Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny - in Other Media

In Other Media

The 2005 movie Manderlay, directed by Lars von Trier, contains several references to the plot of Mahagonny. The most notable of these is the threat of a hurricane approaching the city during the first act. Von Trier's earlier movie Dogville, to which Manderlay is a sequel, was for a large part based on a song from Brecht's Threepenny Opera ("Pirate Jenny"). In the brothel scene in act 2 of Mahagonny, the choir sings a "Song von Mandelay". The play Happy End (1929) by Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht and Weill, also contains a song called "Der Song von Mandelay", which uses the same refrain as in the brothel scene of Mahagonny. Brecht's use of the name Mandelay/Mandalay was inspired by Rudyard Kipling's poem "Mandalay".