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strechanadi · 5 years

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Swan Lake Wolfgang/Siegfried overthinking no. I-refuse-to-count-how-many-times-this-stupid-ballet-and-this-even-more-stupid-characters-did-not-let-me-sleep!

Dear @spinmelikeyoumeanit ... this is yet again yours and yours fault only.

(And yes, once I start I physically cannot stop myself, which leads to... err. THIS!)

(I sincerely apologize. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Truly.)

Well, I promised, didn’t I? And it literally took me just about a lifetime! (On the other hand – academic life happened. Don’t do postgrad, kids, it’s just not worth it…) (Or maybe just dont try to write a dissertation in a MONTH! FFS!)

One would think I would be over it. That after so many Swan Lakes nothing would have the ability to shake me. That after so many sleepless nights spent thinking over every little think here and there, I would know almost everything, therefore would be prepared for anything thrown at me. And yet here we are! Once again, blown away by Swan Lake of all ballets. I mean… could there be anything more cliché?

However, I already made peace with one thing (and you should probably too, saves lives and all that) and that’s the genius of Nureyev, of his Swan Lake and of the duality of Wolfgang/Rothbart.

As many of you remember, I’m sure (and slightly horrified), even recording of Nureyev’s SL is more than able to put me out of service, to prevent me from living what even the tiniest group of people would call a normal life. Or something. So, what the hell was I thinking when buying the ticket to see the ballet in question live, I have literally no idea. (Well. I have, actually. He may even have a name…) But yes, I did saw Swan Lake with POB live on stage. From the first fucking row, because that’s how extra I have to be. (Yes, my diet consists solely of bread and water since… seems like forever now.) I saw it, I died and that’s about it. However, my being dead is not something anyone would be particularly interested in, so let’s just move to the only thing you (the whole lot of exactly one person) are here for.

I did write a review on said performance. And usually I’m trying to translate them (even though I’m not exactly sure why, because it causes me almost physical pain and at the end I feel endlessly stupid, since I have to search every second word in dictionary, which is slightly pathetic, also I love my Czech sentences too much and with my pitiful knowledge of English I simply cannot make them justice, so they look utterly weird in the end and they deserve better than that), however unlike with my first POB SL review 3 years back this time I’ve decided to just don’t give a shit and dive into the story head first consequences be damned, so I think with writing this thing here I would have everything important covered (i.e. no need for the actual review) (the first half was basically just me showing off my endless knowledge on SL music score, which is plain boring, let’s be real, plus I wrote all that in my first review).

/AN - This is actually longer than the review itself. I think I feel a little bit sick…/

So. Right. Swan Lake.

I’m not gonna pretend there’s anyone else in whom I am more interested than Siegfried. And it’s not just because Nureyev made him a main character of the story. It’s because it makes sense. Who is on stage from start to finish? Through whose eyes we are watching the whole story? We should be able to sympathize with Siegfried, we should be able to see his point, to understand him, to get what he’s doing and why – sort of at least. And that’s probably why I am so annoyed with traditional SLs where it mostly looks like the choreographers/dancers/ballet masters/whoever don’t even try and go with some bland hero, because whatever, we are all waiting for the 2nd act and the Swan anyway.

So, it’s clear I love Nureyev’s story with passion (you wouldn’t tell, would you!) and the moment the curtain raises I’m drawn to Siegfried no matter who’s the dancer. And, OK, if it’s Mathieu Ganio, I’m kind of helpless, I admit (it would be cute, I guess, were I not be way over 13 yo).

I will try to stay as reasonable as I could and not to embarrass myself. Too much. So I would not write about the stupid little things that nobody in their right mind would (or could!) notice (or at least not at the first sight), because, dear god, literally no one gives a damn about the way his fingers twitched during his Prologue‘s nightmare in perfect synchrony with the music and action on stage… Can I get to the point?! Preferably on this day!

Normal person would be probably unable to talk about Siegfried without Odette/Odile. But I think we have already established I’m by no means a normal person. So, I am not able to talk about Siegfried without Wolfgang. (Yes, we are finally getting somewhere!)

I love their relationship in any shape and form and I would gladly watch every single cast and every possible combination of dancers in those two roles as I’m sure each time I would get something new (you cannot stop my brain, believe me, I tried). There was the oddly depending, blurred, yet intense José/Karl take. The terrifyingly creepy, what-the-fuck-happened-or-is-still-happening-behind-the-close-doors Mathieu/Francois one (that still makes my hair stand whenever I think about it, because… holy shit, that one moment between 1st and 2nd act!). The clueless puppy/slightly perverted, obsessed mastermind vibes from Germain/Francois. So what about Mathieu/Jérémy this time, hm?

/AN – I’m gonna probably end up mixing dancers‘ names with their characters‘, so… Yeah. I have no excuses, it’s just going to happen anyway, no matter how hard I would try to prevent it./

It was clear from the very first moment, Siegfried was much more mature this time, much more the young adult than barely 18yo adolescent. He looked reasonably confident, sure of himself, a true aristocrat, a crown prince ready to be a king (almost to the point where I was thinking – oh, where’s my lost, Asperger’s child? I want my lost, Asperger’s child! Spoiler alert – I got my lost, Asperger’s child eventually, do not worry. Just wait for it). However, watching him during the opening dance scene it was becoming more and more clear everything’s not so smooth as it may seem. He grew impatient, the whole situation slowly but surely becoming unbearable, and he was fighting against it with all he had, trying to stay calm, trying to play the role he was expecting to, his nervous, involuntary fingers tapping against his throne the only thing out of place. But there was always Wolfgang for him in those moments. Wolfgang, who was the constant, never-changing presence. Wolfgang, who could be standing on the other side of the room and the connection between him and his prince almost palpable, magnetic, electrifying. Always there. Always sure.

They look like best friends, no matter their different social status. Wolfgang casually showing Siegfried one girl or another (funny how he didn’t need to bring Siegfried’s attention to men, since he was happily watching them on his own accord), whispering something to his ear (A court rumour? An inside joke? A reassurance to keep Siegfried in his right mind?), hand casually on his shoulder. When they were walking together, Wolfgang was positively hugging Siegfried with his arm around prince’s shoulders. And then you saw him standing side stage, watching Siegfried being crowned, watching him dance, watching his inner struggle started by queen’s mention of marriage, watching him trying to act all casual and „oh, it’s nothing, I’m all right“ while knowing his autism and insecurities and all the good stuff is kicking, trying to break free and took over his mind and soul again. Because Siegfried may be more in charge now, but once autistic, always autistic… The mental issues were there. Waiting. As well as Wolfgang. Watching, waiting, calculating, manipulating without anybody knowing, using the Machiavellianism to the point.

And I wanted to scream, because hell, Siegfried, you look like a reasonable, mature human being. You are not the lost child with puppy eyes, you have to know something’s off! Tell me, what do you know! But then they were together and it was painfully clear he simply believed they were at the same page, he had no reason not to think so, they were in this together. Take the moment at the end of the „dance lesson.“ José himself leant towards Karl, believing him implicitly, automatically, without question and on top of that he actually looked him in the eye, and there was the brilliant moment where Karl looked away like – “oh no, stop, this is too much, that’s not right” and also “I’m not affected by this at all.” Francois just grabbed Mathieu’s arm and pulled. The gesture strong, harsh, leaving no doubts and literally no space between the two of them, because “oh no no, my prince, you have no personal space, no free will, I am the one who will tell you what to do, I am the one in charge, don’t forget that, I certainly not let you forget, ever.” With Mathieu and Jérémy the movement towards each other was mutual. Mathieu leaned back, Jérémy went slightly forward whispering into his ear.

However just a few seconds earlier, during the actual dance lesson, was a moment that couldn’t be more out of the realm of things OK even if it tried. I remember someone did something similar in one of the older videos I saw through the years of my healthy social life, I, however, do not remember it being quite like this time. I’m talking about the moment nearly at the end with Siegfried kneeling on the floor with Wolfgang walking around him. Some Wolfgangs simply put their hand on prince’s shoulder and squeeze, some let their hand stay there for a bit (too) long, some doesn’t touch Siegfried at all for one reason or another. And then came Jérémy. He did touch Mathieu’s shoulder. Let his hand there. Heavy, grounding. And then, slowly, intentionally, almost proprietary traced his chest from one collar bone to the other. Touching the bare skin. Not in some delicate, subtle, almost-not-there motion with fingertips barely touching. This was open. Possessive. Claiming. I inhaled so sharply people on the balcony must have heard it. I almost gave myself a brain concussion. Or got high on oxygen overdose. Or something. Being at home alone (or maybe even with my family around) I would be screaming myself hoarse and/or swearing profusely. But since I was sitting in a theatre with 2,5 thousands other people completely clueless of my inner battle, I had to… just keep breathing and acting cool. Not that I was particularly successful or anything.

How the 1st Act was going, it was more and more clear Siegfried depended on Wolfgang. And what was even more painful, it was his own decision. Surely, he was manipulated into it to some extent and at some point, but with this prince I believe if one asked him, he would say he believes Wolfgang. “Because he’s a friend. Because he’s helping. He’s good. Stop asking stupid questions, I’m not an idiot!” You had to admit this Wolfgang did a fucking good job without actually showing it (and showing off, looking at you, Francois). Because at the end of Act 1 all he had to do to stop Siegfried from following the running boys was turn his head. He didn’t step to stay in his way, he didn’t cross his arms or shake his head disapprovingly. He just stood there, then looked slightly over his shoulder and Siegfried stopped. Like that. And then, just before he was about to start his andante sostenuto variation (during which I most definitely died, because there was simply no other option, since this monster of a man, while doing his manege of jetés entrelacé, decided to turn the palm of his front arm up to make the landing pose in arabesque a cry, with his arm desperately reaching towards something, to fill every fucking detail of his movement with intention and meaning and who the hell asked this from you?! I can scarcely cope even while you are just dancing and feeling the music in ways that are too close to mine, could you please tell me, why you had to even do THIS to me?! Am I not dead enough?), he looked back at Wolfgang. Like if I could forget about their connection…!

