― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 24 November 2003 10:12 (twenty years ago) link
it wd be a way of looking at the limits of theory, how often it cuts out the actual viewing experience and sometimes turns the messy experience into something more manageable -- rosenbaum's review of peter wollen's new book in cineaste takes this line, and it's one i often agree with.
i'm going to read boll's book b4 i actually see any straub i think.
― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 24 November 2003 10:15 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 24 November 2003 10:30 (twenty years ago) link
also i've heard their more recent work is easier to swallow. i'd like to see "sicilia!"
― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 24 November 2003 10:32 (twenty years ago) link
they`re probably the filmmakers most indebted to contemporaneous developments in music since jean epstein and so on in the 20s
aren't we forgetting hype williams?
― enrique (Enrique), Monday, 24 November 2003 10:33 (twenty years ago) link
― raphael diligent (Cozen), Thursday, 4 December 2003 20:21 (twenty years ago) link
Overall a very thoughtful exploration and expressive statement on the power of cinema and its dangerous relationship to 20th century fascism but worth seeing now because of all the ways it manages to provide an interesting framework for thinking about the media's role in the rise of neo-conservatism in America. It's really unfortunate that it's such a rare film to find.
― herbert hebert (herbert hebert), Monday, 7 March 2005 22:26 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 00:20 (nineteen years ago) link
i saw straub/huillet's "workers, peasants." i don't know what to say about it. i was proud of myself for not walking out.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 01:35 (nineteen years ago) link
Is the Syberberg Hitler film available on DVD yet?
― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 05:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 06:01 (nineteen years ago) link
the later films are considerably more determinedly difficult--often not much more than non-actors reciting (not acting), in occasionally hypnotically monotonous fashion (and often in languages i don't understand), very involved texts. of course they are photographed (and recorded live! in synch sound! always!) with great delicacy, but "workers, peasants" tested my patience quite a bit nonetheless. i found it of some value as a limit case, but i had a hard time conceiving a *positive* value for it.
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 06:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― NRQ, Tuesday, 8 March 2005 09:35 (nineteen years ago) link
― Drew Daniel (Drew Daniel), Tuesday, 8 March 2005 09:46 (nineteen years ago) link
http://www.syberberg.de/Syberberg2/Events_2003/uncut.html
Is there any sound to this?
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 22 January 2015 00:48 (nine years ago) link
As in I know there is but its not coming up. Not sure if its a plug-in issue.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 22 January 2015 00:49 (nine years ago) link
Downloaded a torrent of it and spent much of the weekend on this.
Great, great film -- for all of its flaws that would become apparent if you scrutinize that script, but as a piece of cinema its so necessary. I don't have that Sontag piece now but I remember thinking I probably want to watch this but as it took me ten years to get round to it so I wonder if the piece has almost shut the conversation?
Sontag was silly to call him "the most important film-maker since Godard" or what have you. Even so its as interesting a statement as Night Porter or Salo. Its sorta interesting how Syberberg stands outside New German cinema, he is a lot more going for him than fucking Wenders (I like Wenders but come on).
Also well done BBC for partly funding. Its not something they could re-screen -- its so alien to how they make TV programmes now. Plus it requires an engagement with Germanic literary culture they are not interested in and its attacking a lot of the war documentaries -- I can see Syberberg's point even if I am not going to stop watching World at War when it comes on or anything. It takes a couple of risks with highly strung emotion, the whole thing is so Wagnerian as total work of art, an incredible attempt to rescue that avant-garde from the fascistic associations.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 25 January 2015 13:19 (nine years ago) link
This sounds amazing.
I cracked the sound thing for the syberberg.de versions - browser plug-ins hate them, but you can download the .movs by getting the absolute URLs, then VLC (or, presumably, another standalone player) can handle them.
Obviously don't do this unless you've contributed to the Nossendorf steeple restoration fund.
― woof, Sunday, 25 January 2015 14:00 (nine years ago) link
So that's what I was doing wrong ;-)
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 25 January 2015 15:52 (nine years ago) link
TS: hitler a film from germany vs Berlin Alexanderplatz
Posted a poll.
Also forgot to say I got a lot of Citizen Kane vibes out of this, all good!
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 26 January 2015 12:33 (nine years ago) link
Fassbinder was virulently opposed to him
Syberberg that is, not Hitler (lol). Fassbinder thought he was just a rip off of Werner Schroeter I think?
― A trumpet growing in a garden (Tom D.), Monday, 26 January 2015 15:49 (nine years ago) link
Well this film quite diff from any Schroeter film and also this one is very specifically about Wagner and his project. Schroeter I think engages a lot more widely with operas and arias and its roots in working class life.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 26 January 2015 16:47 (nine years ago) link
I suppose Syberberg's politics had something to do with it too.
― A trumpet growing in a garden (Tom D.), Monday, 26 January 2015 18:28 (nine years ago) link
That, plus they are v different filmmakers.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 26 January 2015 22:13 (nine years ago) link
They shared some actors, or rather Fassbinder people acted in his films, Harry Baer was the lead in 'Ludwig'.
― A trumpet growing in a garden (Tom D.), Monday, 26 January 2015 22:26 (nine years ago) link
(btw I've only seen Ludwig (but it was when I was school probably) and Parsifal.)
― A trumpet growing in a garden (Tom D.), Monday, 26 January 2015 22:27 (nine years ago) link
Right, I hadn't noticed. Quite like to see Ludwig next, just to see how it compares with the Visconti film.
I also watched a part of Shoah at the weekend. In the intro to Hitler the circus master introduces the film with words to the effect that 'this is not a film about the war and the suffering and a body count that tends to operate' in these other wwii documentaries. You see his point when in Shoah Lanzmann keeps a close up to a crying jew that is recounting this awful episode.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 26 January 2015 22:46 (nine years ago) link
Ludwig is my favorite of what I've seen (which includes Karl May and the first half of Hitler).
― Cherish, Thursday, 29 January 2015 00:23 (nine years ago) link