerlach is a Swiss police detective who has dedicated much of his career to pursuing powerful and allegedly murderous businessman Richard Gastmann. Though Baerlach's partner meets his demise while investigating Gastmann, his replacement, Walter Tschanz, is undaunted. Meanwhile, the lovely Anna Crawley becomes involved in the case, which proceeds to take many twists and turns.

End of the Game

1975

No artwork available
NR

A TV adaptation of a historical comedy from Dürrenmatt's early period, depicting in an ironic manner the final moments of the Roman Empire, which its emperor Romulus Augustus decides to destroy and lay at the feet of the conquering Germanic tribes.

Romulus Veľký

1992

Commissioner Berlach's Last Case poster
5.9

The last months of Police Commissioner Berlach's life are devoted to tracking down the war criminal, Nazi doctor-examiner Emenberger. Hiding under a false identity, he continues to carry out cruel experiments on human beings even in peaceful days. The terminally ill Berlach manages to expose the criminal and break him, forcing him to confess to what he has done

Commissioner Berlach's Last Case

1972

No artwork available
10.0

Hungarian TV movie based on the work of swiss writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt.

A bíró és a hóhér

1968

The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi poster
5.5

Florestan Mississippi, a public prosecutor by profession, visits a lady named Anastasia and, while drinking coffee with her, convicts her of poisoning her husband. At the same time, he asks for her hand in marriage, as he too has killed his wife with poison; the marriage is to be the "atonement" of the two poisoners. The four allegorical personifications in this comedy are, in addition to the loveless, absolute justice in the form of the prosecutor Mississippi, perfect equality, represented by the world revolutionary Saint-Claude, Christian love, embodied in the down-and-out, alcoholic tropical doctor Count Uebelohe-Zabernsee, and finally the "Frau Welt" of the old mystery play – Anastasia, who falls for everyone and betrays everyone, loves nothing but the moment, and dies with an invoked untruth on her lips.

The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi

1961

The Visit poster
6.3

In her teens, Mme. Zachanassian had to flee her home town in disgrace. Now she's old and rich and the town is facing bankruptcy. But she returns with news that she wants to help - as long as the townsfolk kill someone for her.

The Visit

2008

The Visit of the Old Lady poster
9.0

As a young woman, Klara left her hometown in disgrace. Now she is old and unimaginably rich, as for the first time she returns. The town is nearly bankrupt and in urgent need of money. Everybody hopes Clara will come to the rescue. And she will. However, there is a condition: somebody must kill the man who was her lover all those years ago.

The Visit of the Old Lady

1976

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

A nagy Romulus

1982

Der Besuch der alten Dame poster
6.4

An enormously wealthy woman returns to her hometown with a dreadful bargain: She wants the townspeople to kill the man who jilted her in exchange for enough money to revitalize the town.

Der Besuch der alten Dame

1959

Physicists poster
6.7

Three murders are committed in a sanatorium under the poetic name "Cherry Orchard". But the police inspector does not have to break his head for a long time in search of killers - he knows almost everything: who, when and how were killed, the killers - the only thing left to figure out are the reasons...

Physicists

1988

Majority poster
5.0

A remote village has not had a previous boom for years. Residents have either been forced to migrate or are in poverty and misery, but the village has a new guest. But the village has a new...

Majority

2021

Once a Greek poster
7.0

An extravagant comedy with Heinz Rühmann.

Once a Greek

1966

A visita do rancor poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

A visita do rancor

2020

No artwork available
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Frank V. - Die Oper einer Privatbank

1967

Der Richter und sein Henker poster
6.5

The old and sick detective superintendent Bärlach has to investigate the murder of his colleague Ulrich Schmied, who was murdered in the middle of the country road.

Der Richter und sein Henker

1957

La visite de la vieille dame poster
7.0

Adaptation for TV of the play by Friedrich Durrenmatt. A very rich old lady arrives in her nearly bankrupt native village. She is ready to come to the rescue but only if her old lover who had once abandoned her pregnant is killed.

La visite de la vieille dame

1971