But what was between the two of them exactly? I don’t have a clue. I know what I see in José/Karl interpretation. I know how I understand Mathieu/Francois relationship (because I am a bad person, my mind is poisoned and my brain is sick!). But Mathieu/Jérémy? There’s so much going on but I for the love of all that is holy cannot put a finger on it. (And that’s probably one of the reasons I almost went to the stage door to tell them I love them. I didn’t. I am an adult. I do not fangirl. I just go home and deal with all the feelings like the emotionally repressed person I am. I would make an excellent posh Englishman.) Let’s just say it was for the first time that Wolfgang was taller than Siegfried. Significantly taller. So whenever Siegfried wanted to looked him in the eyes, he had to look UP. And this stupid, tiny, little detail made me feel so many things, it’s not even funny anymore (which falsely indicated it WAS funny once, which most definitely was NOT). But just imagine the Siegfried/Wolfgang duet between act 1 and 2 with Siegfried coming to Wolfgang, to looking up to his eyes, and try not to see the vulnerability in it. Try not to see all the cards changing. Because it should have been Siegfried over Wolfgang because of their social status. During act one they were at the same level – because Siegfried wanted so. And now, suddenly, it was Wolfgang over Siegfried. And when he put the prince on the ground in the end, Siegfried looked yet again completely lost, devastated and abused… You just didn’t know how exactly this time. Or you did, but it was still just a wild guess, you couldn’t be completely, absolutely, 100% sure.

What was sure – Siegfried was broken. He took the offered crossbow as if not knowing what he is doing, as if not knowing it’s his hands that is holding it. And then he stood up, turned and wanted to go to Wolfgang, because obviously. He made two steps, and Wolfgang was just standing there, centre stage, looking (not with the arms dismissively crossed as Francois, mind you) and Siegfried stopped, tripped over his feet, looked and promptly turned back. And there was something so unbelievably hurt in him. Because he knew what the crossbow means, figuratively. And that’s what hurt him most. Seeing Wolfgang with it. Seeing Wolfgang pushing him towards the edge, knowing he’s helpless, knowing that it would be him who would jump, he himself, nobody would actually push him, just bring him so near the edge, there would be no other choice. It was like an accusation. Because “I believed you. I trusted you. I thought we were friends. I thought you would help me. And you pushed me back towards my illness, pushed me into those dreams that we both know will be the end of me.” You could almost touch the moment, the last flicker of consciousness, the hurt creeping from the deep of Siegfried’s soul but it was too late already. It was late the moment he took the crossbow. And you were watching him losing the somewhat sane part of his mind, the part that knows, and falling to his dreams, to his forbidden world. Because giving the poor Asperger’s little prince a bit of schizophrenia is a way to go. Hello, this is me, nice to meet you.

Yes, partly this whole mess of a situation was the Queen’s fault. Her mentioning marriage and crowning and you know, the adult stuff, made Siegfried quiver in his so painfully hard-won stable mental state of sorts, that seemed more stable than in other SLs, but was still too fragile. But Wolfgang was the one who made it happened, who was the vital help, who was the final cause. Because who else could have been more successful? Who would have been better for such job? Who could have managed such thing if not him…?

I’ll give you a break and am gonna talk about 3rd act for a bit. Because Mathieu Ganio’s Siegfried in act 3 is a fucking piece of art and someone give the man an award for it!

There was an achingly apparent difference between Act 1 Siegfried and Act 3 Siegfried. While during the 1st Act he was able to hold himself together to the point one would not tell he had any mental issues, in 3rd Act he was loosing his contact with reality from the start. And of course he was, with no Wolfgang behind his back whispering to his ear, keeping him in check, distracting him while things become too tedious and tiring, calming him by his mere presence. So his standing up and leaving the stage during character dances made so much sense. He refused the princesses with pleasure and right then he threw everything, his control, his mind, his consciousness out of window, and just jumped, leaving his illness in charge and Odile with Rothbart appeared. And if Odette and the lake was a dream, this was much more a fantasy. I’m going to repeat myself, but I stop when there would be more than one Siegfried like this in 3rd Act. Because this Siegfried was not dragged across stage by Odile, he was not simply following her with heart eyes, smiling and thinking rather stupidly she’s Odette, the pure, fragile girl from the lake even though she’s acting almost completely different. This Siegfried was confident, self-assured, constantly trying to convince Odile of his power and to prove himself. He grew impatient with her constant escaping, there was anger and sharpness in some of his movements. We all know the moment when Siegfried is standing behind Odile and she’s taking his arms to hug herself, right? So Mathieu Ganio leaned in and kissed. Her. On. The. Neck.

(I let that information sink.) (And while it would be sinking, I take a little walk to ease some of the tension and calm my inner voice that is screaming profanities, cause HOLYFUCKINGSHIT, can you imagine the dreamy, pure, innocent prince from previous act to do such thing?!)

I would also like to mention the black adagio. You know, the one where Siegfried is supposed to be fascinated by Odile who is seducing him? The one, during which this time was not quite clear if the prince was watching the enchanting black swan or Rothbart with the same intent, with the same intensity in his eyes and tension between the two of them…? Yeah.

(Also – Jérémy before his Rothbart variation, sitting on Siegfried’s throne like it belongs to him. Good grief!)

The end of act 3 wasn’t as much of a mad scene as it was in 2016. However Siegfried fell down on the floor completely unceremoniously, lying on his back and while the curtain opened and we were in the 4th Act he lied there in the exact same position and it looked almost like he’s in his bed. Like he completely lost it during the ball (and lost it he did) and was escorted to his chambers, put to his bed and now his poor, tortured mind sent him yet again to the woods, to the lake side.

Odette in act 2 was a complete figment of Siegfried’s imagination, appearing suddenly from nowhere, made from thin air, sharing Siegfried’s pain and deep grief. (Yes, even in act 2, because this time there were no heartfelt love confessions, no big romance, no sunny smiles and promises of happily ever after. But there was a bond. Strong and deeply felt.) In 4th Act she was resigned. She knew she’s about to die and there’s nothing she could do about it. Because Odette is Siegfried. In this performance and interpretation more than ever. She was his innocence that was somehow betrayed and violated by the act 3 fantasy. She was his integral part, she was his childhood, she was his hope, she was the last piece of his sanity, she was him. And Siegfried came to her guiltily, ashamed of himself, afraid to look herself in the eyes and see what became of him. Because he was dying. And he knew it.

And then Rothbart appeared and took Odette from Siegfried. Took his hope, his mind, his soul - like the mental illnesses, Siegfried’s ultimate bane and his final doom. And then came the last moment. When Siegfried turned around and there, in the middle of the mists stood someone. With arm held forward, palm up as in an invitation. And then… magnificent, ethereal Wolfgang spread his arms wide. Opened them for his prince, to let him jump into. And Siegfried run and jumped with his last breath and last desperate cry of arched back to the arms of death. That is nor evil, nor kind. That simply is.

And it makes you wonder – what if this was in the end the best option for Siegfried after all? What if Wolfgang was doing what he was doing having his prince’s good in mind? Was it something he himself believed in? That he was helping? Or was it just something he would say, if anybody asked? And was he ever even real?

Hello. This is Nureyev’s Swan Lake for you. Causes many questions. Answers none. Gives you bunch of other instead.

Please, do feel free to tell me I should find a professional help.

#ballet #swan lake #le lac des cygnes #this is just me #not being able to shut up #and get over wolfgang and siegfried #for nearly 4000 words #it's not healthy #but whatever #wolfgang #siegfried #rothbart #overthinking #like a pro #make it an olympic sport #thank you #LOOK IT'S ALMOST 4 IN THE MORNING!

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beckmessering · 3 years

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1-14 on the opera asks!

ahhhh you absolute trickster, i love you...

(tagging @sweatershowgirl @coloraturadiva and @vera-dauriac because you also asked questions. answers are below because...um, i like to talk.)

1. favourite performance you ever attended

met parsifal, the revival in 2018. or the current bayreuth meistersinger.

2. a performance you would’ve wanted to attend (present or past)

one of the historic bayreuth rings, chereau or kupfer. for the visuals alone, maybe kupfer.

3. a piece perfect for your commute

baroque music without drastic volume changes works really well, so either soprano handel arias or the opening chorus to st. matthew passion, which is also the length of my walk to the station.

4. do you have a go-to opera (and version)?

currently a 2017 live recording of st. matthew passion on youtube.

5. an opera you loved only on the second listening

people i regularly talk to about operas probably know this story, but i’ll gladly expand. i saw die walküre shortly after one of the worst days of my life, and i was mentally really out of it. i couldn’t remember anything about the music or understand any of the characters. it just felt overdramatic and too long and distant. in lockdown in march i started streaming a ring and thought “ugh, i’ll just have to watch walküre to get to siegfried, but it has some singers i like so maybe it won’t be that boring”. and boom, i watched it at my grandpas’ kitchen table and was blown away.

5. a composer you have tried and failed to like

mozart. sorry. i tried and failed. me and wolfgang amadeus do not emotionally vibe with each other. i would’ve been in a uni production of zauberflöte though, so maybe it’s more fun to perform than to listen on my own time.

6. a character you love and definitely never want to meet in real life

wotan. lord, he’s good at fucking with people’s lives. or scarpia. i’m not tosca, so i’m too scared for murder.

7. following up on that: your guilty problematic favourite character

alberich, in a way. problematic, but probably he’s cleverer with more emotional nuance than he’s sometimes allowed.

8. forget anatomy/physiology. which voice category/fach would you choose?

in case it’s not very obvious, a baritone please. or if i stay a soprano, a dramatic soprano.

9. a casting/singer’s voice you’ll defend to the death. (now tell us why)

okay, rant time.

evelyn herlitzius as brünnhilde is absolutely smashing. no, her voice really isn’t beautiful. some people say it sounds screechy, but i think it’s extremely metallic and definitely an acquired taste. her sound limits the amount of fitting roles, but there are some she absolutely kills because she radiates intensity. her kundry is unhinged and very human, and she’s one of the rare brünnhildes who convincingly portray youth. she’s impulsive, fidgety, tomboyish, clearly her father’s favourite and attached to his hip without realising how sinister this is. she also has absolutely zero understanding of what mortality means to humans and her father’s rotten scheming dawns on her only slowly when she meets siegmund. she visibly grows from this teenage girl persona with too much childish bravado and stands up to her father in the end, but she still loves him more than is good for her (same goes for him) and together, they play loosing each other too well.

she’s also a very intense physical actress. she carries herself different for every character, and even when she’s silent, she never slips up, and she has great in-character stare-offs with other characters. i live for those.

