Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, the film director as critical thinker: essays and interviews

Description

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg is an original, the most controversial of all the New German directors and a figure who has long been at the vanguard of the resurgence of experimental filmmaking in his homeland. Syberberg's most characteristic films examine recent German history: a documentary, for example, about Richard Wagner's daughter-in-law, who was a close friend of Hitler ('The confessions of Winifred Wagner' [1975]). But especially 'historical' is his trilogy covering one hundred years of Germany's past, including, most famously, 'Hitler - A film from Germany', also known as 'Our Hitler' (1977). In this film and other works, Syberberg unites fictional narrative and documentary footage in a style that is at once cinematic and theatrical, mystical and magical. 'Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, the film director as critical thinker' is the first edited book in English devoted to this director's work, and includes his most important English-language interviews as well as some of the best English-language essays on his work. In sum, this book is a significant contribution not only to the study of Syberberg's oeuvre, but also to the study of German history and politics in the second half of the twentieth century.