NP? Hans Jurgen Syberberg

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy

And so we turn to film --- the 20th century art form. 

I assume a few plisters have seen Syberberg's enormous "Our Hitler: A
Film from Germany". When I saw it (at the Museum of Fine Arts screening
room in Houston in the summer of 1979) I was mesmerized, yet gradually
immersed in a horrible depressive stupor. And yet it made a hell of an
impression. I wish I could see it again. Only a few fleeting images
remain: Hitler in a toga, risen from Wagner's open grave; puppets of
the Nazi hierarchy, declaiming their repetitive lies and insane
self-justifications from a stacked columbarium of open boxes in Hell; a
black soundstage scattered with props and the limbs of dismembered
dolls. 

All I have to jog my memory is Sontag's essay. She saw the film as a
struggle with the problem of how the post-war generation could reclaim
the German cultural heritage and simultaneously reject Hitler, Nazism,
and anti-Semitism. I'm not that bright, so I saw it as an exercise in
creative schizophrenia --- "the Devil is in myself, I fear the Devil
yet embrace myself and so embrace the Devil, there is no salvation and
I mutter in my horror in public places" sort of thing. Doubtless my
understanding was compromised by its inadequate subtitling.

Did anyone else see it? What did you think?
How is it remembered today in Germany?

As if further evidence of my own dementia where required, I must report
that enjoyed Syberberg's "Parsifal".

Mark


		
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