Slideshow
HITLER’S HOLLYWOOD
2:30 4:40 7:00 9:20
Final Day - Tuesday, April 17
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY RÜDIGER SUCHSLAND
NARRATED BY UDO KIER
Filmmaker Rüdiger Suchsland suggests that the Third Reich was essentially an immersive movie starring the German nation, produced and directed by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. HITLER’S HOLLYWOOD collages key films from the more than 1000 features the Nazis produced from 1933-1945: musicals, melodramas, romances, costume dramas, war films – and when the real war got tough, insanely lavish, over-the-top fantasies. The German volk were portrayed as happy and sporty with lives of exaggerated cheerfulness or, conversely, full of morbid yearning for a death that would serve the Fatherland. Hannah Arendt gives perspective and context: “One of the chief characteristics of modern masses… (is) they do not trust their eyes and ears, but only their imaginations. What convinces masses are not facts, not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the illusion.” It’s a frightening insight that could just as easily apply to the American political landscape today.
GERMANY • 2017 • 105 MINS. • IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
KINO LORBER
Reviews
“A master class in the relationship between image production and ideology writ large…. Throughout, Udo Kier (the film’s narrator) becomes a character in his own right. It is precisely the narrator’s license to rejoice in his interpretations that renders the film such a pleasurable cinematic experience and not simply a critical document.”
– Diego Semerene, Slant
“Fascinating! A compelling cinematic essay that should be essential viewing for cinephiles and history buffs alike.”
– Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
“Alternately eye-opening and jaw-dropping. I can’t imagine anyone interested in the symbiosis between film and history not being fascinated and challenged by Suchland’s audacious act of archival retrieval. (The film) boasts an exceptionally eloquent and thoughtful narration. There are moments of pure beauty, poetry, and screen magic.”
–Thomas Doherty, Tablet
“A cavalcade of images, icons and ideas… every bit as eye-popping in their own way as THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI, NOSFERATU and METROPOLIS are in theirs.”
– Godfrey Cheshire, rogerebert.com