Germany

Walter, a German anarchist poet, is short of money after his publisher refuses to give him an advance. He tries various ways of raising money, including shooting one of his mistresses and relying on the life savings of a woman from the country who is fanatically devoted to him. He also has to contend with his long-suffering wife, his fly-obsessed crazy brother, his other mistress and a police murder investigation.

A Review:

This is my favorite Fassbinder movie and this for several reasons. The most important of these is, that the movie has a rhythmical quality from the beginning to the end. Also there are literally hundreds of remarkable quotes inside. It is black humorous, funny and the overacting is terrific. It is amazing how Fassbinder manages to change the mood radically from scene to scene, how he is playing with emotion, speed and dynamic.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Sandra Brennan

The widow of Bach reminisces in this biography. Her life with the great composer was not easy. He seldom spoke to her. When he did, it was only to read letters of complaint. Included are performances of Bach’s works including the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, Prelude 6 from the “Little Clavier Book for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Minuet 2 of the Suite in D Minor from the “Little Clavier Book for Anna Magdalena Bach, Sonata No. 2 in D Major for Viola and Harpsichord, Partita in E Minor from the “Little Clavier Book for Anna Magdalena Bach, Trio-sonata No. 2 in C Minor, Magnificat in D Major, “St. Matthew Passion, Prelude in B Minor for Organ, Mass in B Minor, Ascension Oratorio, Clavier-Uebung Italian Concerto, Goldberg Variations, Musical Offering, Art of the Fugue Corale for Organ, and Cantatas No. 205, 198, 244, 42, 215, 140, 82. Read More »

Straub-Huillet’s adaptation of Heinrich Böll’s biting satire Bonn Diary presents the reflections of a reactivated officer who is summoned to the West German capital by the Ministry of Defense to establish an Academy for Military Memories. Straub considered his film to be an intervention against German rearmament in the Adenauer era: “Machorka-Muff is the story of a rape, the rape of a country on which an army has been imposed, a country which would have been happier without one.”Read More »

According to this documentary, East Germans have twice as much sex, start much younger, have more partners, are more experimental and are more satisfied then their capitalist counterparts. When the Iron Curtain came down, 40 years of division left its mark in many places – including the beds of the German people. At the end of World War II, the starting point was the same on both sides of the wall. Germans shared the same culture, the same lifestyle, the same morals, but four decades on everything has changed. Why? Was it the lack of church and easy availability of divorce and abortion? Filmmaker André Meier uses archive material such as state education films, locally produced porn magazines and East German home videos to compare both systems based on their dealings with sex. Meier discovers which Germans are cooler, more advanced, less inhibited and less prudish in the bedroom.Read More »

Beyond Caligari: The Films of Robert Wiene (Uli Jung, Walter Schatzberg), pp 166 ff.
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Panik in Chicago was an enormous success in all major cities in Germany, as reported in the press. “The D.L.S. branches in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt a.M. had such record bookings for the film Panik in Chicago during the following two weeks that several new copies had to be distributed in these districts because the available subsidiary copies could not fulfill the demand for screenings. Other reports refer to the unusual popular acclaim the film enjoyed in Leipzig, Halle, Munich, and Stuttgart.Read More »

Synopsis:
A four man US fireteam on patrol seizes a passing young vietnamnese girl and continue to torture, rape and kill her. Only one soldier refuses to take part in it and reports this incident to his superior, who dismisses it as simple wartime incident. As a consequence for his report, the soldier has to fear for his life. Later, the perpetrators are convicted, although subsequent appeals reduce their sentences significantly.
The plot takes place in a bavarian forest and reenacts a real war crime that happened in the vietnam war. The soldiers wear US uniforms, have authentic names but speak with a pronounced bavarian accent – a conscious directing decision known as Brechtian distancing effect.Read More »

Synopsis

Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide wrote:
Historian, author, and movie critic Lotte H. Eisner is the subject of this documentary. She recalls her early childhood in Germany and her association with such legendary directors as F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang. Leaving Germany for Paris in 1933, her anticipation of WW II saw her relocating to the South of France. Eisner gives her considerable and insightful opinions on classic German Expressionist Films, as several of her admirers drop by during the interview conducted by director Sohrab Shadid-Saless.Read More »

Quote:
Made for Bavarian TV in 1983, this documentary traces the life and films of the most popular female star of the late Weimar cinema, Lilian Harvey. From the very beginnings in some films by Richard Eichberg to her eminent stardom together with Willy Fritsch in classics like “Der Kongress tanzt”, her subsequent time in Hollywood and her return to Germany because of her love for director Paul Martin, to her escape from the nazis and her later life, the film gives a fine portrait of the actress and the big changes in the German film industry of the 20s and 30s.Read More »

stefflbw wrote:
Synopsis:
Set in the boarding school milieu, the film depicts the meeting of shy Gregor and mysterious Billie. Billie has a son, her husband is in jail. Arthur, Gregor’s friend, is a serial Lothario, forever unfaithful to his girlfriend Pia. Both Arthur and Billie have had a similar mystical experience related to someone’s death. While Gregor believes that an elective affinity between two people preordains their lives, Arthur does not even subscribe to romantic feelings between the sexes.
Arthur is a failure at school and becomes mixed up with criminal elements, Gregor goes on to attend university, and remains in pursuit of Billie who passes in and out of his life on several occasions.Read More »