LONDON: The Horse Hospital

Saturday 4th September, 2010

11:00am

Event information

Doors 11am, £7.50

A wonderful opportunity to see this awe-inspiring film in all it's 7 hour glory!

In this powerfully original film, director Hans-Jürgen Syberberg creates an epic nightmare that ruminates on Adolf Hitler and the effect he continues to wield over Germany.

In a series of 22 tableaux set on a soundstage, Syberberg makes use of puppets, props, a thundering Wagnerian soundtrack, and rear-screen projection to evoke Nazi Germany, the origins of the Third Reich, and the disturbing aftermath that followed. Neither a feature film nor a conventional documentary, HITLER is a seven-and-a-half-hour fever dream on coming to terms with Nazism. Originally distributed by Francis Coppola s Zoetrope Studios, this controversial film was hailed by Coppola as a work that made all other films of the time trivial or obsolete.

The film tries to be everything. Syberberg's unprecedented ambition in Hitler, a Film from Germany is on another scale from anything one has seen on film. It is work that demands a special kind of attention and partisanship; and invites being reflected upon, reseen. The more one recognizes of its stylistic references and lore, the more the film vibrates. (Great art in the mode of pastiche invariably rewards study, as Joyce affirmed by daring to observe that the ideal reader of his work would be someone who could devote his life to it.) Syberberg's film belongs in the category of noble masterpieces which ask for fealty and can compel it. After seeing Hitler, a Film from Germany, there is Syberberg's film - and then there are the other films one admires. (Not too many these days, alas.) As we said ruefully of Wagner, he spoils our tolerance for the others - Susan Sontag

Part 1. - The Grail, 91min

20min break

Part 2. - A German Dream, 126min

45min break

Part 3. - The End Of Winter's Tale, 93min

20min break

Part 4. - We, Children Of Hell, 100min

The film will be introduced by Ken Hollings