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German Films/Themes by Title
| Title | Call ID #
| Description
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| Aguirre: The Wrath of God |
VGE 301
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Werner Herzog: German (English subtitles) 94 mins.1973. In the mid-1500's, a large Spanish expedition searching for the mythical lost city of Eldorado detached an advance party to explore a tributary of the Amazon; They never returned. Werner Herzog expanded this obscure historical incident into a spectacularly horrifying chronicle of imperialism gone amok. Klaus Kinski delivers a magnificent performance as Don Lope de Aguirre, a power-driven lunatic who dreams of stealing an entire continent.
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Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
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VGE 304
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder: German (English subtitles) 94 mins.1974. Fassbinder draws on the formula of the classic American tear-jerker to tell the outrageous, touching story of a bumpy love affair between a German floorwasher and an inarticulate Arab mechanic. Ali:Fear Eats The Soul is a moving romance, a perverse social comedy, and a biting drama. With his warm humanism and cool irony, Fassbinder is able to create art from material that in the hands of most directors would never transcend soap opera.
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| The American Soldier |
VGE 318 |
Rainer Werner Fassbinder. German ( English Subtitles) 80 mins. 1970. Fassbinder's version of the Hollywood gangster film pays homage to movie greats Humphrey Bogart, Sam Fuller, and Orson Welles to name few. The story centers on Ricky, a Charismatic hit man who always wears a gun bulging from his shoulder holster, sports a soft fedora hat and white double-breasted suit, and drinks Ballantine scotch straight from the bottle. Recently returned from Vietnamized America, Ricky carries out his assigned murders without knowledge or emotion. The amazing final shoot-out is probably the most startling of Fassbinder's patented off-beat endings. |
| The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant |
VGE 317 |
Rainer W Fassbinder. German ( English Subtitles) 124 mins. 1972. Considered among Fassbinder's most controversial films, The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant reaches new levels of stylization, outrageousness and surprise. The story deals with the shifting power relationships among three women: a successful fashion designer, her contented assistant, and sultry model. Accompanied by the music of Verdi and The Platters, dressed in an incredible melange of glitter and C.B. DeMille, these women act out a super-charged melodrama of passion. |
The Blue Angel
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VGE 302
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Joseph Van Sternberg: German (English subtitles) 98 mins. 1930 This ever fascinating 1930 film classic made Marlene Dietrich an international star. Sitting on a chair huskily singing 'Falling In Love Again', in top hat, black stockings, bare thighs, clutching her knee, she encapsulates an age and impulse of German cinema. Professor Unrat, finely characterized by Emil Jannings, has a humdrum existence of an English teacher, until he becomes infatuated with a cabaret singer, Lola. He marries her, and his life plummets into a furious downward spiral.
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Das Boot
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VGE 306
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Wolfgang Petersen: German (English subtitles) 150 mins.1981. The most expensive, most succesful motion picture in the history of German cinema, this gripping tale follows the daring patrol of U-96, one of the famed German U-boats known as the gray wolves. Prowling the North Atlantic, they challenged the British Navy at every turn. The crew aboard the U-96 is graphically portrayed in a desperate life-and-death struggle, coping with endless hours of claustrophobic boredom at sea, which quickly gives way to terror when confronting the enemy. Relentlessly under attack, the U-96 is forced to unheard depths, the creaking hull threatening to collapse and crush the panicked sailors. The Boat delivers an amazingly accurate account of Germany's elite U-boat crewmen, as it deliberately hammers away the tragic waste of war.
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Das Boot the Director's Cut
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DVGE 801
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Wolfgang Petersen. German (English, Spanish, French subtitles) 209 mins. 1985This is director Wolfgang Petersen's ultimate version of one of the most critically acclaimed war movies of all time. An all-new restoration with over one hour of additional footage and a completely new stereo soundtrack that delivers the theatrical experience to your home...this is DAS BOOT: THE DIRCECTOR'S CUT!
