I come in late on the second day having missed: SHORTS I, SIGNS OF LIFE, SHORTS II, EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL, LAND OF SILENCE & DARKNESS, FATE MORGANA, AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD, and The ECSTACY OF WOODCARVER STEINER.
I had already seen AGUIRRE and consider to be one of the most powerful films of all time. The last five minutes in which the scariest man on earth, Klaus Kinski, gives the scariest speech ever, blew me out of the theatre when I was in my German Film class at Miami. At the key moment in the speech when he says “I am Aguirre: The Wrath of God.” He looks right into the camera, easily the most powerful moment I’ve ever seen in a movie.
5:30 – The last 15 minutes of THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER
Well he certainly is an Enigma to me, I’ll have to watch the whole movie. Chris says this is the breakout hit of the festival, that’s saying a lot. That means this is the Nashville of this festival.
5:45 – NOBODY WANTS TO PLAY WITH ME
A short film in German with Italian subtitles. From what I gether nobody wants to play with this one kid, and then he and a girl take a walk and then the kids do want to play with him. Only from the completist obsession of Chris Sienko.
6:00 - HOW MUCH WOOD COULD A WOODCHUCK CHUCK
A documentary on auction barkers in America. Summary: They talk really fast.
It’s interesting that this focus on the Amish and Cattle Auctions was made a by a total German. Herzog’s obsession with the America Midwest is fascinating in the way that Wenders obsession with it is. It’s SO foreign to them that they notice so much that we take for granted. This completely reminds me of Errol Morris’ Gates of Heaven and Vernon, FL by focusing on such and obscure subgroup of American culture and it’s own insulated dramas. When I found out that Werner Herzog eats his shoe (in which for twenty minutes Werner Herzog does literarally that) was a bet he lost with Errol Morris; I always thought it was odd that Errol Morris and Herzog were friends. The guy who made Thin Blue Line and the guy who made Aguirre, what could they have to talk about? Now having seen this doc, it all makes sense.
7:00 - HEART OF GLASS
This movie beings with a gorgeous montage of environment, very patient, then it slowly brings in the characters, but treats them as a part of the scenery by going from silent person scene to silent person scene, some of them with hilarious results. The two men staring each other at the bar is hilarious. The comic timing of these droll and ironic German New Wave films is brilliant. So patient.
Amazing. These are like movies from another planet. Such weird, dour, straight-faced humor. This village of glass blowers has lost a villager, her was th only one who knew how to blow Ruby glass and did not leave the recipe behind. So far the film has been a succession of very quiet images that last forever. He’s said he wanted to lull the watcher to prepare them for a slow film, but all of the German New Wave lulls their watchers like this, and not just in the beginning, but throughout. Is the opening of Heart of Glass any different than the ending to Aguirre or taking the ship up the hill in Fitzarraldo or the travel on the ski lift in Stroszek, or the opening sequence of Fassbinders Beware A Holy Whore? That’s what’s great about the German New Wave, that patience.
2nd montage of scenery. GORGEOUS!!!!! Just fucking gorgeous. The still imagery just continutes and continues. Okay I take back my earlier statements a little, he clearly is lulling us.
Now as the town becomes increasingly desperate, they are discussin the comparison of the blood red glass to the lifeblood of this town. Nice symbolism beee-yotch.
Glass blowing is fascinating and beautiful, his attention to exploring the subject is very interesting coming right off of a documentary on Auction Callers. Nowe we’re into and other fascinating analysis of another profession. The echniques and the playing with the molten glass, and blowing glass. Wow.Slowly by slowly this man just twisted and torned and clipped and prodded and tuned and prodded and turned and twisted and clipped this piece of glass and hypnotically a glass horse was produced. Wow.
This film needs to go fuck itself. Too good. The sequence of all the people in the vast room making insane noises and uncomfortable laughts and then the scene in the bar with the man playing the hurdy gurdy while and man sits and stares in the middle of the bar. An atmosphere unlike any film. Then again I could say the same of almost any Herzog film.
Well that film just simply ended. Wow. I don’t care. Nothing happened and I don’t care. I think I just summed up the entire German New Wave.
9:00 – LA SOUFRIRE
A documentary, Werner travels to an island about to be destroyed by a volcano and makes a tone poem on the last days of this empty and evacuated town. Werner once again (Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo) subjects his film crew to certain death, what a dick.
9:45 – STROSZEK
I first saw this on my Senior year of College, pushed on me by the brilliant tastes of Andy Marko who monitored my Senior Project. The Mass Comm crew at Miami was astoundingly eclectic and brilliant and turned me onto many great films.
WE ARE LAUGHING! Stroszek is getting out of prison and one of the other prisoners has a going away gift for him, he lights a fart for him, such a hilarious non-sequitor that’s handled with complete casualness. So odd.
In Stroszek, the brilliantly deadpan innocent Bruno S. plays Bruno Stroszek who meets a prostitute and travels with her from Germany to Wisconsin where Herzog’s camera becomes fascinated with the depressing Midwest.
Bruno S., the actor, was a street musician with a very difficult past of abuse and birth to a prostitute mother that Herzog discovered and put him him in THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER. Such an innocent Andy Kaufman face. Consistent with the tone of Herzog, Bruno S. is a perfect deadpan actor for Herzog.
SPOILER ALERT
In the most depressing ending ever. Stroszek, having moved to Wisconsin, he has his trailer repossessed, his girl moves to Vancouver with a bunch of truckers she blew for money, his father is arrested for robbing a barber, and Stroszek takes a giant frozen turkey and shotgun on a ski lift and kills himself. This is followed by a full two minutes of a tapdancing chicken to harmonica and some blues howler in one of the craziest and most memorable endings ever.
Immediately after, Chris replayed the lit fart scene with A-B repeat selected on his DVD player, playing the scene over and over and over. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while.
It’s not that the guy lights his fart, it’s that is such a random moment. He says “I have a surprise for you before you leave”, lights a fart and then hugs Stroszek goodbye.
Too tired to blog, so I'll sum up.
NOSFERATU: Four words: Klaus Kinski as Dracula.
WOYCZEK: I forget, so late. The opening is great though.
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