Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

Director

December 8, 1935 (90 years)

Nossendorf, Germany

Biography

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg (born 8 December 1935) is a German film director and intellectual. For Syberberg, cinema is a form of Gesamtkunstwerk. Many commentators, including Syberberg himself, have characterized his work as a cinematic combination of Bertolt Brecht's doctrine of epic theatre and Richard Wagner's operatic aesthetics. Syberberg is best known for his 'German trilogy', consisting of Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King (1972), Karl May (1974), and Hitler: A Film from Germany (1977), the l…

Filmography

10.0

Hitler: A Film from Germany

A structure-free, four-part examination of the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Each part explores a different topic, from Hitler's cult of personality in propaganda to how said propaganda was associated with pre-Nazi German cultural, spiritual, and national heritage to the Holocaust and the ideology behind it, particularly from Himmler's point of view.

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Karl May

The last ten years in Karl May’s life. A man fighting for his work, which lets him become an iconic figure of his time.

7.2

Hitler: A Film from Germany

6.8

Romy: Anatomy of a Face

Documentary about young actress Romy Schneider, capturing just the right moment between her first career as a young actress in mainstream "Unterhaltungskino" ("entertainment cinema") and her second one as acknowledged European arthouse actress.

10.0

Karl May

This ethereal, three-hour biopic starring Helmut Käutner as the writer Karl May interprets «a German hero's life» and thereby paints a picture of an entire era.

5.5

Ludwig – Requiem for a Virgin King

Reflected in an artificial and bombastically staged illusory world with Wagnerian compositions, glossy and satirical time references, 19th century German figures and traditions are stripped of their mythology and interpreted by the Germany of 1972.

6.5

Parsifal

A psychological interpretation of the opera mixing in references to the history of Germany, Wagner’s life, German literature and philosophy. The action is centered on Wagner’s death mask. Kundry is the main character – one might read the film as the story of her redemption rather than that of Amfortas.

6.7

Scarabea – How Much Land Does a Man Need?

A Teutonic lecher on vacation has a wager with some local peasants that he can't make a walking circle from sunrise to sunset to secure some coveted land. The middle-aged businessman embarks on his journey only to be slowed down by the beautiful reporter Scarabea. With thoughts of drunkenness and sex on his warped mind, the man tries to circumnavigate the parcel of property. The story is a retelling of an ancient folk tale told by Tolstoy where the initial victim bets his soul to Satan against the land he desires.

10.0

Fünfter Akt, siebente Szene. Fritz Kortner probt Kabale und Liebe

This documentation of a Kortner stage rehearsal shows in detail and fascinatingly how Kortner developed psychological tensions with meticulous precision in linguistic expression and gestural construction.

6.3

San Domingo

This surrealistic experimental film finds the son of a young nobleman staying with hash-smoking hippies in a seamy section of Munich. He falls for a hippie girl who is involved in shaking down the young man's parents for money. She falls in love with the young man but the group continues to extract money from the parents in return for their wayward son. When he discovers the shakedown, his rage leads to tragedy for the star-crossed lovers.

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Penthesilea

In Heinrich von Kleist's "Penthesilea", war, the death of love and erotic cannibalism merge into a battle of the sexes. The drama, which was published in 1808, was not premiered until 70 years later. It is considered almost unplayable. Edith Clever and Hans Jürgen Syberberg have remembered that Kleist's "Penthesilea" was already read as a monologue in the time of its author and supplemented by pantomime on stage. In November 1987, they continued this tradition at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris: Edith Clever performed the play without lines and role changes, as a single long poem.

8.0

A Dream, What Else?

A requiem for the now-defunct German state of Prussia.

5.2

Sex-Business: Made in Pasing

Documentary film about the successful erotic film producer and author Alois Brummer. Documentary filmmaker Hans Jürgen Syberberg accompanies Brummer for six days in his daily business during the shooting of Brummer's film “Graf Porno und die liebesdurstigen Töchter” (Count Porno and the Love-Thirsty Daughters). In addition to Brummer, his employees and actors also have their say.

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Mozart Requiem mit dem Finger gelesen

'Mozart Requiem mit dem Finger gelesen' belongs to a group of 31 films which were made for the room 'Cave of memory' at Documenta X (1997).

6.2

The Confessions of Winifred Wagner

Winifred, the geriatric daughter-in-law of the famed composer Richard Wagner, talks about her cultural and political influence during the Third Reich. Yet in contradiction to the films's title, Winifred confesses nothing. The contradictions within her discourse do, however, reveal the extent of her delusions and political commitment as an unrepentant fascist. She paradoxically describes herself as a completely apolitical being, adamant that her classification as a grade three Nazi at the end of the war was a grave injustice. Still Winifred cannot contain her amusement when she recalls that after the collapse of the Third Reich, she was the only person left in Germany who would admit that she was a Nazi.

8.0

Theodor Hierneis oder Wie man ehem. Hofkoch wird

The film consists of a monologue performed by Walter Sedlmayr, who plays Theodor Hierneis, the chef at the court of Ludwig II of Bavaria. The screenplay was written by Syberberg and Sedlmayr and is based on the memoirs of Hierneis.

8.3

The Night

An installation film that consists of a six-hour-long monologue performed by Edith Clever, who reads texts by Syberberg and many different authors, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich von Kleist, Plato, Friedrich Hölderlin, Novalis, Friedrich Nietzsche, Eduard Mörike, Richard Wagner, William Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett, and Chief Seattle.

7.0

Fritz Kortner spricht Monologe für eine Schallplatte

Fritz Kortner performs a monologue.

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Demmin Cantos

Hans Jürgen Syberberg grew up in the town of Demmin, the subject of his current film. The history of the town, in which a mass suicide with hundreds of deaths took place at the end of the Second World War, plays an important role. In his film, Syberberg documents his attempts, initiated decades ago, to re-establish Demmin's central market square as a place of community. A café was revived where people could watch films, drink coffee and sing together. Two architectural firms even presented concrete plans for a redesign of the square. Syberberg's commitment is not intended to restore "old conditions", but to give a place and a community back its lost center.

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Nietzsche: Ecce Homo

This Ecce Homo is an impressive statement of life beyond the death of an artist "of the descent of Dionysus".