Posted December 26, 2012
Posted December 26, 2012
The Death of Maria Malibran (1971 – Werner Schroeter)
While it’s not about Wagner, this is quite possibly a fascinating German film with an operatic theme. The famed opera star Maria Malibran was the sister of the equally famous singer, poet, composer Pauline Viardot. Malibran and Viardot were daughters of the early 19th Century’s most famous vocal teachers of the Bel Canto style: Manuel Garcia.
Saturday, January 19, 2013, 6:30 pm
Pacific Film Archive
PFA Theater
2575 Bancroft Way (between College and Telegraph)
Berkeley
German with English subtitles
For More information contact the Goethe Institut: (415) 263-8760
Pacific Film Archive
PFA Theater
2575 Bancroft Way (between College and Telegraph)
Berkeley
German with English subtitles
For More information contact the Goethe Institut: (415) 263-8760
Part of the Goethe Institut’s Werner Schroeter Film Festival – “Magnificent Obsessions”
A series of baroque tableaux enact the short life of Maria Malibran, the 19th-century Spanish prima donna, who died aged 28 in 1836 from injuries received in a riding accident. This hypnotically perverse biopic has no discernible plot and no direct dialogue, no diegetic singing (the voices are mostly disembodied), with the music on the soundtrack ranging from Mozart to anachronistic melodies such as St Louis Blues. Of the film, the French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote: “What Schroeter does with a face, a cheekbone, the lips, the expression of the eyes, is a multiplying and burgeoning of the body, an exultation.”
Each tableau has a different motif, and each comes across with a decadent romanticism that lies somewhere between the Pre-Raphaelites and a quick flick through the pages of a ’40s copy of Vogue. Schroeter’s film is a delight to the eye – rich, strange and perverse. (115 min.)
Each tableau has a different motif, and each comes across with a decadent romanticism that lies somewhere between the Pre-Raphaelites and a quick flick through the pages of a ’40s copy of Vogue. Schroeter’s film is a delight to the eye – rich, strange and perverse. (115 min.)
Admission
Adults: $9.50; BMA/PFA members: $5.50; Goethe-Institut members: $ 7.50
The Box Office opens 1 hour before first showtime of the day.
Phone: +1 (510) 643-2197