ROSA LUXEMBURG: MORE THAN A REVOLUTIONARY
Rosa Luxemburg was murdered in 1919 by German soldiers, members of the Anti-Bolshevik League.
ALMOST 70 YEARS AFTER THE death of Rosa Luxemburg, her name still conjures up images of revolution - and a good deal of controversy. She was, after all, a major political figure and one of the founders of the German Communist Party. What many people don't know is that she was also an ardent pacifist who spent most of World War I in prison. It was partly to ''rehabilitate Rosa Luxemburg,'' according to the actress Barbara Sukowa, that she and the director Margarethe von Trotta embarked on a film of her life.
''Rosa Luxemburg,'' currently at the Lincoln Plaza, is the result of their efforts -which won for Ms. Sukowa the best actress prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival. ''The role meant a lot to me,'' Ms. Sukowa said, ''and I was happy to get the award for this part. You can't make a distinction between the movie and the acting.''
''Receiving the prize meant that you can tell stories that have nothing to do with sex and crime, and people will still like it,'' she continued. ''I put a lot into the film. Or no, maybe I took more out of it than I put in. Rosa was different from the characters I usually play - probably the only woman I've played who is not neurotic.''
The film traces Luxemburg's political and moral development from journalist and author of theoretical writings that propagated a democratic socialism, to dissenter from the party line and imprisoned pacifist (nine times). The 36-year-old West German actress has starred in such films of the early 1980's as Rainer Werner Fassbinder's ''Lola'' and ''Berlin Alexanderplatz,'' and Ms. von Trotta's ''Marianne and Juliane.''
It is difficult to imagine anyone else in the part of Rosa Luxemburg, for Ms. Sukowa incarnates the political rebel from her beginnings as a young idealist to her ending as a 48-year-old victim of rightist murderers. ''Even if I had found someone who looked like Rosa,'' said Ms. von Trotta, ''Barbara's inner energy and brilliant intelligence wouldn't have been there.''
Although Luxemburg was of Polish-Jewish origin, she acquired German nationality through a marriage of convenience. The film also includes her long-term love affair with Leo Jogiches (played by the Polish actor Daniel Olbrychski), whom she ultimately abandoned when confronted with his infidelity. Mr. Olbrychski is best known for his work with the director Andrzej Wajda and his role as Jan in the 1979 film ''The Tin Drum,'' directed by Ms. von Trotta's husband, Volker Schlondorff.
''When you play historical characters, you have to find out the most about them,'' observed Mr. Olbrychski. ''Barbara's job was easier than mine because Rosa's life is known.''
''My role is known only through Rosa's letters about him,'' he continued. ''No letters exist from him to Rosa - she probably destroyed them - so I couldn't find out what he was like. I had to stick to the script and give it my own personality. Barbara linked her personality to the letters and I, like a policeman, searched for the traces of a man.''
The focus of the film, however, is on Luxemburg as a political creature. ''One of the reasons we made the movie was because there's a lot of prejudice against Rosa in Germany,'' explained Ms. Sukowa. ''People think she was a militant for hysterical materialism - as opposed to Marx's historical materialism - a suffragette, a steely revolutionary. But when I got to know her via her writings, I was surprised: she was completely different from what I imagined, and it nourished me.
''Rosa wanted to be a complete person -an ardent lover, a mother, an intellectual, a political leader, and someone with a relationship to the natural world of animals and plants,'' she continued.
''Normally, if you play a part, you have the words and you invent the personality out of your experience, your knowledge - your life, in a way. Here, I had so much material that I absorbed it. I read all 2,500 of her letters: I hardly slept and was never tired. It was fun! ''I'd love to have the letters of Lady Macbeth'' she added with a smile. Ms. Sukowa, who uses Polish in the film, learned the language from cassettes and had some sessions in Los Angeles with the actress Joanna Pacula, who is of Polish origin.
''Rosa Luxemburg'' was originally a project of Fassbinder's. When he died in 1982, Ms. von Trotta became obsessed with the character. ''It's hard to know what he would have done with the material,'' the director acknowledged. ''I didn't use his first version because, for me, making a film is writing, and directing means finding your own vision.
''Rosa's portrait was already on the desk of one of the characters in my film 'Sisters.' I thought more and more about Rosa until I couldn't get her out of my mind. Her murder remains unacknowledged, unpunished and unexpiated.
''Rosa was the first victim of National Socialism: her murderers later rallied around Hitler.'' Ms. Sukowa feels that the film would have been quite different in the hands of Fassbinder: ''I've been told that he wanted to put more emphasis on the love story between Leo and Rosa,'' she said... Read more:
