A very young Werner Schroeter.

Even in Nuit de chien, an ostensibly political film (but aren’t they all political?), a snippet of her Proch Variations (!!!) erupts, underpinning the violence done to two women, their solidarity and hope for freedom.

Back in 2009, Libération ran a wonderful Schroeter interview in which he mentioned Maria Callas:

I came to cinema almost by accident, because I am someone who has always lacked ambition. Maria Callas, God’s messenger, had taught me to what extent ambition was contrary to artistic activity. I had broken off my psychology studies after three weeks and was thinking of going back to my work as a prostitute.

Schroeter spoke simply and without emphasis about his work in the sex industry; he also apparently had (has?) a son.

Now I know that brutality and violence have been created by those who fear death. To kill others is to hope to be immortal. The appropriation intrinsic to capitalism works along the same lines. This also relates to what has been my sole concern from the start, in my life as in my films: the quest for love. A man or a woman who refuses to be left, the appropriation that they demonstrate, is itself a form of murder. In 1968, the mother of my son fell in love with my lover, a young American painter. She was four months pregnant. They married and had my son. I was happy—you can’t imagine. I had set those two beings free. You must open your arms wide, let things go: that’s what life is about.

In other Callas-related news, Dacia Maraini (nice recent photo) recently spoke about her latest book, La grande festa, in which she wrote (again) about Maria Callas.

P.S. I reviewed the Morgan Library & Museum’s “Renaissance Venice” show for Capital New York, and I think it’s a pretty good piece (and a wonderful exhibit).

I cannot vouch for the quality/integrity of the Schroeter clip, since my “screener” DVD was unplayable. But here is Werner Schroeter’s Maria Callas Porträt, and here is my Capital New York advance on MoMA’s Werner Schroeter retrospective.

Update: It’s a snippet from Maria Callas Porträt. I wrote in haste. Sorry!

Magdalena Montezuma in The Death of Maria Malibran. Image courtesy of EYE Film Institute, Netherlands.

Let me tell you guys some of what’s happening in my mad little world. As I think you know, I recently started writing for Capital New York, a swell publication that publishes bigger-than-bite-sized articles. So far, I have written for them pieces about Cyrille Aimée, Verdi and Manzoni, and Don Giovanni and Ghosts of Versailles.

Because these articles are about twice as long as the longest ones I’m used to writing, I go berserk and do enough research for a dissertation. Really. Today I filed a piece about the Museum of Modern Art’s upcoming Werner Schroeter retrospective, and when I began working on it, I genuinely believed that it would be possible and necessary for me to discuss Walter Benjamin’s theory of allegory at some length.

* head to desk *

I also reviewed Britten’s Billy Budd at the Met for The Classical Review.

Anyhow, Werner Schroeter: HUGE Callas queen. Since he worked outside of studio and institutional systems for much of his career, very few of his films have been distributed in the States, and only one is available to be viewed at the New York Public Library, which has fairly impressive film holdings.

I will post my CNY article when it runs (probably Friday), report on the most interesting Schroeter films as I see them, and start posting a little more regularly in general.

And how are you dear hearts?