10. and a production you’ll defend to the death

“hngffgf the bayreuth meistersinger are too regie and we can stop talking about wagner’s antisemitism now-” BLAH BLAH CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF SACHS AND BECKMESSER FINALLY BEING COMPLEX CHARACTERS AND HAVING AN ACTUAL RELATIONSHIP (and beckmesser finally being in the focus of the production)

11. something you’re a rigid traditionalist (or revolutionary) about?

can the grail in parsifal just please be an actual grail? not like, a symbolic brain or what (looking at you, vienna state opera). and i agree with @dichterfuerstin in that the ultra-strict definition of vocal categories is annoying and prevents some great variety in character interpretations.

12. an opera that made you have an ~*awakening*~ of sorts (any sort)

i thought there was great acting in act one of chereau’s walküre. then i read peter hofmann’s obituary and realised that other people categorised what i saw as “just great acting” as “sexual electricity” and then i wondered if i’m either really fucking oblivious to sexual tension in straight couples or if i should overthink if i am straight.

13. an opera/music debate do you know so much about that people will suspiciously ask “why...do you know this?”

i know a suspicious amount of things about boys’ unbroken voices. bear with me. originally it was a research topic for a piece of writing, and then i realised i liked the sound of it. now i can vocally distinguish a rather large amount of choirs and boy soloists by sound, name, recording, repertoire, and year, and i have opinions about boys’ vocal technique.

14. rant about a topic/an opera you love but haven’t found a good time to do so on your blog.

building on the last question, some baroque music purists on youtube are really annoying. either they ridicule female sopranos for having natural vibrato because “bAcH oNlY wRoTe fOr bOyS!!!” or they relentlessly attack 13 or 14 year olds for having tiny flaws in their otherwise very advanced vocal technique. i love hearing passions and cantatas performed by young voices, but only if it’s up to a good qualitative standard. if not, female sopranos/altos are wonderful and brilliant and don’t have to prove their quality, no question! just choose the singers that will give it the best quality and unique sound, it’s that easy.

#opera ask #dichterfuerstin #thanks for the ask!

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itsqueenelise · 3 years

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The Black Swan

Well it’s certainly been a while. It’s been a long and difficult year and these last few months have been filled with many tribulations (including the reading of this book...but I’ll get to that). Despite everything, I have been reading though. In my absence I’ve gotten through all 17 Dresden Files books as well as the supplementary ones and 9 Wheel of Time books among others as well. (I’ll need to talk about WoT some time but that’s not for now) And most recently, I have finished The Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey.

I have never read a Lackey book, but I always here wonderful things about her writing. She also has so many titles that I’ve made it a mission to always pick up one of her books everytime I go to a bookstore, so I’ve started a small collection of her books. To start with her though, I had no idea so I simply went with this book since I am a huge Swan Lake fan...and wow that was a mistake. For a 400 page book that should have taken me a few days or a week at most to read...this took me over a month.

After finishing it, my first immediate thoughts were “thank goodness I’m done” and “well... I guess that was swan lake”. Before I go to roast a lot of this book, I would like to say that I really did enjoy parts of it. Specifically, I enjoyed just about every chapter from Odile and with Odette. This probably seems like a good thing from one who hasn’t read it since it would be expected for most of the book to be from Odile and a decent amount between her and Odette — especially when this book was supposed to be a retelling of Swan Lake from Odile’s perspective...but no. Oh no. If anything this was Siegfried’s story. And that’s where most of my contempt for this retelling lies.

I didn’t expect this book to be entirely from Odile since that would be a chunk of the story unseen which would make the story difficult, but I didn’t expect 70% of the book to be from Siegfried and about him. (Queen Clothilde is our other main pov which I think was welcome and...well didnt overstate her welcome either and was important for the telling of the story as Lackey did so, but anywho) Lackey spends the majority of the early-middle part of the book having the reader get to know Siegfried and preparing for...well pretty much all of the events of Swan Lake. We dilly dally for like 200 pages with a direction that gets dropped the moment we actually commence with the actual plot of the story. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

A large conceit of this story is taking the men (Wolfgang, Benno, and Siegfried) and showing how awful they are and how men are in general in this story. Which at first I thought was clever and funny as Lackey takes it so over the top initially making it seem like a parody of the super chivalrous and perfect prince in fairytales. But this changes when she goes just way too far with it. I think this whole conceit doesn’t really work in this story since she will have to make Siegfried that likeable and perfect prince by the end with him falling for and committing entirely to Odette...well I shouldn’t say it doesn’t work, because I certainly see how it could. And I think that is an interesting angle to take the story and possible having Siegfried realize how awful he is and do what he can to be a good person for Odette and such. But instead of any nuance at all in this storytelling, Lackey has Siegfried rape a Romani woman (this book is also quite racist to Romani people, calling them witches and having them curse him. It’s...) to where she then commits suicide and curses his dreams and forces him to “become a better person”. Now this is just heavily problematic because like...WHAT THE FUCK??? I have no clue why any of this is in *Swan Lake*. And just...what.

So we spend a large portion of this book dealing with this whole situation and Siegfried’s character where he eventually realizes he’s shitty though a trippy dream and starts being nice to the women he was shitty to. But really he just lets the women he sleeps with go and gives them a bunch of money and he goes “well I’m a good person now” and after 200 pages of that, all of this mess is dropped and not mentioned again and he just the “perfect prince”. Not to mention that Lackey is trying to redeem a character that straight up raped a woman to where she killed herself. And it’s very disorienting because during this large part of the book, we get very little Odile and Odette and when we do, large portions of time is skipped where I think we could have used a lot more development between the two.

And that’s where the whole balance of this book goes wacky. We don’t really have Odette and Odile interact until like halfway through the book, but at this point they are the side story to the main plot of Siegfried trying to redeem himself from rape. And once he is “redeemed” he is not even much a better person and we still spend so much time with him in a horribly contrived situation to get the actual plot of Swan Lake to happen where he actually goes to the lake and meets Odette. I don’t think the whole plot contrivance is too much of an issue since it *is* contrived by Rothbart and Clothilde, but it’s still really janky. Once we get passed the whole Siegfried redemption though, the book isn’t too bad. I think the interactions with Siegfried’s and the princesses including Honoria and that whole trip was interesting. And I would have loved the angle of the story to be more into him having to choose a bride and not liking them and then meeting Odette, but this was just shoved into to last 150 pages of the book with the rest of the plot where Lackey has to also rush development of Odile and Odette. And it just ends up so messy.

We spend that last 150 pages running through Odette and Siegfried meeting, the ball, and the aftermath just right after the other. And as a reader, I’m so confused because we lull around for 50% of the book, don’t get really much of Odile since the beginning, and don’t even have Siegfried and Odette meet until about page 300 out of 400. It leaves so much to be desired and feels like that whole deal with Siegfried earlier wasn’t even part of the book. I know Lackey wanted to do something different than “just Swan Lake”, but she did not deliver. And I think if she just took the first 50 pages and the last 150 and threw out all of the Siegfried stuff in the middle, this book certainly would be too bad. Because instead we are getting stuff like Odette and Siegfried only meeting once and having a 10 minute conversation and then boom! They are in love. And nothing more than that. I think a retelling like this should take this story that is very simple and give a lot of development and nuance. And none of that is there. It’s “watch Siegfried rape a woman and give other women a lot of money and then a speed run of Swan Lake”.

For some positivity, I think Lackey’s language is fantastic. She has such an ability to paint a scene and make it come to life and feel magical. There are some scenes, especially from Odile and her magic that feel like a magic fairytale. Also the final dream of Siegfried was really well done isolated from the rest of the story. And her writing really shines through at small individual points especially those last 150 pages. I wish that was what was stretched out. I cannot accurately describe my disappointment of how it was all handled. I would also like to praise the ending Lackey came up with. I’m very much a fan of the tragedy of Swan Lake, but Lackey’s interpretation here was very welcome. I really enjoyed Odile being the one to strike down Rothbart and I think the Odile we got from the lovers’ meetings through the ball and the end was a treat. But that wasn’t most of the book and that’s why I cannot praise this book as a whole.

It saddens me that this was my introduction to Lackey. I had suck high hopes for her writing and have heard only good things and was just met but extreme displeasure in reading this. I honestly wouldn’t recommend this book at all — just go watch the ballet. I will not let this be my last impression of Lackey though and I hope my next experience with one of her books will be better....sigh

#the black swan #mercedes lackey #swan lake #fantasy #reading #this book sucked

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mindtraptotravel · 4 years

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Vegas- The One Destination Every Person Should Visit

THE LUXURY CITY - LAS VEGAS

Though somewhat thick about the neon, Vegas is an actual feast for those eyes. The skyline is excellent, together with each one the amazing lighting and shapes that are massive competing for care. Each and every resort is trying to shirt the subsequent person using its very own distinct motif, royal entrances, rollicking casinos, yummy dining establishments, and also notable amusement. It might be mentioned that vegas don't need a bone that is dull within the human entire body.

The advertising angle of this vegas tourism plank went out of the previous nickname " las vegas," into becoming touted like a live-in destination at the 1990's back into Mothers Just having its own brand new tag line, "what goes on here, stays here." Town advertisers desire to draw men and women from throughout the globe for their adult park, full of boundless gaming, food, alcohol, and even amusement. It's charged like a type of magical place that'll appeal to each requirement and meet every dream.

The lodges in las vegas are extremely outstanding to behold. New York, Newyork lodge reconstructs the vibrant streets of Gotham. Even the Paris lodge practical experience also includes a reproduction of the Eiffel Tower. A couple of the finest lodges with casinos in vegas, the Bellagio and the Wynn Las Vegas lodge, have no special motifs besides this of opulence and lavish.

In the Rat Pack of this mid-20 past century into Celine Dion now, Vegas amusement has ever been a substantial attraction. Comedians such as Danny Gans along with carrot-top perform regularly in vegas and so are popular with their usage of extravagant props and sight-gags. Veteran Vegas entertainers, such as Tony Orlando along with Wayne Newton, even now control packed properties night after night time using their well-loved continuation of favorites.