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| The Edukators |
DVGE 806 |
Hans Weingartner. German (English Subtitles) 130 mins. Three activists cobble together a kidnapping plot after they encounter a businessman in his home. Berlin student Jule is hoplessly indebted due to an accident she caused, uninsuredly hitting a rich bussinessman's limousine. Evicted from her flat she moves in with her boyfriend Peter and soon learns that Peter and his flatmate, Jan, are breaking into luxurious mansions at night. Instead of stealing or vandalizing, though, they carefully and ornately rearrange furniture and valulables and leave obscure messages. Jule convinces Jan, who has a crush on her, to pay a visit to the villa of her creditor. Donated by: Prof. Gita Rajan |
Effi Briest
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VGE 305
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder: German (English subtitles) 135 mins.1974. The most famous 19th century German novel, Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest holds a position in its own country comparable to that of Madame Bovary in France. Effi Briest is a radiant beauty, a vivaciuos blend of naivete and intelligence, forthrightness and willful self-interest. She is married when very young to a much older Prussian diplomat and carried away to a remote Baltic port where she drifts into a brief, passionless affair with a local womanizer. The ful effects are only felt six years later, in a chilling manifestation of the Prussian legal code. Fassbinder's faithful. penetrating adaptation of the novel and the intensity of his visual style make Effi Briest teh director's most classical and elegant film.
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Europa Europa
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VGE 310
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Agnieszka Holland: German and Russian (English subtitles) 115 mins.1991. The film took America by storm: Agnieszka Holland's powerful, moving stiry of a courageous German Jewish teenager who survived WW II by concealing his living as a Nazi during seven harrowing years through three countries. Based on a true identity and story; a film which changes almost everyone who sees it.
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Good Bye Lenin
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DVGE 804
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Wolfgang Becker: German (English Subtitles) 121 mins. 2003. Winner of six prestigious European Film Awards, including Best Picture and 2004 Golden Globe nominee for best Foreign Language Film, this coming-of- age adventure blends the fall of Communism with the salient emotions of a family's love. "Destined to become one of Germany's biggest international hits," (BBC Films), GOOD BYE, LENIN! Is a beautiful introduction to a whole new, free world. In 1989, Christiane Kerner has lost her husband and is completely devoted to the Socialist East German state. A heart attack leaves in a coma, and when she awakens eight months later, the Berlin Wall has fallen and it's a whole new world. To protect her from the shock, her son Alex hatches a plan to keep her in the dark. It's easy.. all he has to do is turn back the hands of time.
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| Heart of Glass |
VGE 311
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Werner Herzog: German (English subtitles) 93 mins.1974. Werner Herzog's films are characterized by their willingness to go off the deep end, but Heart Of Glass goes deeper then usual. During the filming Herzog hypnotized his actors in order to helps convey what the director describes as 'an atmosphere of hallucianation, of prophecy and of the visionary.' Set in the pre-industrial past, the story tells of a German village that loses the secret of making its unique Ruby glass. The townspeople turn to madness, murder, and magic in a desperate effort to recover the pure ingredient they lost. A mixture of mysticism, apocalyptic grandeur and incredibly photographed vision that begin and end the film make this possibly the most breathtaking film of Herzog's career.
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| The Lives of Others |
DVGE 809 |
Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck: German (Eng, Fre, Spa Subtitiles) 138 Mins. Before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, East Germany's population was closely monitored by the State Secret Police or Stasi. Only a few citizens above suspicion, like renowned pro- Socialist playwright Georg Dreyman, were permitted to lead private lives. But when a corrupt government official falls for Georg's stunning actress-girlfriend, Christa, an ambitious Stasi policeman is ordered to bug the writer's apartment to gain incriminating evidence against the rival. Now, what the officer discovers is about to dramatically change their lives-as well as his… |
Lola Montes
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VFR347
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Max Ophuls: French & German (English subtitles) 110 mins. 1955. 0phuls' opulent biography of the famous 19th-century courtesan whose adventures and love affairs with King Ludwig I, Liszt and student are told in flashback from a circus ring by the ring master, Peter Ustinov. Brilliant use of color and cinemascope, breath taking shots and camera movements; Ophuls conjures up a sublime work that is pure cinema.
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M
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DVGE 800
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Fritz Langm: German (English subtitles) B&W, 110 mins. 1931. Behind every great suspense thriller lurks the shadow of M. In this, Fritz Lang's first sound film, Peter Lorre delivers a haunting performance as the cinema's first serial killer, a whistling pedophile hunted by the police and brought to trial by the forces of the Berlin underworld. Grieg's "Peer Gynt Suite" will never sound the same.
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Maedchen In Uniform
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VGE 303
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Leontine Sagan: German (English subtitles) 87 mins. 1931. Legendary film from the German post-expressionism period, extremely daring for this time in suggesting lesbianism in the story of a young girl whose is choked by the authoritarian boarding school she attends.
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Men
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VGE 313
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Doris Dorrie: German (English subtitles) 99 mins. 1985. Doris Dorrie's runaway hit of a screwball comedy about a businessman (heiner Lauterbach) who discovers his wife is having an affair with a Bohemian artist. Disguised as the artist's roomate, Lauterbach watches, waits, and plots a strange reversal on the unsuspecting.
