This Night

This Night

2009 · 110 min · ★ 6.0 · Drama

Werner Schroeter directed this dark and surreal tale of a man determined to save a lost lover from a grim fate at the hands of a violent mob. The city of Santa Maria is falling into chaos as an armed military faction is poised to take power in a coup d'etat. Ossorio used to call Santa Maria home, and he has returned in its darkest hour to find the woman he loves, hoping to rescue her from the violence that is lurks around the corner. As Ossorio searches for his love, he meets Victoria in a shabby hotel, who in turn introduces him to her father Barcala, who for the right price is willing to take Ossorio and another passenger away on his boat. While Ossorio is willing to pay Barcala what he wants, can he find the mysterious woman before the ship sets sail?

Directed by Werner Schroeter · Written by Juan Carlos Onetti

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Gold Flakes

Gold Flakes · 1976

Werner Schroeter's rhapsody of excess leaps from 1949 Cuba to contemporary France to points in between, while its feverishly shifting visual style evokes and parodies everything from kitschy Mexican telenovelas to silent French art films.

Joan's Dream

Joan's Dream · 1975

With the ascetic grandeur of Carl Th. Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, Schroeter evokes the visions of Saint Joan, partly through unused footage of Darling and Caven pantomiming in his 1972 film The Death of Maria Malibran. - MoMA

Argila

Werner Schroeter's stunning split-screen short deals with what the director called "archaic, fundamental themes" of love and mourning.

Macbeth

Macbeth · 1971

MovieDramaTV Movie

Fusing Shakespeare‘s tragedy with the Verdi opera, Schroeter's Macbeth is a fascinating television experiment shot entirely in a studio with several electronic cameras. As Schroeter would recall, "I arranged the Verdi music for a quartet of violin, accordion, piano and oboe, but modeled the rhythms on Argentinian tangos and boleros. The actors sang with horrifying, shrill voices.... The use of video allowed me to produce extraordinary colors.... Of all my films, Macbeth was most unwelcome: Audiences don’t like their Shakespeare to be presented in this way, but I do not differentiate between kitsch and culture...". - MoMA

World on a Wire

World on a Wire · 1973

World on a Wire

SeriesDramaSci-Fi & Fantasy

In the future, Simulacron, a computer project simulating reality, encounters strange occurrences after its leader's death. Dr. Stiller questions the sudden disappearance of a friend and wonders if Simulacron holds the answers.

The Black Angel

The Black Angel · 1974

The Black Angel

Two women, one from Boston and one from Germany, flee their empty lives to seek fulfillment in Mexico. The Black Angel is a transitional film; on one hand, it is a companion piece to Willow Springs, featuring two Schroeter regulars as characters far from home and in extremis; on the other hand, it is a film essay about Mexico and as such a harbinger of Schroeter’s nonfiction work to come. While he clearly shares his characters’ fascination with Mexico, the filmmaker also savages touristic exoticism – the otherworldly appearances of his protagonists and their rapturous reactions to new surroundings contrast sharply with the sober perceptions of Mexican history and economics featured in the documentary segments and in the prosaic presence of a non-professional cast of locals. - Harvard Film Archive

Neurasia

Neurasia · 1969

In a dark and spare theatrical space, four characters use gesture, language, and movement to explore themes of desire and mortality.

The Ghost

The Ghost · 1982

Jesus returns to present-day Bavaria, walks around Munich in a somewhat dazed manner and strikes up an affair with a nun, arguing that they are married anyway. Therefore, he refers to himself as "Ober" (waiter), obviously the male form of "Oberin" (Mother Superior). He occasionally transforms into a snake when being afraid and is finally carried up into the sky by the nun, who transforms into a bird of prey.

Eika Katappa

Eika Katappa · 1969

Collage of dramatic scenes, some exaggerated to comic effect, with asynchronous sound from well known classic, operatic, and rock and roll music – with different approaches to love, suffering, and death.

The Rose King

The Rose King · 1986

A mentally unstable woman and her son move to a sprawling mansion in Portugal to grow roses.

The Queen – Marianne Hoppe

The Queen – Marianne Hoppe · 2000

The Queen – Marianne Hoppe

MovieDocumentary

Werner Schroeter's lovely and touching portrait of the great German actress Marianne Hoppe, whose career spanned from the glory days of the Weimar era through the Nazi years to a postwar return to the stage in Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, and experimental productions by Robert Wilson and Heiner Müller.

Der Bomberpilot

Der Bomberpilot · 1970

Der Bomberpilot

MovieDramaMusic

Schroeter’s film is a chronicle of Germany from the Nazi era until the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s, centering on three women who search for a career as singers and dancers.

Beware of a Holy Whore

Beware of a Holy Whore · 1971

Beware of a Holy Whore

MovieDramaComedy

Film director Jeff and his lead actor are taking their time getting to set. In their absence, the crew lack a purposeful way to spend their time waiting, so they drink heavily. However, as booze is downed and frustration sets in, morale hits rock bottom.

Malina

MovieDramaRomance

An unusual story of a triangular relationship in Vienna. A woman shares an apartment with a man named Malina. The woman meets Ivan and falls under his spell. It will be her last great passion. Her feelings are so strong and all-encompassing that Ivan can neither understand nor return them.

Love’s Debris

Love’s Debris · 1996

Love’s Debris

MovieMusicDocumentary

German director Werner Schroeter invited his favourite opera singers to a 13th century abbey near Paris. There was no pre-planned action. There was no script, no continuity. On the other hand, there were precise constraints that provided the rules of the game: the setting, the Abbey of Royaumont, and the chosen participants. Each singer came accompanied by a person of his or her choice, and worked on an aria chosen by the director.

Day of the Idiots

Day of the Idiots · 1981

Day of the Idiots

A woman experiences psychic disintegration and ends up in a psychiatric hospital.

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