#New German Cinema

[eyesfullofmoon]

Margit Carstensen in Martha (1974) | dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder

[thinkingimages]

Werner Schroeter, Der Tod der Maria Malibran (The Death of Maria Malibran), 1972, still from a color film in 16 mm, 104 minutes. 

[twoheadedfilmfan]

[givemearmstopraywith]

japanese poster for angst essen seele auf (1974)

[bitter69uk]

KLAXON! Pink Palace – the weekly queer film club at The Rio cinema in Dalston – is holding an ultra-rare screening of the documentary Tally Brown, New York (1979) on Wednesday 27 March. If you’re London-based, your attendance is compulsory! I’ve seen the doc just once before:  at The Barbican in October 2017 (on a grainy 16-millimeter print on loan from The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts). Back then, I reflected: Watching Tally Brown, New York I couldn’t help but think thank God, a filmmaker documented this remarkable, charismatic and completely original woman. And that it was someone as simpatico as queer New German cinema maverick Rosa Von Praunheim. Von Praunheim weaves a revealing portrait of chanteuse, actress, show business doyenne, bohemian earth mother and all-round diva Tally Brown (1924 – 1989), preserving both her riveting nightclub act and her personal offstage life. And good thing he did as Brown - a vivid scene-maker in New York’s underground art subculture in the sixties and seventies - seems to have completely fallen through the cracks in the decades following her death. A Torch for Tally – the blues album she recorded in the fifties – is long forgotten. The Andy Warhol art movies she appeared in like Camp (1965) and Ari and Mario (1966) languish unseen in locked vaults at The Warhol Foundation. Today, Tally Brown barely seems to exist as a footnote. As the title implies, Von Praunheim positions flaming creature Brown - a native New Yorker - as the personification of her city’s decayed glamour. In atmospheric and beautifully degraded footage, we see seventies New York at its most gloriously scuzzy, grungy and decrepit: the porn cinemas and peepshows of Times Square, gay bathhouses, The Chelsea Hotel, neon signs, dive bars, dissolute nightclubs. And it all looks heavenly! And if that’s not enough, Brown’s pal Divine crops up! (She jokes about regularly getting mistaken for Divine - and even signing autographs as him). How can you resist? See you at The Rio! Tickets. Read more of my musings about Brown here.

[joanofarc]

German New Cinema director May Spils with cameraman Hubs Hagen during the filming of her 1967 short film Manöver.

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Herz aus Glas (Heart of Glass), 1976 - dir. Werner Herzog

[randomberlinchick]

Watch "The Tin Drum (1979) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]" on YouTube

One of the best films ever made, German or otherwise...

[dogdayaftersun]

favorite first time watches, september 2023

[left to right] fox and his friends (1975); a woman under the influence (1974); wild at heart (1990); theater camp (2023); jaws (1975); showgirls (1995); the wonderful story of henry sugar (2023); the masque of the red death (1964)

[guerrilla-operator]

RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER, 1980.

[tobydammit68]

Kamikaze 1989 (1982) Dir. Wolf Gremm

[w-armansky-blog]

[angelkarafilli]

German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer Wim Wenders,photographed by Catherine Cabrol.Berlin, 1994.

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

Historians have speculated whether Kaspar Hauser was truly a feral child, a dispossessed member of the monarchy or a con artist. Werner Herzog’s absurdist biography THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER (1974, Tubi, Plex, YouTube) — sometimes shown under its German title, EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AND GOD AGAINST ALL — takes the first view, primarily to underline his thematic approach to the material. It’s a strange, sometimes hypnotic, sometimes maddening film with an amazing central performance by Bruno S., a self-taught street musician and artist taking his first stab at acting. His casting underlines the film’s absurdity. The real Hauser was 17 when he wandered into Nuremberg in 1828 claiming to have been chained in a remote room for his entire life. Bruno S. was 41 when he made the film, yet he captures the remote innocence Herzog wanted for the role. Hauser is an enigma to the staid citizens of Nuremberg, who can’t make sense of him or his story. As he learns language he’s taken under the wing of a professor (Walter Ladengast) who educates him as far as possible. His strange observations about life and inability to master social graces fascinate the people he meets, including an epicene British lord (Michael Kroecher) who may have a homoerotic interest in him (Kroecher has no problem with Hauser’s behavior until he catches him knitting, which is viewed as women’s work). But nobody credits his statements. When he demolishes a logic problem presented by a university scholar, the man says he got the exercise all wrong. When he has a vision of people of all sorts climbing a mountain with death at the top, the professor dismisses it as just a dream. With his frequent uses of static shots and incorporation of musical pieces by Mozart, Pachabel and others, Herzog creates a world too consumed by its most rigid structures to accommodate the presence of a true enigma. Lest this all sound too dry and academic, I’ll point out that the reactions to Hauser are often quite funny, with Herzog regular Clemens Scheitz utterly hilarious as the town scribe, constantly repeating what people say and asking if it should go in the town record.

[bitter69uk]

Ahoy, sailor! Celebrate Pride month with the Lobotomy Room cinema club’s free screening of provocative 1982 cult favourite Querelle! Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (the bad boy of New German cinema), adapted from the infamous novel by Jean Genet (the bad boy of French literature!). Downstairs at Fontaine’s cocktail lounge (Dalston’s most unique nite spot!) on Thursday 15 June! Putrid details.