[2] Formed of two 90-minute parts, it was scripted and directed by Heinrich Breloer, with Tom Schilling and Burghart Klaußner in the title role.
[3][4] The film focusses more on Brecht's relationships with women (namely Paula Banholzer, Marianne Zoff, Helene Weigel, Elisabeth Hauptmann, Ruth Berlau, Käthe Reichel, Regine Lutz and Isot Kilian) than on his plays and poems.
It does not mention the term epic theatre (though rehearsal scenes in Part 2 illustrate his working process with the Berliner Ensemble) and his years of exile are skipped – Bresloer has written: Part of the film consists of an account by Martin Pohl, one of Brecht's Masters students, who was imprisoned for two years – it tells how he was tortured by sleep deprivation and gave a false confession.
"I'll come right behind Goethe" muses the slight and shy-looking 17-year-old schoolboy to his young love Paula, wanting to be the latest genius.
This includes the SED central committee's 1953 plan to hand over the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm to the Kasernierten Volkspolizei ensemble (later known as the Erich-Weinert-Ensemble) and Brecht's successful appeal to Otto Grotewohl against this.