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Film Tips

VERTAALD DOOR TRANSLATED BY TRADUIT PAR Sis Matthé

From 1970 to 1986, the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung published Frieda Grafe’s Filmtips, short commentaries on Munich’s film offerings, often just one sentence per film, every week. Sabzian selected and translated eight of them.

The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
The Rules of the Game, 1939, by Jean Renoir. He had set out to make a film like baroque music, after Rameau, Lully, Couperin. His ideal of cinema was to naturally allow all that happened in front of the camera. A film among noblemen, played by commoners. The most powerful document about society between the wars and its upheaval. What in cinema is conveyed directly?1

Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau, 1922) 
Nosferatu. A Symphony of Horror, 1922, by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Bram Stoker moved to Bremen in 1838, year of the plague. The vampire has a rat’s head and is followed by an army of rats; he is killed not by a stake through the heart, but the first ray of light after a lengthy night of love. This film marked the beginning of Dracula’s triumphal procession across the Western film world.2

Goldflocken (Werner Schroeter, 1976)
Goldflocken, 1976, by Werner Schroeter. Images, before Schroeter began to tell stories, were there to be undermined by sound; their artificiality, their merely quoted existence pointed to hearing as the more archaic sense, closer to the unconscious. And: eyes can close, but ears cannot.3

Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955) 
Lola Montès, 1955, by Max Ophüls. One of the most beautiful and important European films of the 1950s, which reflected like no other the dissolution of the old representational space through colour, CinemaScope and stereo sound. The circus arena as a setting, as an extension of the scene, which is only a cage. The city as a place of scandal and as a showpiece. And always in the front row, bursting with eager curiosity, we, the audience.4

Red Sun (Rudolf Thome, 1970) 
Red Sun, 1970, by Rudolf Thome. Set in Greater Munich. A girls’ commune: they kill men. A utopia, not science fiction, in B-movie style. The economy of means gives rise to alienation, as in Rivette and his ancestor Fantômas.5

Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932) 
Trouble in Paradise, 1932, by Ernst Lubitsch. Paradise is the Lubitsch land of comedy, where wit, lightness and chic play first fiddle. There is trouble because emotions, of the ponderous kind, jeopardise appearances: maximum alert for gangsters playing on emotions.6

Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925) 
Battleship Potemkin, 1925, by Sergei Eisenstein. Soviet cinema legends are cut from a different cloth. Instead of the birth of the nation, they celebrate the construction of the future.7

Fear (Roberto Rossellini, 1954) 
Fear, 1954, by Roberto Rossellini, with Ingrid Bergman. The film is set in Munich. Stefan Zweig’s novella adapted to the times, as is the fear. The war ensured that the relationship between men and women would never be the same again, and spawned neo-realism. The dismantling of fiction. Reality is observed under quasi-experimental conditions, with the living object.8

  • 1Frieda Grafe, Frieda Grafe. Ausgewählte Schriften in 12 Bänden, vol. 11, ed. Enno Patalas. (Berlin: Brinkmann & Bose Verlag, 2002-2008), 178.
  • 2Frieda Grafe. Ausgewählte Schriften in 12 Bänden, vol. 11, 153.
  • 3Frieda Grafe. Ausgewählte Schriften in 12 Bänden, vol. 11, 267.Frieda Grafe. Ausgewählte Schriften in 12 Bänden, vol. 11, 267.
  • 4Frieda Grafe. Ausgewählte Schriften in 12 Bänden, vol. 9, 230.
  • 5Frieda Grafe. Ausgewählte Schriften in 12 Bänden, vol. 11, 306.
  • 6Frieda Grafe. Ausgewählte Schriften in 12 Bänden, vol. 11, 322.
  • 7Frieda Grafe. Ausgewählte Schriften in 12 Bänden, vol. 11, 323.
  • 8Frieda Grafe. Ausgewählte Schriften in 12 Bänden, vol. 11, 332.

Image (1) from Lola Montès (Max Ophüls, 1955)

ARTICLE
18.06.2025
NL EN
In Passage, Sabzian invites film critics, authors, filmmakers and spectators to send a text or fragment on cinema that left a lasting impression.
Pour Passage, Sabzian demande à des critiques de cinéma, auteurs, cinéastes et spectateurs un texte ou un fragment qui les a marqués.
In Passage vraagt Sabzian filmcritici, auteurs, filmmakers en toeschouwers naar een tekst of een fragment dat ooit een blijvende indruk op hen achterliet.
The Prisma section is a series of short reflections on cinema. A Prisma always has the same length – exactly 2000 characters – and is accompanied by one image. It is a short-distance exercise, a miniature text in which one detail or element is refracted into the spectrum of a larger idea or observation.
La rubrique Prisma est une série de courtes réflexions sur le cinéma. Tous les Prisma ont la même longueur – exactement 2000 caractères – et sont accompagnés d'une seule image. Exercices à courte distance, les Prisma consistent en un texte miniature dans lequel un détail ou élément se détache du spectre d'une penséée ou observation plus large.
De Prisma-rubriek is een reeks korte reflecties over cinema. Een Prisma heeft altijd dezelfde lengte – precies 2000 tekens – en wordt begeleid door één beeld. Een Prisma is een oefening op de korte afstand, een miniatuurtekst waarin één detail of element in het spectrum van een grotere gedachte of observatie breekt.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati zei ooit: “Ik wil dat de film begint op het moment dat je de cinemazaal verlaat.” Een film zet zich vast in je bewegingen en je manier van kijken. Na een film van Chaplin betrap je jezelf op klungelige sprongen, na een Rohmer is het altijd zomer en de geest van Chantal Akerman waart onomstotelijk rond in de keuken. In deze rubriek neemt een Sabzian-redactielid een film mee naar buiten en ontwaart kruisverbindingen tussen cinema en leven.

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