Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art

This is Syberberg’s best-known and most controversial film, screened at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival section Un Certain Regard. During almost thirteen hours the director presents his own version of German history of humanism for last 100 years.

It is the third and monumental part of the ‘German Trilogy’ (Ludwig – requiem for a virgin king, 1972, Karl May, 1974), itself divided into four parts like composer Richard Wagner’s opera, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), each with its own title: The Grail, A German Dream,The End of a Winter’s Tale, and We Children of Hell. Syberberg’s Hitler is a collective volks projection latent with dreams of conquest, domination and a mass national spectacle. The director infuses his monumental narrative about the Nazi dictator with historic symbols, cultural references, archive materials, living actors, puppet theatre, operatic stenography and overlaid projections on the stage.

It is not a biography, documentary or historical film. It is a monumental epic in which dictator character is presented through various styles. Surrealism and symbolism – Syberberg doesn’t retreat from any aesthetic or device if it can attend for a fundamental reason - „to discover Hitler in ourselves”.

Part 1: The Grail

Part 2: A German Dream

Part 3: The End of a Winter’s Tale

Part 4: We Children of Hell

Documentary film, 1977

35 mm, colour, 437 min.

Director: Hans Jürgen Syberberg

Screenplay: Hans Jürgen Syberberg

Production: TMS Film GmbH, München, WRD Köln, INA Paris, BBC London.

Producer: Bernd Eichinger

Cinematography: Dietrich Lohmann, archival footage

Editing: Jutta Brandstaedter

Music: Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn.

Sound: Heymo Henry Heyder

Camerawork: Dietrich Lohmann.

Special effects: Theo Nischwitz, Charly Baumgartner.

Cast: Rainer von Artenfels, Harry Baer, Johannes Buzalski, Alfred Edel, André Heller, Peter Kern, Hellmut Lange, Peter Lühr, Heinz Schubert, Martin Sperr, Amélie Syberberg

BIP

Municipal Institution of Culture