ALFRED KAISER - DECOMPOSING NAZI PHRASEOLOGY
Austrian avant-garde cinema is replete with masters of the found footage filmmaking genre, among most famously, Gustav Deutsch (FILM IST: 1-12) and Peter Tscherkassky. Yet another significant practitioner of the form was Alfred Kaiser (1940-1994). In the second half of the 1970s Alfred Kaiser was entirely unknown to the film world when he went public with two films, namely A THIRD REICH (1975) and A THIRD REICH FROM ITS REFUSE (1977). Both compilation films bridge the threshold between avant-garde and documentary cinema and were enthusiastically received by audiences and film critics alike upon their release. Kaiser took footage solely from the era of Nazi film production to make both films which each have a running time of just under 30 minutes. He constellated an evocative montage of image and sound from an abundance of excerpts gleaned from cultural, industrial and feature films as well as propagandistic Nazi newsreels and amateur movies from the 1930s and 1940s. A THIRD REICH and A THIRD REICH FROM ITS REFUSE are multifaceted compositions that derive from an analytical collision of image and sound metaphors. In brief, their conceptual critique equally serves as an attempt to illustrate and demolish the world of Nazi thought and imagery.
Scenes from A THIRD REICH (1975)
Kaiser’s early film work was unquestionably influenced by Peter Kubelka’s oeuvre (see FRAGMENTS OF KUBLEKA). As with Kubelka’s films, the interplay of image and sound provide serious and reciprocal commentary from the very start. In Kaiser’s A THIRD REICH, sexual metaphor becomes legible in the offensive war rhetoric of the “Third Reich”: “So it is, when the German air force strikes” in combination with the image of dancing chorus girls; mottos spoken by children (“This early practice only makes the master”) is followed by imagery of gunfire and sharpshooters aiming at women doing gymnastics. Essentially, Kaiser’s montage undermines and consistently exaggerates the original intention of the material, exposing imminent contradictions.
In A THIRD REICH FROM ITS REFUSE, Kaiser develops image/sound constellations in a different manner, resulting in a highly emotional filmic reflection. In this film, the spoken word is almost entirely dispensed with. Nazi images are mainly combined with popular hits of the time of citations of famous propaganda songs, pushing latent aggression and frivolity to the limit.
Sadly, beginning in the 1980s, Kaiser was forced to give up all hope that he would be able to produce any more films in Austria. He gave up filmmaking, withdrew to the countryside, concentrated on writing, music, and painting, and died suddenly at the age of 54; his passing went unnoticed by the Austrian public.
Filmmaker Alfred Kaiser
Scenes from A Third Reich from Its Refuse (1977)
This DVD publication includes the film 21 WATER COLORS: HITLER SERIES 1974/75 in which Kaiser draws upon several painting styles, historical photographs and specific works from art history. And the booklet: "A VOICE IN OPPOSITION TO THE GERMAN SPIRIT" On Alfred Kaiser’s films A THIRD REICH and A Third Reich from Its Refuse, by Constantin Wulff.
Contents
(No Regional Code); DVD/DSL Bundle
A THIRD REICH
(Austria, 1975)
Director: Alfred Kaiser
- 28 minutes
- 16mm
- B&W
- Sound
A THIRD REICH FROM ITS REFUSE
(Austria, 1977)
Director: Alfred Kaiser
- 26 minutes
- 16mm
- B&W
- Sound
BONUS MATERIAL
21 WATER COLORS: HITLER SERIES Slideshow by Alfred Kaiser
(Austria, 1975-77)
Total Running Time:00:54:00
Language: German, with English subtitles
Booklet Text: Constantin Wulff (22 pages, in German and English)
Published By: Index Edition
Institutional Price: $250 (DVD only); $500 DVD/DSL bundle (plus shipping)
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