NP? Hans Jurgen Syberberg

[Paul Mackin]

On Sun, 2004-09-19 at 11:22, Mark Wright AIA wrote:
> 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.


Seems like a squabble arose over her essay and the film with regard to
the correct emphasis to be given to the destructive effects of Nazism on
European culture vs on European Jewry.


> 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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