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| The Merchant of Four Seasons |
VGE 319 |
Rainer W. Fassbinder: German ( English Subtitles) 86 mins. 1972. The Merchant Of Four Seasons represents a climax in Fassbinder's prolific filmmaking career. Fassbinder perfectly blends the audacious experimentalism of naturalistic melodrama that marked much of his later work. In this film Hans, a fruit peddler, watches his unexceptional life disintegrate. Seduced and rejected to the point of nervous breakdown, Hans drinks himself to death as he toasts his love ones at the dinner table. The story sounds like a slice -of-life gone slightly amok, but the treatment is everything: a virtuoso balance of soap opera, social comedy, irony, politics, farce, and brilliant ensemble acting.
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The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser
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VGE 314
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Werner Herzog: German (English subtitles) 110 mins. 1975. In 1828, a young man appeared in the town square of Nuremberg, his origins unknown, having apparently been kept in solitary confinement all his life; five years later he was murdered by an unidentified assailant. Kaspar's brief, enigmatic destiny becomes a powerful metaphor for life in Werner Herzog's vision of the extreme edges of existence. Former mental patient Bruno S. delivers a sympathetic and powerful performance.
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Nach Funf Im Urwald Hans-Christian Schmid
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VGE 315
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German. 93 mins.
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The Nasty Girl
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VGE 307
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Michael Verhoeven: German (English subtitles) 94 mins.1990. In this provocative comedy, Sonja is the Nasty Girl, a young girl whose digging for the truth gets her burried in the cover-up. A school project inspires Sonja to investigate her town's past- a subject which seems to upset her neighbors- and Sonja's search soon falls wayside. Marriage to her childhood sweetheart, the schoolteacher whom she seduced, proves a distraction, but not for long. Sonja soon discovers that her small town has some big secrets. Letterbox format.
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The Princess and the Warrior
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DVGE 802
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Tom Tykwer: German (English, French, Spanish & Portuguese subitles) 133 mins. 2001. From the director (Tom Tykwer) and star (Franka Potente) of the internationally acclaimed, fast-paced smash hit Run Lola Run comes a starling fresh and compelling romantic drama that will leave you breathless. When shy, beautiful nurse Sissi is the victim of a horrible car accident, a handsome small-time criminal miraculously saves her life. When she recovers, Sissi sets out to find him and discovers a violent man with a conflicted past and dangerous future. Soon, the two meet again in the middle of a deadly bank robbery, and Sissi realizes her fate is pre-destined. Or is it?
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| Rosenstrasse |
DVGE 805 |
Margarethe Von Trotta: German (English Subtitles) 136 mins. 2003. In the cold Berlin winter of 1943, hundreds of women stood, and waited, in defiance of the Nazis While countless Jews were being sent to concentration camps for execution, Jewish husbands of Aryan wives suffered a different fate; they were separated from their families and imprisoned in a factory on a street named Rosenstrasse. On that street these women stood in protest, in the name of love until they were reunited with their men. This is the striking story of ROSENSTRASSE: where the power of the human will stands inconquerable for hope, dignity and love.
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| Run Lola Run |
DVGE 807 |
Tom Tywker: German (English & French) 81 mins. A thrilling post-MTV,roller-coaster ride, RUN LOLA RUN is the internationally acclaimed sensation about to start-crossed lovers who have only minutes to change the course of their lives. Time is running out for Lola (Franka Potente). She 's just received a frantic phone call from her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), who's lost a small fortune belonging to his mobster boss. If Lola doesn't replace the money in twenty minutes, Manni will surely suffer severe consequences. |
Ship of Fools
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VENG 330 |
Stanley Kramer: English 149 mins. 1965. Based on Katherine Anne Porter's acclaimed novel, the interlocking stories tell of passengers on a ship sailing from Mexico to pre-Hitler Germany. With Simone Signoret, Michael Dunn, Vivien Leigh, Lee Marvin and others.
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The Sorrow and the Pity
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VENG 340
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Marcel Ophuls: English. 260 mins. Marcel Ophuls' monumental documental covering the German occupation of France during World War II. Through poignant interviews and stark newsreel footage, Ophuls creates a sense of living history. 'A magnificent epic on the themes of collaboration and assistance. There's nothing comparable to [it]' (Pauline Kael).
