Three sequences are linked together in this short film by Jean-Marie Straub; the first sequence is a long tracking shot from a car of prostitutes plying their trade on the night-time streets of Germany; the second is a staged play, cut down to 10 minutes by Straub and photographed in a single take; the final sequence covers the marriage of James and Lilith, and Lilith’s subsequent execution of her pimp, played by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Tag: WEST GERMANY
Jan Lenica’s semi-autobiographical movie about a life of a man under the number “44”. He experiences bureaucracy, abusive step-parents, oppression from the government and society. In the end, he tries to get away to the “lost paradise”.
Mark Twain’s essay is brought to life with this film telling the Civil War story of a Confederate troop who has not been exposed to the atrocities of war. The film also adapts Twain’s short story “The War Prayer”.
When it was released in 1950, The Sinner inspired vigorous protests and caused huge controversy for a film industry just getting back on its feet. Its tale of a young woman who survives as a prostitute after the war and later falls in love with a dying artist shocked conservatives and religious authorities. A popular actor and director of comedies since the 1920s, director Forst, in his first postwar movie, reveals a considerable feeling for melodrama. His narration proceeds without any sensationalism, and the theme of a great, ill-fated love is skillfully developed through the unfolding memories of the woman.
Who Was Edgar Allan? is a television adaptation of Peter Rosei’s post-modern thriller of the same name in which a student travels to Venice to study against the wishes of his father and meets a mysterious figure who calls himself Edgar Allan. Mysterious deaths, all-seeing eyes, strange misunderstandings, and odd father figures are elements which structure Michael Haneke’s television-thriller. The director’s later concerns with media, invisibility, surveillance, and the bourgeois family are already present here.
Fashion model Sylvie falls asleep drunk in the cab of Munich taxi driver Paul, and an impossible love affair beckons. Renegade director Klaus Lemke had previously startled German TV audiences with the biker drama Rocker, announcing an unprecedented, unvarnished freshness and authenticity with nonprofessional actors, real dialect and on-the-fly style. In Sylvie, he adds a disarming tenderness.
In Hamburg, West Germany, a rocker biker gang helps a kid avenge his brother who was murdered by a rival gang, a mortal enemy of rocker gangs.
Ruby Dennis is a small-time lounge singer who owns a bowling alley. The film follows his attempts to make it big while struggling against the mob and finding romance with Sharon. Dennis lives with his sister, Paula, and her son, Raymond. Paula quits her job and runs off to help the poor, leaving Dennis to keep Raymond away from a life of crime. Ruby ventures toward a spiritual crisis, something that is off-kilter to his surroundings