[MF] reality: interactions or quality?

Tue Feb 21 13:54:23 PST 2006

Ted - Here is some info on this movie, from IMDB.com, with comments from a
reviewer:

Hitler: A Film from Germany (1978)
Directed by
  Hans-Jürgen Syberberg 
Writers
  Hans-Jürgen Syberberg
Producers
  Bernd Eichinger ... producer 
Cast - in credits order 
  André Heller ... Himself
  Harry Baer ... Himself - Junger Ellerkamp
  Heinz Schubert ... Zirkusdirektor, Himmler, Himmler-Puppenspieler, Hitler
  Peter Kern ... Mörder aus "M", Göring-Puppenspieler, Alter Ellerkamp,
SS-Mann, Fremdenverkehrsdirektor
  Hellmut Lange ... Hitlers Kammerdiener, Goebbels-Puppenspieler, SS-Mann
  Rainer von Artenfels ... Jahrmarkt-Ausrufer, Hitler-Puppenspieler, Junger
Goebbels, Schüler des Kosmologen, SS-Mann
  Martin Sperr ... Himmlers Masseur, Fitzliputzli, Bürgermeister
  Peter Moland ... Astrologe, Speer-Puppenspieler, SS-Mann
  Johannes Buzalski ... Hitler als Anstreicher, Eva Braun-Puppenspieler,
Mann der Gesellschaft 1923
  Alfred Edel ... Stimmen der Leute, Mann der Geschichte 1923
  Amelie Syberberg ... Das kleine Mädchen

Review:

Brilliant cinematic masterpiece, worth all 8 hours, 13 November 1999

Author: batzi8m1 from Watsonville, California

Warning. This is not a movie for an evening of entertainment. Its is 8 hours
of surreal images about mass media combining with trivialized pop culture
versions of German romantic irrationalizm to create that phenomenon called
Hitler, which will never leave the dark corners of human nightmares and the
strange world of pop mythology.

I've seen this film twice in a cinema (Berkeley, CA) when it came around.
Obviously people willing to subject themselves to eight hours of surrealist
images about Hitler as the Great Communicator (the original for you Reagan
fans) are going to go in a bit prejudiced. I had not yet seen any other
Syberberg films nor read anything about him or his films, as I wanted to
experience this for it's own sake without preconceived notions. After
intermission, my friend, a warehouse manager, and I couldn't wait to see the
rest. The same was true when it returned a few years later and I saw it with
an artist friend, who was even more excited. We heard similar buzz from the
people around us at intermission. This movie was something special, and
after all these years, having re-read the screenplay and amazed at the
images, I'd see it again for an all nighter. But I don't really have to
because I can replay most of the scenes in my head at any time -- they were
that striking and memorable. I guess part of that may have to do with the
fact that I am born German, and was once a student of modern german
literature, theater, art and lived in Munich when artists like Handke,
Thomas Bernhard, Max Frish, Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders and Syberberg
challenged the status quo and awoke Germans to the idea that there is
something else besides Brecht, Grass and sighing the Mea Culpa over the
Third Reich.

Syberberg had already done films that were hard to get shown (this was
before the Video Revolution) and with Hitler he really went overboard. This
film could never be a commercial success, but it was worth the making and
seeing. It creates images, meant for someone who is steeped in German mythos
while at the same time aware of the changes wrought on world media by
Edison's invention of the moving pictures. Combine these with mass
communication capability, the capability to entrance the masses with the
images they want to identify with is the history of both Hitler and Movies.
So for eight hours Syberberg bombards the viewer with images of the Black
Mary (Edison's studio) as a backdrop, Hitler rising out of Wagners grave in
a Roman toga, Radio tranmissions of SS Troopers singing Silent Night direct
from Stalingrad, touching personal reminiscances by Hitler's butler of how
he liked his underwear pressed, his projectionist eating a sausage picknick
at the old Eagle's Nest talking about what a nice regular guy his old boss
was.

In short, this movie fills the viewer with indellible images of the
capability of mass media to suck in the viewers, give them a sense of
intimacy, and trivialize mass murder from a "real life human perspective."
No single scene or sermon or 90 minute expose of Auschwitz can ever hope to
drive home the real insanity of the mass delusions which created the
greatest tragedy of this century. And for Germans the constant cleansing and
coping escapism of the post war era (It wasn't us, it was those few bad guys
that are now dead) needed a real response by the generation that was born
afterwards. And the only way Syberberg could do that was to let all those
images of the collective German memory of the great history of its
irrationalism and romanticism fight against the attempt to rationalize it's
rape by their own philestines.

Memorable quotes include the famous "Every time I hear the word Art I reach
for my pistol."

Particularly good are Andre Heller as the melancholy narrator, the dialog
between Himmler and his masseur, Christmas stories, and touching human
stories about Hitler and his beloved doggies. Those skits are kind of like a
news magazine story about the human side of John Wayne Gacey as Bunel and
Dali might have filmed it. 

Provided by Marty J

-----Original Message-----
From: moq_focus-bounces at moqtalk.org [mailto:moq_focus-bounces at moqtalk.org]
On Behalf Of Muzikhed at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 1:22 PM
To: moq_focus at moqtalk.org
Subject: Re: [MF] reality: interactions or quality?

Ian wrote:

My  response is NOT "therefore" religion is evil, oil is evil, etc
(even the  dick-heads are not actually evil) ...
My response is "I wonder why", what  goes wrong with the human
processes, hmm that seems quite complex, etc ...  what can we learn ...

Thanks, Ian, that's how I feel, too.  It's easy to villainize, but,  too
easy.
It's too easy to say that other evil people are "not like me" - they must
be 
idiots, those fools.
Those greedy, short-sighted, corrupt bastards.  But in actual fact,  the 
closer you get to where 'they' are, the more human their position becomes,
and 
the more you wonder if  "I'd be doin' it just like them"  if  I were really
in 
their shoes -- really, really, not me, but them.

I saw an incredible film while living near Cornell Univ. in the  80's called

"Our Hitler" - I wish I knew more about the history of it, film  by a modern

German, I believe.  It addressed that issue of the  potential Hitler in all
of 
us - also, the ways in which Hitler really won in the  end... what
culturally 
followed.  Film buffs, take note, this film was  unbelievable!  It lasted so

many hours, 6.5, or was it 7.5 hours--- I  promise you, by the end, if you
make 
it, you won't know, or remember.  The  filmmaker, (again, I wish I had 
details) - would spend a good hour or  two on building up the sense of
boredom... 
intentionally as the only way to  convey the intended mood properly, and it 
worked!  Hell yea, it  worked.   As a filmgoer, draining, just draining.
Fuzzy subtitles , too!  I guess there were two eyeball breaks.  There was 
extensive use of the metaphor of projection - Hitler's  fascination with
Cinema, 
and propaganda films.  In one long unbroken shot,  a Hitler puppet removed 
dozens of layers of clothing from himself.  I  would highly recommend this
film, 
especially if your personal "Felix Culpa"  guilt complex needs a good kick
in 
the ass - it's torture.    

Also, in my recent (un-threaded) attempts to explain to Kevin why I am one  
who values MoQ, I noted that an important step for me was a change toward 
seeing  the 'validity' of the existence of many things that I had rejected
as 
"phony",  or false... things like advertising, and politicians...
I changed to see all that is as equally valid - for being... i.e.things I  
viewed as morally corrupt structures & things were given equal status  as
real.  
This was a big step toward the MoQ, for me.    I  had this change in '91, 
just before Lila came out.

- Ted

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