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| Stalag 17 |
VENG 353 |
Billy Wilder: English 120 mins. Black comedy and suspenseful action inside a German POW camp during World War II – a setting that was later borrowed for the TV sitcom Hogan’s Heroes. The great director Billy Wilder adapted the hit stage play, applying his own wicked sense of humor to the apparently bleak subject matter. William Holden plays an antisocial grouse amid a gang of wisecracking though indomitable American prisoners. Because of his bitter cynicism, Holden is suspected by the others of being an informer to the Germans, an accusation he must deal with in his own craft way. Holden won the 1953 Best Actor for Stalag 17. Very much his equal, however, is Otto Preminger, an accomplished director himself, who plays the strict, sneering cam commandant. |
The Three Penny Opera
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VGE 309
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G. W. Pabst: German (English subtitles) 113 mins.1931. Bertholt Brecht's masterpiece based on John Gay's The Beggar's Opera with Weil's haunting score is considered ven more vivid on screen than it was on stage. This curous musical fantasy of crime and sex in the Soho underworld of the 1890's was the second film to be directed by G.W. Pabst, who made suer that the notable sets were accurate and visibly dazzling. The stunning photography was in the hands of the most talented cameraman of the day-Fritz Wagner. Movie in Black and White.
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The Tin Drum
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VGE 300
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Volker Schlondorff: German (English subtitles) 142 mins.1979. Adapted from the internationally acclaimed novel by Gunter grass, The Tin Drum is an intellectually challenging, visually stunning parable of modern society in violent transition, as narrated by Oskar Matzerath, one of the most unforgettably unique heroes of our time. Oskar is born, clear-headed and open-eyed, into a world he never made and he hates what he sees.At three, he has already had enough. 'I decided' he narrates from the top of his long, dangerous flight of stairs, 'to call a halt to it. To stop growing there and then, and remain a three year old, alone, once and for all'. So Oskar plunges head first into the strange and surreal fate which awaits him- and for the next two terrible decades of feast and famine, fascism and slaughter, he remains frozen in size.
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Triumph Of The Will
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DVGE 803
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Leni Riefenstahl: German (English Subtitles) B & W. 120 mins. 1935. Leni Riefenstahl's classic piece of historical filmmaking, filmed during the 1934 Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg, Germany, is considered by many to be one of the most important and controversial films ever made. The film, realized by Paul Joseph Goebbles, Hitler's Riech Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, was created to influence all of Germany to support the "power" of the Nazi Party. All during World War II in every Theatre in Germany, either part or all of Triumph Of The Will was shown. Founded entirely by the N.S.D.A.P (the Nazi Party), Hitler Hired the young actress/director Leni Riefenstahl to direct. Money was unlimeted, so Riefenstahl was eating, sleeping in the editing room with hundreds and thousands of feet of the film for several months. All of the shots in TRIUMPH are carefully constructed. Sets were specially built to accommodate cameras and Hitler was filmed separately from the crowds so Riefenstahl could edit together a film that would manipulate imagery and seduce the mind. An Historically significant and, at times, horrifyingly manipulative exercise in propaganda for the Nazi regime,Triumph of the Will continues to be controversial over sixty years after its original release. This historical document has been unavailable in Germany for many decades and Leni Riefenstahl Has since come under fire for her personal relationship with Adolph Hitler, spending her life in the shadow of collaborating with the Nazi Party.
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| Wings of Desire |
VGE 308 |
Wim Wenders: German (English subtitles) 110 mins. 1988. Daniel, played by Bruno Ganz, is the angel who has grown tired and frustrated at his inability to affect people's lives. When he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he decides to leave the heavens and enter the mortal world. With incredible cinematography by Henri Alekan, Wings of Desire is one of the rare movies of the past decade that actually stretch break and reform the boundaries of the medium. |
| Why Does Herr R. Run Amok |
VGE 316 |
Rainer W. Fassbinder: German ( English Subtitles) 86 mins. 1969. One of Fassbinder's most provocative and notorious films, Why Does Herr R.Run Amok? Examines a peculiarly modern phenomenon- the plain, ordinary, next-door neighbor mass murderer. Herr R. is a bland, content, likeable guy. His family, his job, his hobbies, everything about Herr R. seems perfectly normal. Until one night, when he calmly picks up a lamp and bludgeons to death his wife, son, and a visiting neighbor. Combining cinema-verite style and his own trademark dark humor, Fassbinder pitilessly record the tiniest details of Herr R.'s day to day life. Bit by ordinary bit the film builds to a point of unbearable tension, so that Herr R.'s act becomes frighteningly inevitable. |
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