Searching and eating really are just two popular past days in vegas. Caesar's Palace supplies a world-class pub comprising painted blue skies with clouds adorning the ceiling. The Venetian also offers class purchasing which has several designer manufacturers. The majority of another hotel exhibit several fantastic shops in their own lobbies and sponsor more in their own assumptions. When hunger strikes, there's not any lack of food that is fantastic. Vegas is not any longer an area of 3.99 all-you-can-eat-buffets. World-renowned hamburgers Wolfgang Puck (Spago) along with Emeril Lagasse have various amazing eateries in the city and a lot of the notable motels boast additional award-winning dining places.

Clearly, probably the very widely used reason behind seeing las vegas would be to its gaming titles. By the slots machines into the chambers of pubs booked for all people commencing bets above $1, 000, there's a place for every single funding. Game titles such as blackjack, craps, and baccarat attract countless folks per season to use their hands in the tables, then followed by enticing cocktail waitresses giving out complimentary beverages. You'll find a number of success stories, however lots of much more sob stories, even when folks arrive home in their jaunts into Nevada later playing the casinos. Ranked gamblers that see vegas report it is ideal to determine the amount of cash to perform before beginning and stay together with this particular limitation. After all, Las Vegas is an enjoyable destination for both conventions and vacationing, also it's lots to provide people whenever they clinic a few clouds of smoke at the gaming stadium.

6 LUXURY HOTEL OF LAS VEGAS

Searching for hints on just the appropriate destination for a stay on your Nevada vacation? Additionally, there are a lot of fantastic hotels in Vegas, however, these 6 definitely stand out.

1. Wynn lodge

the latest masterpiece by Vegas lodge legend Steve Wynn, the 50-story Wynn Hotel opened in 2004 with 2,716 rooms, an 18-hole course, 1 9 restaurants, and 54 private spa treatment rooms. His namesake lodge displays his remarkable art group, offers incredible shopping right on the website, also has a posh private lobby such as VIPs. And naturally, there's an amazing state of the art casino at its heart.

2. Bellagio

Constructed by Steve Wynn in 1998, the luxurious Bellagio has excellent rooms, awesome company, and also a remarkable water fountain show. Back in December 2004, before the Wynn resort started, the Bellagio added a unique 928-room Spa Tower, boosting absolute capability to 3,933 rooms. The Bellagio is indeed stark that they offer you a 50-minute figure bronzing cure with real dust.

3. THEhotel at Mandalay Bay

This all-suite exceptional hotel within the more expensive Mandalay Bay land has 1,117 rooms that aim for a far more cosmopolitan visitors than it is namesake parent. Each bundle is 725 square feet of luxurious together with three wellness televisions, including one in the mega-swank baths.

4. Four Seasons

The other swank luxurious hotel within the Mandalay Bay complex, the Four Seasons occupies flooring 35-39 and contains speeds substantially higher compared to normal $119-$349 of its parent. 4 Seasons company possess their own elevator and entrance, plus pools, spa restaurants and eating places at an adjacent construction.

5 Ritz Carlton at Lake Las Vegas

The Ritz Carlton hotel is a Half Hour's drive from the Strip, however, it is famous for it is golfing and outside activities. It nestles towards manmade Lake vegas where the water provides a refreshing alternative to summertime. This three-year-old Tuscan-themed resort still keeps a bit of the glitz: Guests may stay to a particular bridge with suites constructed to recreate Florence's legendary Ponte Vecchio (Bridge of Gold).

6. Venetian Resort Hotel Casino

Positioned nearby the Wynn, this 4,027-suite resort a Part of this Sands Hotel group. Rooms are richly appointed as well as the match is superb.

Therefore, there you've got it. Six amazing Vegas motels which won't ever fail to dazzle and therefore are sure to impress the most amusing repeat tourist. Just make certain to book ahead to get the best discounts on area prices and also snag hard-to-get reveal tickets well in advance.

THE LUXURY PLACE FOR LAS VEGAS FOR BRIDE AND GROOM

If you're getting married in Vegas, below are a few absolutely free sights to help make your wedding ceremony trip much more memorable.

1. The Bellagio Fountains to the Strip placed to a show that anyone can watch at no cost. Audio plays and also the jets of warm water dancing into your song. The displays last two to three minutes, depending upon the new music. It really is better during the night time once the fountains are all lit with beautiful lights, even contributing to the magic of their fountains.

Showtimes: Monday-Friday 3pm-8pm each hour, 8pm-12am just about every quarter-hour. Saturday-Sunday: 12pm-8pm every half hour, 8pm-12am each and every 15 minutes.

2. Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Gardens

You May Come Across the Botanical Gardens past the Bellagio's lobby. Enjoy strolling among the terrific seasonal screen of plants and blossoms. You can take photos.

3. MGM Grand Lion Habitat

In the casino you are able to see dinosaurs daily from 11am-10pm. This is a great experience and you'll find plenty of Lion Habitat souvenirs you may buy at the gift shop.

4. White Tigers in the Mirage

Watch Siegfried & Roy's white tigers into their particularly designed habitat in the Mirage. The public can find these majestic creatures throughout your daytime and day.

On the hour from 7pm-12am each day, you can watch the volcano. It truly is located at the front of this Mirage and looks very impressive contrary to the darkness of the nighttime sky.

6. Aquarium in the Mirage

Situated behind the front desk and also a must-see for aquarium lovers is just a 5 3 foot long volcano that boasts above 1,000 animals from all over the world like Australia, Fiji, and the Caribbean.

7. Daily at 7pm, 8.30pm, 10pm, and 11.30pm, the Sirens of TI stay series is actually a seventeenth-century battle between captivating sirens as well as a group of pirates. Positioned at front of treasure island and incorporating dancing and music, it really is a fun show.

8. M&M's Planet

M&M's Globe is following the door to MGM Grand. You may see a free 3D movie and also have a lot of fun researching the four floors which make up M&M's planet.

9. Circus Acts at Circus Circus

Each half-hour from 11am-12am each day it is possible to observe exciting stay carnival acts in the carnival midway.

10. Ethel M Factory

Just 15 minutes from the Strip, the Ethel M Factory Supplies a totally free self-directed excursion, seeing of the Living Machine and also a stroll through the Botanical Cactus Garden. Watch www.ethelm.com.

The aforementioned information was present at the time of producing. Las Vegas is changing therefore that it might be a very good notion to check that these completely free attractions are still available once you organize your visit to Nevada.

#Travel

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strangesmirk · 6 years

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Legend of the Galactic Heroes *spoilers*

What. A. Legend! I have so many words but none of them are coming out in the right order. Oh my god ...

First of all, the characters were amazing! From Reinhard and Yang Wen-li to Reuethal and Julian Minci, the whole cast were so authentic and their individual character development was enjoyable to watch from the beginning to the end. I loved all the small yet significant interactions even between supporting characters because they made the series feel much more real. The conversations and thoughts were so profound during most of it.

Yang Wen-li is my favourite character and I hate that he had to die alone. He was such an intriguing and lovable character, one that will be remembered. His wisdom itself is legendary. To me, he’s like the predecessor (or perhaps the successor, since the series is set in the future?) of L Lawliet, who is my all time favourite anime character.

Reinhard Von Lohengramm is my second favourite. The beautiful, passionate yet level-headed young man deserved to see his son grow but, like a shooting star, he was there to grant the wishes of the people. Which he did. He had so much presence and his values were solid. Another unforgettable and epic character.

Siegfried Kircheis was brilliant in the short space of time that we got to know him. A perfect friend who was loyal until his last breath, indisputably intelligent in ways that may have even surpassed Reinhard. Losing him felt like losing someone I knew in real life. Such a key character even after death, just like Yang Wen-li. He was my third favourite character.

My fourth favourite has to be Julian Minci. I literally watched this baby grow up and he made me proud over and over again. He was like a mixture of Yang And Reinhard, deep reflection combined with youthful passion. And he was clever too. His life journey was amazing and I'm so glad he got to avenge Yang in the end.

My fifth is probably an unpopular one, considering how many other characters I had to choose from, but I really liked Paul Von Oberstein. He wasn’t lovable and I honestly thought he was going to betray Reinhard in the end. I was pleasantly surprised when he didn’t and I realised his quiet cunning had been his form of loyalty from the beginning. I respected him for that and I would have loved to know more about his past.

There were so many more but I will especially mention the Twin Stars Wolfgang Mittermeyer and Oskar Von Reuenthal, Hildegard Von Mariendorf, Frederica Greenhill, Louis Mashengo (whose name I didn’t know until he died), Admiral Merkatz, Walter Von Schenkopp, Dusty Attenborough and Olivier Poplan. They were all brilliant in their own way. I hope when I finally get around to publishing my own stories, they’ll be filled with characters who are just as memorable as these guys.

I don’t think I could have finished this series at a better time. Though I wonder if it will be able to live up to the magnificence of the original, I have the remake to look forward to next year. And more ovas to watch in the meantime. Basically, I’m not ready to leave the universe that Legend of the Galactic Heroes created for me. Heh heh.

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imaginationsjournal · 7 years

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8-1 | Table of Contents | DOI 10.17742/IMAGE.GDR.8-1.5 | Ebbrecht-HartmannPDF Coming Soon!

