The New Apartment

The New Apartment

1930 · 24 min · ★ 7.0 · Documentary

A commissioned film for Schweizerischer Werkbund (SWB), Die neue Wohnung was produced for the Basel architectural and interior design exhibition, WOBA, to demonstrate innovative aspects of modern architecture and highlight their differences from the event’s highly conservative approach. Despite its ad campaign roots, Richter's touch is not absent; The surviving version, aimed at a "bourgeois" Swiss public, presents decluttered, functional architecture and decor as superior to the traditional and luxurious "ancient" ways of living.

Directed by Hans Richter · Written by Hans Richter

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The New Apartment

Ghosts Before Breakfast

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Dada

MovieDocumentary

1967 film directed by Greta Deseson about the Dada art movement. Featuring Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Hans Richter and Gabrièle Buffet-Picabia

Dadascope

Dadascope · 1962

Free-associative images are juxtaposed with disorienting poetry in Richter's late work. The film is visual dynamite: Upside-down and reversed footage, play with shadows and light, billiards and dice and balloons-- suggestive and surreal images. Tenets of Dada writing, such as games of chance, punnery, wordplay and loud nonsense noise are foist upon the viewer as Dada poems are read / performed by their orignal authors.

The New Apartment (Richter Studio Version)

The New Apartment (Richter Studio Version) · 1932

The New Apartment (Richter Studio Version)

Die neue Wohnung, Version Atelier Richter, was made a year after the SWB version, for screenings in Germany that began in January 1932. This version, of similar length, is a complete re-edit, in which there is no mention of SWB, but there are new intertitles.

Ghosts Before Breakfast

Ghosts Before Breakfast · 1928

Ghosts Before Breakfast

MovieAnimationComedy

Hans Richter, noted for his abstract shorts, has everyday objects rebelling against their daily routine.

Every Day

Every Day · 1929

Experimental documentary focusing on a day in the life of city workers, featuring montage sequences and repetition to emphasise the monotony of routine office work.

Race Symphony

Race Symphony · 1928

MovieDocumentary

In Race Symphony (1928), Richter documents and celebrates a typical day at the German races, where a sophisticated people turn up in droves to gape, gasp, place a bet, and celebrate a well-deserved win.

8 x 8: A Chess-Sonata in 8 Movements

8 x 8: A Chess-Sonata in 8 Movements · 1957

8 x 8: A Chess-Sonata in 8 Movements

8 x 8: A Chess-Sonata in 8 Movements is an American experimental film directed by Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean Cocteau. Described by Richter as "part Freud, part Lewis Carroll" and filmed partially on the lawn of Duchamp's summer house in Southbury, Connecticut.

Dreams That Money Can Buy

Dreams That Money Can Buy · 1947

Dreams That Money Can Buy

MovieDramaFantasy

An attempt to bring the work of surrealist artists to a wider public. The plot is that of an average Joe who can conjure up dreams that will improve his customer's lives. This frame story serves as a link between several avant-garde sequences created by leading visual artists of their day, most of whom were emigres to the US during WWII.

Everything Turns, Everything Revolves

Everything Turns, Everything Revolves · 1929

Everything Turns, Everything Revolves

A day at the carnival — sensational tent shows where miracles can be seen for the price of admission, boisterous noise of crowds and barkers, shrill and gaudy circus music, the violence of the street ten-fold. This is the substance of Everything Turns, Richter’s first sound film. At its premier at Baden-Baden Richter got into a fight with two Nazi officials who disliked the film's ‘modernism.’ Yet in 1936 it was awarded first prize for artistic merit by the Nazis, with Richter’s name suppressed from the credits. He had long since left Germany.

Film Study

Film Study · 1926

Entertaining Dadaist experimental short, similar to Man Ray's work, full of shifting geometric shapes, stock footage of seagulls, flying eyeballs, and glaring floating heads.

Rhythm 23

Rhythm 23 · 1923

We watch white shapes dancing on black background, which changes when the white shape fills up the screen completely, and black lines and figures bounce around on the now white background.

Two Pence Magic

Two Pence Magic · 1929

Two Pence Magic

MovieDocumentary

Two Penny Magic (Zweigroschenzauber) starting off with a little magic trick. It then presents an array of images from swimmers, bicyclers, murderers, airplanes in flight, boxers, lovers, runners, becoming in the end a collection of images in a magazine.

Rhythm 21

Rhythm 21 · 1921

Abstract animated short film. Grey and white squares change size and shape on a black background.

Passionate Pastime

Passionate Pastime · 1958

Passionate Pastime

MovieDocumentary

Hans Richter's documentary on the game of chess. Narrated by Vincent Price. Outlines the history of chess from ancient times to the present and traces its origins in India, China, and Persia. Prints, painting, illuminated manuscripts, live photography and rare chess pieces are shown as well as chess figures designed after Picasso and Braque.

From the Circus to the Moon

From the Circus to the Moon · 1963

From the Circus to the Moon

MovieDocumentary

American sculptor, Alexander Calder, creates around the workshop. The film features several of his kinetic sculptures-- Wild moving figurines that spin, undulate and perform circus acts. The film ends on a hanging moon mobile, completing our wacky trip.

Hans Richter Early Works

Hans Richter Early Works · 2008

Hans Richter Early Works

SYNOPSIS: 8 films by Hans Richter. Richter's position in the art world was unique. As one of the earliest exponents of Dada, he was also one of the first to recognize the new possibilities cinematography offered the artist. He participated in the first avant-garde film movement alongside Léger, Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia, Cocteau and Dali, and later in New York his teachings would influence many of the 'New American Cinema' filmmakers.

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