We speak through him: Hans-Juergen Syberberg's "Hitler: A Film from Germany"

New Yorkers will have a rare opportunity over the next week to see Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s remarkable “German trilogy,” which plays 9-14 September at the Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue. The trilogy is one of the great achievements of world cinema and includes the astonishing 1977 Hitler: A Film from Germany, a legendary seven-hour contemplation of evil, world history and human complicity, which Susan Sontag rightly called “[O]ne of the great works of art of the 20th century and one of the greatest films ever made” in the New York Review of Books. The series also includes the 1972 Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King and the 1974 Karl May. Full schedule information can be found here. In the event that you can’t get to these films, be aware that at least Hitler is available online at Syberberg’s own rather remarkable Web site, and there is a DVD available at the Superfluities Redux bookstore. (The other two films in the trilogy are also available from Facets.)

If you’re at Anthology Film Archives on Sunday for the 2.00pm showing of Hitler, stick around — at 7.30pm, Henry Hill’s “feature-length documentation” of Richard Foreman’s final work at the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre at St. Mark’s Church, Astronome: A Night at the Opera, written with composer John Zorn, will premiere. I was rather lukewarm when I wrote about the 2009 work here, but like all of Foreman’s productions, it will very likely repay a second visit.