[column size=one_half position=first ]Abstract | Visual media played a crucial role on nearly all levels of everyday private and public life in the GDR. This essay intends to readjust the focus on GDR visual history by investigating its margins, including ephemeral and semi-official film archives beyond the “official” state-controlled production of images. It does not reexamine such ephemeral cinematic remnants as historical sources but rather as traces that have to be understood in context and appropriated, arranged, and re-read, assembling them as fragments of the past. The specific focus here is on the works of Thomas Heise, a filmmaker who—although prohibited from producing and publicly releasing films during the existence of the GDR—managed to create during that time various audio and visual artifacts as contributions to archives for the future. [/column]

[column size=one_half position=last ]Résumé | En la RDA les médias visuels ont joué un rôle crucial dans presque tous les domaines de la vie quotidienne, qu’elle soit privée ou publique. Cet essai a pour but de réajuster le focus sur l’histoire visuelle de la RDA en examinant ses marges, en incluant les archives éphémères et semi-officielles au-delà de la production “officielle” d’images. Cet essai ne réexamine pas ces vestiges cinématographiques éphémères en tant que sources historiques, mais comme des traces devant être comprises dans un certain contexte, approprié, arrangé et re-lu. Cette discussion sur les traces cinématographiques éphémères ainsi que les techniques d’assemblage de fragments du passé explore l’oeuvre de Thomas Heise, un réalisateur unique dans son genre qui – bien qu’il soit interdit de produire et de mettre en circulation publiquement des films sous le régime de la RDA – a créé pendant ce temps des artefacts audios et visuels comme contributions aux archives pour l’avenir.[/column]

Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann | Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Archives for the Future: Thomas Heise’s Visual Archeology

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]orn in 1955, Thomas Heise belongs to what has been called the GDR’s first generation, born and raised under socialism. His father, Wolfgang Heise, was a well-known professor of philosophy at the Humboldt University, a member of the GDR’s intellectual “nobility” whom dissident poet Wolf Biermann praised as the only real philosopher in the GDR. After graduating from secondary school, Thomas completed a traineeship in a printing factory and, following the obligatorily military service, he began working as an assistant at the state-controlled DEFA film studios. From there he was delegated to study at the GDR’s state film school in Babelsberg during the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, after the school’s film production committee rejected one of his student films and severely criticized and then banned his follow-up projects, Heise left the school before finishing his studies and was prohibited from producing and publicly releasing any films. In the centralized and highly controlled GDR cultural sphere, this meant he had to seek alternative places to realize at this point his creative vision.

The possibility of working with dramatist and theater director Heiner Müller at the Berliner Ensemble theatre in East Berlin provided Heise with just such a space; he started working there in 1987, during the last phase of the GDR’s existence. According to Heise, he received a Panasonic MV 5 VHS camera from a West German film producer who had planned to make a documentary about Müller (Heise, “Arbeit” 272), which enabled him to collect visual material during the GDR’s last years. As Müller’s assistant he began observing and recording scenes at the theatre and documented social and political changes in East German society. Combined with other remnants of various film projects, Heise later gathered this footage in his film Material (2009). “Something’s always left over,” he states in the opening sequence of this film, echoing Heiner Müller’s dictum on “lonely texts waiting for history” (Müller 187). The voice over continues: “Remnants that don’t work out. So images lie around waiting for a story.” Material gathers these fragmented remnants of GDR history and develops strategies for making them readable in the present. In this sense, many of Heise’s projects since the fall of the Berlin Wall have focused on the status of films as archives and on archived films. His interest in these films lies not in their capacity to reveal otherwise missing knowledge about East German society but rather as testimony to potential and unrealized futures in the GDR, at least in the case of his own work. His methods of archiving and his archived films present aspects of political and social life that were mostly invisible in official visual records, even in those East German films and documentaries that attempted to communicate hidden and coded messages about social reality. As a result, these unfinished or locked-away movies are archives for the future, a collection of rejected, banned, and lost fragments that had a delayed entry into the GDR’s visual memory, after the country and its regime had disappeared.

Meanwhile Heise has become a renowned documentary filmmaker who has produced nineteen films in the past twenty-five years. Footage for five of them had been shot in the GDR but was never publicly screened. In addition to Material, which contains some of the footage that Heise shot between 1987 and 1991, these films include: Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? (So Why Make a Film about These People?), made in 1980 but publicly shown only after 1990; Das Haus 1984 (The House 1984) and Volkspolizei 1985 (The People’s Police Force 1985), both released in 2001; and Der Ausländer (The Foreigner, 1987) about Heiner Müller, which was finished in 2004. The first film that contained footage from the 1980s was Vaterland (Fatherland, 2002), and already Heise’s first full-length documentary made after 1989/90, Eisenzeit (Iron Time, 1991), was based on a previously unfinished project from 1981 (Dell and Rothöhler 13). These cinematic works function as archives for the future that introduced a specific form of visual archeology from the margins of East German society. After the Babelsberg film school administration rejected Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? Heise stored and preserved his footage in mostly hidden spaces or semi-official archives, among them the archive of the Babelsberg school itself and the GDR’s State Film Archive.[i]

What is an “archive for the future”? The notion is informed by Jacques Derrida’s proposition to consider not the archive’s function to preserve the past but its prospective function:

[T]he question of the archive is not […] a question of the past. It is not a question of a concept dealing with the past that might already be at our disposal or not at our disposal, an archivable concept of the archive. It is a question of the future, the question of the future itself, the question of a response, of a promise and of a responsibility of tomorrow. The archive: if we want to know what that will have meant, we will only know in times to come. (37)

The footage that Heise collected for the selected films I discuss here constituted archival material in precisely this sense: for an unknown and unspecific future, for frictions and transitions “to come.” Edited from this footage and screened after years of delay, these films respond to Derrida’s unrealized futures. As such, they resemble what Siegfried Kracauer in his final, unfinished book on history defined as “lost causes” and “unrealized possibilities” that constitute traces to be unraveled only in retrospect (199). Several of Heise’s films provide a model for this concept of the archives for the future and suggest the need to reevaluate these remnants and leftovers of East German visual culture as “lost causes” that simultaneously reveal a vanished East German reality and potential but unrealized futures.

Images Waiting for a Story

Heise’s insistence in the opening statement of Material that the “images lie around waiting for a story” ascribes a certain agency to the archival images appropriated in the film. Not merely resting passively in archives, this material is also actively “waiting for a story.” Horst Bredekamp calls this independent activity of images a Bildakt or image action. Referring to paintings and visual arts more generally, he claims that the interdependency of image and recipient includes an active role on the part of the image in which it can adopt the position of enunciator (59). In this sense, images not only passively reflect the past but also exercise a “formative power of form” that, like social actors or institutions, has the ability to shape history (Paul).[ii] Material contradicts the dominant perception of the Wende (the transition to German unification in 1989-90) as a narrative of progress, seeking a different mode that would create a different perspective on the same events. And indeed, Heise’s footage participates in the (re)shaping of history in just the sense of active images. Heise apparently assembles the footage from the years before and after 1989/90 in a contingent and unsystematic order: images of ruined houses in Halle give way to squatted streets in East Berlin; from Heiner Müller’s work in the theatre the film shifts to the mass rallies at Alexanderplatz in November 1989; statements from prisoners and prison guards are followed by images of left-leaning activists interrupting the premiere of Heise’s documentary film about East German skinheads, Stau—Jetzt geht’s los (Jammed—Let’s Get Going, 1992). This loose order provides no coherent chronology of the events, yet its fragmentary form challenges the viewer with demands to deal with the footage actively.

Historians of the GDR have coined the concept of Eigensinn or obstinacy to characterize a widespread but subdued form of agency practiced in East German society that complicates its image of an oppressive, totalitarian society. According to Andrew Port, Eigensinn has “become one of the most popular concepts used to describe a wide range of behavior in East Germany, all of which suggests that the so-called masses were not just passive victims, that they held ‘agency’” (5). Thomas Lindenberger specifically sees in Eigensinn an expression of a “sense-of-oneself” (32), a sensibility for individual agency based on “perceptions and interpretations of reality, conceiving of them as a factor of creativity in their own right” (51). Moreover, Alf Lüdtke, one of those historians who popularized the concept, relates Eigensinn to the medium of GDR photography and the constructive dimension of producing and perceiving images. In this context, he explicitly refers to examples from the margins of established and officially accepted image production, including images made by semi-professional and even amateur photographers (232).

Semi-official and semi-professional images such as those appropriated in Material constitute a specific visual element shaped by incompleteness and fragmentation. As documentary footage, it serves both as a source in the historians’ sense—i.e., a container of historical information that needs to be evaluated and critically interpreted—and as a trace in the Kracauerian sense mentioned above. The term trace itself, however, introduces ambivalent meanings. First, much like a footprint, a trace indicates an indexical remnant of past events. As a referent it connects different temporalities, but as a signifier, not by preserving the event itself. Second, a trace is often a detail that, much like a clue, can suggest a larger context. This dimension correlates with Kracauer’s notion of “lost causes.” A trace is a vestige, a part of a whole that exists only as a mosaic of fragments and voids. Hence, the concept of traces also corresponds to the practice of archeology as a technique of excavating past remains.

In his recent study on visual culture and memory Steve Anderson refers to archeology in a manner that can also illuminate Heise’s projects: “the process of understanding how the past is transformed into memory may be best described as an archeology in which the goal is not simply to uncover something that has been buried but also to discover how and why its meanings have changed and additional layers have been built up on it” (51). Films too can actively participate in this archeological undertaking through their specific visual techniques for exploring photographic material and cinematic documents. Simon Rothöhler, for example, identifies the independent agency of Heise’s visual remnants as the “Eigenrechtlichkeit des Materials,” an intrinsic right incorporated in the footage (97). He argues that documentary films pursue historiographical ambitions, not only by retelling stories from the past but also by actively writing history (10). Citing Kracauer’s analogy between film and history, Rothöhler claims that film’s inherent ability both to bear witness and to provide multiple perspectives on the past contributes to the understanding of past events (21). Thus, the collection of details and the focus on seemingly irrelevant aspects (23) resemble Kracauer’s idea of “lost causes,” which are constitutive for a visual archeology of GDR society.

http://imaginations.csj.ualberta.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ebbrecht_Clip1_Material.mp4

When Heise presented his film compilation Material at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival, his visual archeology had reached full fruition. Comprised exclusively of footage he had shot privately in the 1980s and during the Wende and its immediate aftermath, the film develops a set of specific cinematic techniques to investigate visual traces of the GDR with the goal of contributing to the writing of East German history. These include recognizable Brechtian strategies such as the use of camera angles that differ from iconic television images, the integration of intertitles to comment and reflect on the screened footage, and voiceover commentary to explain the film’s archeological approach—all aiming to “thematize the very historical apparatus and draw our attention to a set of unresolved historical contradictions” (Koutsourakis 252-53). In a significant sequence, for example, Heise appropriates footage of a protest rally from November 4, 1989 at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz. [Clip 1] We approach the speakers, some recognizable as leading figures of the regime, from an odd angle unlike official media representations. The image is peripherally located at the margins of the historical moment, embedded within the protesting crowd but not absorbed by it. This distanciation becomes obvious in the second part of the sequence when the camera—acting as what Dell and Rothöhler term a “micro-historical countershot” (12)—pans the protestors as they sing the communist anthem “The International.” Knowing neither the story these images would tell nor the history they could document, the footage captured a particular or even paradoxical measure of time. Because it clearly differs from the now-familiar television images of the Wende, it enables a different view on the over-mediated events. Simultaneously it preserves the potentiality of a future course of history that was never realized. When the camera turns away from the speaking politicians and focuses on the ordinary participants who start chanting “The International,” it points to the moment of an unrealized future through a precise interplay of images, voices, and intertitles that highlights the lines of the anthem and resonates as a response to the future from the past.[iii]

Focusing specifically on the peripheral visual angles, Rothöhler links this formal perspective to Kracauer’s thoughts about micro-history. While macro-history refers to a broad and universal concept that suggests a process of filtering and harmonizing divergent, fragmented, and ephemeral perspectives, a micro-historical approach respects the material’s inherent needs and demands (Rothöhler 97). Furthermore, the objects of history, here the footage itself, participate actively in the writing of history. The images gain historiographical agency. Indeed, Heise states: “The material provides the form. It’s like digging something up or turning it over. There is this strange idea that came to me all of a sudden and has never gone away: a story, considered longitudinally, is actually a tangled mass” (“Thoughts” 228). Heise’s film proposes new audiovisual constellations, which reveal hidden relations and at the same time refuse the common perspective of the always far-too-close or far-too-distant television images that define our visual memory of the Autumn 1989 events.

