Hans-Jürgen Syberberg

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Hans-Jürgen Syberberg in the film The Ister, 2004.

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg (born December 8, 1935) is a German director, one of the most controversial directors of New German Cinema.

[edit] Biography

Born in Nossendorf, Vorpommern, the son of an estate owner, he lived until 1945 in Rostock and Berlin. In 1952 and 1953 he created his first 8 mm. takes of rehearsals by the Berliner Ensemble. In 1953 he moved to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he in 1956 began studies in literature and art history, completing them the following year. He earned his doctorate in Munich with his thesis on "The Absurd in Dürrenmatt". In 1963 Syberberg began producing documentary films about Fritz Kortner and Romy Schneider for Bavarian Radio and others. He continues to live in Munich.

Cinema represents a vital passion for Syberberg, a "Gesamtkunstwerk". His cinematographic work results from a fusion between two fundamentally contradictory poles of German cultural heritage: 18th century rationalism and 19th century mysticism. His work has captured international interest: Susan Sontag, Gilles Deleuze and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe have written about his work, and Francis Ford Coppola's film company released his Hitler: ein Film aus Deutschland (Hitler: a Film from Germany) in the United States, under the rather more provocative title Our Hitler. Syberberg is also noted for the acclaimed visual interpretation of the Wagner Opera Parsifal (1982).

Syberberg features prominently in the film, The Ister (2004).

[edit] Filmography

1965 - Fünfter Akt, Siebte Szene. Fritz Kortner probt Kabale und Liebe
1965 - Romy. Anatomie eines Gesichts
1966 - Fritz Kortner spricht Monologe für eine Schallplatte
1966 - Wilhelm von Kobell
1966 - Die Grafen Pocci - einige Kapitel zur Geschichte einer Familie
1968 - Scarabea - Wieviel Erde braucht der Mensch
1969 - Sex-Business - made in Pasing
1970 - San Domingo
1970 - Nach meinem letzten Umzug
1972 - Ludwig - Requiem für einen jungfräulichen König
1972 - Theodor Hirneis oder: Wie man ehem. Hofkoch wird
1974 - Karl May
1975 - Winifried Wagner und die Feschichte des Hauses Wahnfried von 1914-1975
1978 - Hitler: A Film from Germany
1981 - Parsifal
1984 - Die Nacht
1985 - Edith Clever liest Joyce
1986 - Fräulein Else
1987 - Penthesilea
1989 - Die Marquise von O.
1993 - Syberberg filmt Brecht
1994 - Ein Traum, was sonst
1997 - Höhle der Erinnerung

Guido Goossens, Verloren zonsondergangen. Hans Jürgen Syberberg en het linkse denken over rechts in Duitsland. Amsterdam University Press, 2004. The first book-length study of the New German Filmmaker and proponent of the German New Right (in Dutch)