This formal strategy gives rise to a paradoxical temporality, which Kracauer describes as “historical relativity”: “Because of the antinomy of its core, time not only conforms to the conventional image of a flow but must also be imagined as being not such a flow” (History 199). This antinomian temporality is best expressed, according to Kracauer, in a spatial image: the “cataract of times” that is characterized by “‘pockets’ and voids [. . .] vaguely reminiscent of interference phenomena” (199). Films such as Material, which explore ephemeral “lost causes” through visual archeology, can be elucidated by the metaphor “cataract of times.” The montage of archival images as a tangled mass of visual remnants constitutes a cinematic cataract, which on the one hand establishes a visual flow through time and on the other encapsulates specific moments in time. Furthermore, Material’s temporality creates “‘pockets’ and voids” in which “unrealized possibilities” can surface. As thematic clusters, which dwell on specific, often even random and contingent situations, these pockets and voids interfere with the image flow. This disruption produces what Kracauer describes as “a Utopia of the in-between—a terra incognita in the hollows between the lands we know” (History 217). In such a cinematic constellation, the images themselves can incorporate Eigensinn as a form of agency, waiting, as Heise emphasizes, for a story and then providing the form for this story. Both Heise’s films and the visual remnants they appropriate possess the agency of Eigensinn. In this context, it is no coincidence that the idea of active images as it was famously introduced by W.J.T Mitchell in his book “What Pictures Want” is derived from Marx’s concept of fetishism, which Mitchell defines as “the subjectivity of objects, the personhood of things” (30). It should be noted that Heise’s archeological approach also adopts basic ideas of Marxist thought but then inverts them; his work transforms the Marxist concept of fetishism into an agency of images that undermines the ideological position of East German media in the same manner as his archives for the future invert the future-oriented pathos formulae of state officials (Sabrow).

Memories of Missed Opportunities

This inversion of the future-oriented but empty pathos of the GDR’s ideology resonates strongly in the 1991 film Eisenzeit, Heise’s first attempt to collect and preserve material for the future. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall he had visited the city of Eisenhüttenstadt, located close to the German-Polish border. Established in 1950 as Stalinstadt, the industrial city anchored by a new steel foundry was laid out as a socialist model town (the name was quietly changed in 1961). Yet when he visited once again in 1990-91, the city had started to decline, in tandem with the state that projected its ideology of scientifically planned progress at this site. Eisenzeit was not just intended as a portrait of a declining East German industrial area. Already in 1993, Marc Silberman had recognized in the film a “structural fragmentation of the film images and the textual commentary, a kind of aesthetic correlative for the memory of illusions and missed opportunities” (28). Indeed, Eisenzeit incorporates the memory of potential futures and departs from the lost causes of an unfinished film. A decade earlier, as a student at the Babelsberg film school, Heise had already envisioned a film project about young people in Eisenhüttenstadt. In this 1981 film with the working title Anka und… (Anka and…), Heise set out to portray the first generation of children born in what was called the “First Socialist City of the GDR.” Perhaps fittingly, the film about an abandoned youth generation, lost in a shattering storm of alleged progress that felt like permanent stagnancy, was never made. Heise later described the end of the project. When the team arrived at Eisenhüttenstadt, a production student from the film school told him that the municipal authorities had withdrawn permission to shoot in the city: “We didn’t manage to do any shooting, […] I could only make some audio recordings with Tilo Paulukat, one of the four heroes in the film” (Heise, “Thoughts” 224). Despite earlier support on the part of his teachers, the film project was ultimately cancelled by the school in cooperation with the municipal administration. The only traces left are a letter from the film school’s head of production to the city council of Eisenhüttenstadt, preserved in production files of the school, and the songs performed by the projected film’s protagonists, which Heise had taped and stored in his private archive.[iv]

Ten years later, after the GDR had ceased to exist, Heise returned to Eisenhüttenstadt and began working on a film that was to take up and continue the unfinished project. What had been planned originally as a portrayal of the city and its disenchanted youth—and implicitly a larger story about the GDR—became a visual essay about the vanishing state, a fracturing society, and a generation lost between the renounced past and a precarious future. The first full-length film produced by Heise, Eisenzeit negotiates these complex temporalities. On the one hand it is a cinematic time capsule, preserving a particular moment of transition, and on the other it assembles traces and remnants that were collected in the past for an indeterminate future, a future after an as-yet-unimagined transformation or end of the GDR:

Heise’s collage narrates the past by breaking off and recommencing again and again, as if the memories of friendship, home, lost dreams, and an unrealized film were open wounds. As with many such documentaries, the use of historical footage (here from 1980) serves both as a contrast to and an explanation for change: the present is meaningful only when seen historically. (Silberman 28)

Eisenzeit proceeded from and secured its unfinished predecessor. According to Vrääth Öhner, it incorporates a cinematic search for the leftover traces of the proposed Anka und… protagonists. Experiences, memories, and material remnants had been stored away, preserved for later use, and in the revitalized 1991 film project embody Heise’s search for traces of his own past and for remnants of an unfinished film (60-61). As Heise himself explained: “we used them [the audio recordings with Tilo Paulukat made in 1981] ten years after for the film Eisenzeit that I shot in 1991. At that time Tilo was already dead. He hang [sic] himself on a holiday week-end during his national [military] service. The only things remaining were the old recordings of his Neil Young song interpretations” (“Thoughts” 224). Once again “lost causes,” the tapes, and an unfinished film caught in a condition of waiting and postponed time initiate a cinematic dialogue between the present and the future.

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Figure 1

Eisenzeit links this concept of postponed futures to the experience of time in the late GDR, serving as a blueprint for Heise’s method of accumulating material and fluid experiences as “lost causes.” These possible futures are not realized, thwarted, or rejected paths of life and dead ends; they do not emerge from the course of history understood as a story of progress and success or of making sense. They exist instead in an in-between space, which is in our case the elusive space of film that absorbs the ephemeral phenomena of the physical world to protect them from forgetting. Eisenzeit condenses these thoughts already in its opening sequence. First the camera pans a wall mural depicting figures in the mode of the “revolutionary romanticism” that typified 1950s socialist realism, celebrating a vision of the future that never came to pass: workers, engineers, teachers, youth, and young families enjoying the Labour Day holiday [Fig. 1]. The colorful mural conveys a dynamic but uniform striving toward the future. The traveling camera intensifies this energy, animating the idealized storyline of constant progress. However, the contrastive interplay of image and sound emphasizes the implicit notion of postponement. Heise attaches to the images of a failed socialist dream a song about the failed capitalist dream: Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush.” Here, different temporalities of past, present, and future merge, yielding the interplay of the agency of lost causes, the socialist self-image embedded in the wall mural, and the songs taped by disillusioned socialist youth. Young’s song is explicitly linked to the story of Tilo and his friends, which was never told because Heise’s student film project had been cancelled. What remained ten years later was only his taped singing voice. The abruptly appearing film title dedicates Eisenzeit to Tilo and his friends. The sound of a moving train accompanies this title sequence, although we only see the image of a train after several more minutes (filmed through the window of another train arriving in Eisenhüttenstadt). The train is not only a vehicle that brings the viewers into the city, which comes into focus when it arrives, but the train also signifies the passage of time and resonates with Heise’s voiceover describing his archeological concept: “Something is always left over. Remnants that don’t work out.”

Failed Futures and Ephemeral Pasts

The way cinematic remnants of the East German past both encapsulated and preserved traces of possible but unrealized futures as well as failed opportunities is distinct. Official GDR imagery ignored such failures; evidence of failed opportunities documented accidentally was in most cases censored, suppressed, or concealed. Heise once described the difficulties of visually expressing reality in a society in which artificiality characterizes the visible and hidden clues or implicit references communicate the real. He transformed this specific East German interplay of the visible and the nonvisible into an aesthetic and historiographical approach: “In a dictatorship the idea is to amass hidden stores of images and words, portraying the things that people living under the dictatorship might have actually experienced, but that could not necessarily be seen or heard. Then, when the dictatorship was no more, those images bore witness to it” (“Archeology” 9). In other words, Heise reverses the direction of encounters with past time. While the historian seeks material, memories, and traces that persist in the present in order to reconstruct the past, Heise collects in the present material for the future, like an archivist or archeologist, hoping that the hidden traces safeguarded in this material reveal in hindsight the encapsulated time. Given the impossibility of contemporaneously releasing any of his films shot in the GDR, they functioned like messages in a bottle. As postponed documents they did not aim to address the present, but rather responded to an unknown future that was still inconceivable, potentially beyond the existing socialist state.

The primal scene of Heise’s archives for the future originates in his inadvertent experiences as a student at the Babelsberg film school. Located close to the West Berlin border in a suburb of Potsdam, the school was a paradox. While it provided a place to try out different approaches to filmmaking, its goal was to prepare students for employment in the state-controlled media. They learned about creative, even oppositional traditions of cinema history, but student films were criticized for being Neorealist or infected by New Wave tendencies in Poland or CzechoslovakiaHeise later recalled the film school as a “schizophrenic” place:

The rectory was in Stalin’s house, in the building where he lived during the Potsdam conference […]. I remember the dominant feeling was suspicion, coupled with a calm that simply ignored this suspicion, and an underlying fear. It was all schizophrenic and obviously not healthy. I latched onto the few foreign students and moved around as if I were in enemy territory. But I was obviously a native of this land, part of this. In any case, I was rather a loner. (“Thoughts” 223)

Today the Film University Babelsberg “Konrad Wolf,” successor to the former state film school, contains a continually growing catalogue of approximately 4,000 films of different genres and types from all six decades of the school’s history (Brombach, Ebbrecht-Hartmann, and Wahl 81). These include, for example, the earliest student films produced in 1956-57 by later well-known DEFA directors such as Jürgen Böttcher, Kurt Tetzlaff, Hermann Zschoche, and Ingrid Reschke. The erratic and unsystematic archive kept conformist and idealizing documentaries about East German society as well as films the administration criticized and even banned, premature exercises that randomly depicted GDR life as well as films that offer the perspective of the school’s foreign students. However, there are also archival voids and gaps, making it difficult to reconstruct the history of films that were produced but did not make their way into the archives (Löser). In the 1970s the school formalized the process of archiving, but only after the transformative turmoil following 1989 did the archive become an inventory to be explored in other contexts. This is how Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? came to see the light of day.

After two short film exercises in the first years of his studies, Heise completed a documentary about two brothers in East Berlin’s inner-city Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood who starkly deviate from acceptable role models of socialist youth. Surviving as small-time criminals, Bernd and his brother Norbert lack any prospects for meaningful employment yet possess a vivid sense of self-confidence (Öhner 57-58). Heise depicts the two protagonists as free spirits and situates them as antipodes to the dominant concept of the socialist hero. In contrast to traditional GDR documentaries focusing on thoughtful and socially responsible working-class heroes, this film draws attention to unemployed criminals. While the classical socialist hero incorporates ideals such as collectivity and solidarity, Heise’s protagonists are introduced as defiant individualists with a strong sense of self. Certainly, other GDR filmmakers such as Jürgen Böttcher had already undermined and transformed the concept of the socialist hero. Although Böttcher often featured representatives from the working class, the patient, observational mode of his films as well as the speaking subject in front of the camera communicate less visible and even hidden dimensions of social reality. Indeed, Heise’s film echoes Böttcher’s own student film from twenty years earlier, Notwendige Lehrjahre (Necessary Years of Apprenticeship, 1960), which also portrayed criminal youth but in this case living in a GDR reformatory. While Böttcher structures his film around the contradiction between a freedom-seeking, searching camera and a conformist voice over, Heise explores through his deviant and non-conformist subjects the margins of GDR society with its ambiguities and inner contradictions.

When Heise test-screened his documentary about the brothers before a committee of film school teachers and administrators, they were shocked: “Why should one make a film about these people?” one of the teachers allegedly commented (Keuschnigg and Heise). This statement became the film’s title: Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? The committee requested that he rework the film. Although he changed some parts for the second screening, it was subsequently banned. As a result, following two more cancelled projects, one of which was Anka und…, Heise decided to leave the school.[v] “The reason it was banned,” recalls Heise, “was the casual way the film portrayed those young men living their lives untouched by ideology, including taking their careers as petty criminals for granted, meaning the film’s author accepted their existence, as is, and simply wanted to explore it” (“Archeology” 9). This interest in exploration turned Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? into an archeological project. It contained images and sounds that could bear witness for the future, a way of life that was not shown in the official East German media. Although never screened publicly, it did land in the school’s archival storage. Locked there, it survived the GDR and preserved the voices and faces that were encapsulated in the material. Now, in hindsight, it offers the viewer significant hints about how to read the material. Some scenes address, for instance, the concept of archives for the future by referring to the formulaic pathos of East Germany’s ideology: “How do you imagine the future?” Heise asks his young protagonists in one of the film’s most striking scenes. Bernd answers that he cannot. The GDR’s ideologically overdetermined concept of the future cannot be applied to their world. Their small apartment is both a safe haven and a prison, a reality excluded from the state’s official self-image. Here, at the margins of society, the future only exists as an empty phrase proclaimed by socialist rhetoric, not unlike the desire for a peaceful world, Norbert’s girlfriend Regina’s response to Heise’s question. Bernd immediately counters by asking, equally rhetorically: “Do you really believe there will be another war? Then you can fight.” The film preserves communicative acts, statements, and attitudes absent from the official media. At the same time it formulates elements of a random “archeology of real existence,” as Heise once described his approach in the subtitle of a publication about his works (Spuren).

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Figure 2

Beyond observation and conversation, the audience also encounters visual sources such as photographs, which become “an essential part of Heise’s ‘archaeological’ work” (Estrada 46). Mostly taken from a family album, the photographs reveal the unfulfilled longing for nostalgically transfigured “better times,” but also trigger a mutual act of communication within the fragmented family. In contrast, another sequence uses audiovisual sources in depicting the silent gathering of the brothers and Regina in front of a television. [Clip 2] The broadcast images situate the moment through the West German live news footage, which relay the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and mass demonstrations in Cairo. At first sight, this scene refers to the commonly known but tabooed fact that many GDR citizens had more interest in watching West German broadcasts than their own media. This particular news footage also introduces not only the trope of mass protest and revolution but also international solidarity, all examples of the GDR’s pathos formulae. More to the point, however, the television images self-reflexively comment on the film itself. For a brief moment Norbert switches to a TV report about archeologists, which suggests the film’s own approach, an archeological excavation of social existence. Furthermore, the sequence’s final images from an adventure film or a fairy tale movie show a flying horse falling to pieces, a visual metaphor for the fragmentation of life as depicted in the film as well as for the fragmentary character of the archives for the future. [Fig. 2] Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? became a postponed document of everyday existence that revealed its traces only after the fall of the Wall.

http://imaginations.csj.ualberta.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Ebbrecht_Clip2_Wozu.mp4

Hidden Traces and Unrealized Possibilities

Many of the student films produced at the Babelsberg film school, even the more conformist examples preserved in the school’s archive, can be conceptualized as “lost causes” in the GDR’s visual memory. Produced in a protected, semi-official environment, they rarely realized their potential because they were screened only for a limited public or not at all. This characterizes their complex temporal character: a mode of existence I call archival delay. Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? not only documents and preserves social reality more or less randomly, but it also helps us see the invisible by means of the visible. Like Material and Eisenzeit, this film serves as a historiographical agent. Again, Kracauer’s comment on the “revealing power” of photographic film helps us read these films in hindsight as a cinematic trace (Theory of Film 16). Establishing the parallel between historiography and the photographic medium, he states: “History resembles photography in that it is, among other things, a means of alienation” (History 5). If the camera gives access to the margins of social reality, it also maintains a position of observation, which is an important precondition for a potentially reflexive approach. This interplay of closeness and distance, which is constitutive for both photography and film, points to an “intermediary area” (Kracauer 16), which historiography shares with the photographic. Kracauer then links this approach to the interest of the explorer: “Owing to the camera’s revealing power, he [the photographer] has also traits of an explorer who, filled with curiosity, roams yet unconquered spaces” (55). This too resembles the traits of an archeologist in Heise’s mold, bringing together cinema, historiography, and archeology.

Having quit the film school and faced with a dead end, Heise started to collect sound, footage, and other visual material that he deposited in his private collection or even in official archives—the only way to conceal his own images and thoughts in the “enemy’s institutions” (Stöhr 112). In the mid-1970s the GDR State Film Archive established the Staatliche Filmdokumentation (State Film Documentation) to archive raw film footage of everyday life not included in officially produced documentaries (Barnert 30). The idea behind this project was that in future times such raw footage would be useful for films that would retrospectively document GDR progress over the course of time. In other words, its goal was to preserve audiovisual documents of events and living conditions that were not expedient for the present self-depiction of the state but could be used to illustrate the past in future films. As a result, the Staatliche Filmdokumentation collected footage of inadequate housing conditions, poverty, and even the Berlin Wall, which would never have been shown in official documentaries. It did not exist to document taboo aspects of life in the GDR, but��corresponding to the concept of socialist realism—to record and archive typical aspects of everyday life (Barnert 31). For Heise this institution came closest to what he saw as a counter-archive within an official archive because it supported the collection of footage “for an unknown, far-off future” (“Archeology” 12). Hence, in 1984 and 1985 Heise was able to make two films for the State Film Archive, one about state bureaucracy and the other about the East German “people’s police.” Both projects were driven by his general interest in investigating how the state communicates with its citizens, but instead of cinematic documents of everyday life, which the Staatliche Filmdokumentation intended to collect, he produced traces. Moreover, embedded in the footage were nuanced instructions about how to read the visual documentation. Hence, these “preliminary films” were actively fabricated remnants to be preserved, which could be construed as a unique form of reversed archeology (Öhner 59).

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Figure 3

For Das Haus Heise collected footage together with his cameraman Peter Badel in an administrative building near East Berlin’s governmental center at Alexanderplatz. [Fig. 3] The film observes different departments of a district administration. It documents requests for state support, housing problems, and a civil marriage. Structured by weekdays, the preliminary editing emphasizes typical procedures within the administrative process, following the demands of the Staatliche Filmdokumentation. Yet the film also makes visible structures of power and the automation of the bureaucratic process. To this end its distinctive stylistic devices are long shots and repetition. Both emphasize the exhausting administrative routine and its machine-like operations. These cinematic devices parallel techniques of observational documentaries and the specific style of ephemeral films. Heise and Badel repeatedly witness the encounters of public servants with ordinary people and preserve on film the same phrases and unsatisfying answers about the critical housing situation. What counts as typical is the repetition of the same, revealing the bureaucracy’s structural dysfunction while articulating shattered dreams and disenchanted hopes.

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Figure 4

Although the mission of the Staatliche Filmdokumentation allowed only for raw film footage that could be used in the future for retrospective compilation films, Heise succeeded in producing meaningful films with commenting intertitles and carefully ordered montage. In contrast to the expected approach, he not only documented what he witnessed as GDR bureaucracy, but he also introduced a level of self-reflection or irony by emphasizing discrete sentences or phrases, which served as printed headlines for the film’s chronological chapters. [Fig. 4] This ambiguous interplay of captions, voices, and images furthermore foregrounds the relationship between word and image. These compositional techniques—contrast, captions, repetition—construct a communicative relationship with the viewer that makes possible its legibility in hindsight. This preliminary editing, which created a sense of ambiguity, transforms the archival footage into active images in Bredekamp’s sense, even as the films vanished into the archive, waiting for their time to arrive: “The workprint and the negative were expertly and safely warehoused and survived the frost, safe in the ice” (Heise, “Archeology” 12). Only after the end of the GDR did Heise manage to retrieve and publicly screen them on television and in cinemas; only then could those films, originally made for “archival purposes,” reveal their archeological potential (Heise, “Arbeit” 264).

Conclusion

The exploration of Thomas Heise’s unfinished cinematic material from the GDR leads to the concept of archives for the future as a strategy in-the-making that originated in his experiences as a student at the Babelsberg film school. Both the school’s film archive and the film collection of the Staatliche Filmdokumentation comprised alternative spaces where footage survived while waiting for an unknown future when it could reveal traces preserved from GDR social reality. Although institutionalized and part of the state-controlled system, these collections were characterized by their ephemeral status. Within a system of political control and inclusion, their ambiguity lent them the status of a partially extraterritorial space in Derrida’s sense of the archive (11). Heise was able to appropriate this space and create his own archives for the future as a place of consignment that would reveal its substance only in a state of delay. For this reason, my examination does not treat these ephemeral cinematic remnants as historical sources but rather as traces that need to be understood in a certain context, appropriated, arranged, and re-read.[vi]

Such visual exploration—in Heise’s words, a form of archeology—discovers the agency incorporated in the preserved images. Films from the archives of the future are driven by what Hal Foster has described as “an archival impulse.” Such works “make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present, [are] fragmentary rather than fungible,” and are less concerned “with absolute origins than with obscure traces […] or incomplete projects—in art and in history alike—that might offer points of departure again” (Foster 3-5). Heise’s archiving films generated techniques of visual archeology, while their fragmentary character evoked a future archive in-becoming, an effect he described as the unique character of Material, which he argues:

[. . .] does not provide a finished product. And it stands in open contradiction to the generally remembered images on public television of the fall of the Wall, which was called “The Change” [Wende] in German, and the annexation of East Germany by West Germany that was its goal. The film depends on the reality of possibility, such as it could be found in the utopian pictures from that era. It is about the audience and the stage, about up and down, the first words spoken after a long silence, and a silence that returns after that brief moment of freedom. (“Archeology” 15)

His films preserve traces simultaneously of a vanished state and of the rapid return of another precarious future. As a last, unrealized attempt to continue such an archive for the future, he proposed to document a meeting of DEFA filmmakers and personnel during which they could talk about concealed accusations, suspicions, hopes, and dreams. In Heise’s opinion such visual documentation would constitute an important archeological artifact, essential for writing, in the future, the history of East German cinema (Dell and Rothöhler 9). However, such a meeting never took place and no cinematic records from such a discussion were preserved. Yet in his postponed work as a GDR filmmaker Heise collected fragments and remnants and demonstrated how to use them as a starting point for visual archeology, understanding film as a mediator between the contingent present and an undefined future. In Heise’s words, “Archeology is about digging. It’s like the work of moles, who live underground. A mole is virtually blind, but it has a nose and a feel for finding what it needs. And it has the patience to collect what it finds. It collects provisions to last through the winter” (“Archeology” 9). By revealing traces instead of subordinating his footage to an artificial image of the past, his films enable the preserved images to actively disclose their present contingency to a future audience: to us, in a subsequent present.

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—. Spuren: Eine Archeologie der realen Existenz. Vorwerk 8, 2010.

—. “Thoughts in Form of an Interview.” Festival dei Popoli – Catalogue, edited by Vittorio Hervese, Festival dei Popoli, 2009, pp. 222-29. docplayer.it/4417745-Festival-dei-popoli-festival-internazionale-del-film-documentario.html

Keuschnigg, Markus, and Thomas Heise. “Thomas Heise: ‘Ich gehörte in der DDR nicht zur Filmfamilie’.” Die Presse. November 23, 2014. diepresse.com/home/kultur/film/4602624/Thomas-Heise_Ich-gehoerte-in-der-DDR-nicht-zur-Filmfamilie

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—. Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. Princeton UP, 1997.

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Müller, Heiner. “Verabschiedung des Lehrstücks” [1977]. Werke, vol. 8, edited by Frank Hörnigk, Suhrkamp, 2005, p. 187.

Öhner, Vrääth. “Gedächtnis der Lebensweisen: Zu Eisenzeit und Vaterland von Thomas Heise.” DDR Erinnern Vergessen. Das visuelle Gedächtnis des Dokumentarfilms, edited by Tobias Ebbrecht, Hilde Hoffmann, and Jörg Schweinitz, Schüren, 2008, pp. 56-70.

Paul, Gerhard. “Visual History (english version): Version: 1.0.“ Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte. November 7, 2011. docupedia.de/zg/Visual_History_.28english_version.29?oldid=106489

Port, Andrew I. “The Banalities of East German Historiography.” Becoming East German: Socialist Structures and Sensibilities after Hitler, edited by Mary Fulbrook and Andrew I. Port, Berghahn, 2013, pp. 1-30.

Rothöhler, Simon. Amateur der Weltgeschichte: Historiographische Praktiken im Kino der Gegenwart. Diaphanes, 2011.

Sabrow, Martin. “Zukunftspathos als Legitimationsressource: Zu Charakter und Wandel des Fortschrittsparadigmas in der DDR.” Aufbruch in die Zukunft: Die 1960er Jahre zwischen Planungseuphorie und kulturellem Wandel – DDR, CSSR und Bundesrepublik Deutschland im internationalen Vergleich, edited by Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, Jörg Requate, and Maria Köhler-Baur, Velbrück, 2004, pp. 165-84.

Silberman, Marc. “Post-Wall Documentaries: New Images from a New Germany?” Cinema Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, 1994, pp. 22-41.

Stöhr, Markus. “Deutschland: Thomas Heise.” Poeten, Chronisten, Rebellen. Internationale DokumentarfilmemacherInnen im Porträt, edited by Verena Teissl and Volker Kull, Schüren, 2006, pp. 108-17.

Image and Clip Notes

Title Image: Remnants of postponed futures; still from Material. Dir. Thomas Heise, Germany 2009. DVD Edition Filmmuseum 56, 2011.

Clip 1: Sequence depicting the protest rally on November 4, 1989, from Material (2009). Dir. Thomas Heise, DVD Edition Filmmuseum 56, 2011.

Figure 1: Wall mural from opening sequence of Eisenzeit (1991). Dir. Thomas Heise, VHS, Unidoc, 1993.

Clip 2: Sequence with television footage from Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? (1980). Dir. Thomas Heise, DVD Edition Filmmuseum 56, 2011.

Figure 2: TV-still from Wozu denn über diese Leute einen Film? (1980). Dir. Thomas Heise, DVD Edition Filmmuseum 56, 2011.

Figure 3: The administrative building at Alexanderplatz from Das Haus 1984. Dir. Thomas Heise, DVD Edition Filmmuseum 56, 2011.

Figure 4: Inter-title from Das Haus 1984. Dir. Thomas Heise, DVD Edition Filmmuseum 56, 2011.

Notes

[i] There are additional archives that preserved semi-official and sometimes even subversive films. Among these collections are films made in amateur film circles and in semi-professional studios related to companies and factories as well as works produced by underground filmmakers. See Forster; Löser (Strategien der Verweigerung); Löser and Fritzsche.

[ii] In this context see also Mitchell’s observation that we often “talk and act as if pictures had feeling, will, consciousness, agency and desire” (31).

[iii] The script of Material and additional documents are published in Heise (Spuren).

[iv] The letter can be found among a collection of files from the school’s film production department, which are today stored in the archive of the Potsdam Film Museum.

[v] Heise (Spuren) includes additional documents about Heise’s early film projects during his studies at the Babelsberg film school as well as files the Stasi collected about Heise with the help of several unofficial informers—fellow students and teachers alike.

[vi] Heise’s own collection of texts and documents emphasizes this character of archival material by choosing the title “Spuren” (traces) for the presentation material, leftovers, and written remnants (Spuren).

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 International License although certain works referenced herein may be separately licensed, or the author has exercised their right to fair dealing under the Canadian Copyright Act.

Archives for the Future 8-1 | Table of Contents | DOI 10.17742/IMAGE.GDR.8-1.5 | Ebbrecht-HartmannPDF Coming Soon! Abstract | Visual media played a crucial role on nearly all levels of everyday private and public life in the GDR.

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squadron-of-damned · 1 year

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okay so i have,,, a lot of questions for siegfried and his kids. not exactly from the list (and more like ICAs) but i just have to annoy my uncles.

for everyone:

what's your favourite colour? do you like walking barefoot or have you ever walked barefoot? would you take me to the park and have ice cream with me? btw, favourite ice cream flavour?

for siegfried:

how did you even survive being shot three times in the same place? like, HOW??? why swords? also yeah, you spent too much time in scotland, you could literally call yourself a scot. buy me a sword, i need one.

for wolfgang:

do you know what's a furry? how many dogs do you currently have and could i have one? ily you are very cool, keep doing u.

for markov (the fav uncle):

not a question but i want you to teach me how to stab people and cause non-lethal injury. when the fuck did you get married and why wasn't i a flower girl? please sign your cards.

Favourite colour: These are not going to be ICA, because Markov would lie and Siegfried wouldn't know the truth if it hit him in the head.

Siegfried could never pick just one, he liked combinations of earthy browns and light greens. If he had to pick one, he'd say maroon, and then mull it over until the end of his days if it was the right answer.

Wolfgang wears what he loves: Scarlet

Markov might wear his signature purple, but is actually fond of dark greens, emerald and malachite like

Ice cream:

Siegfried: Have you gone through your training today? Well, once you are finished, we can get ice cream as a reward. Strawberry is a good ice cream.

Wolfgang: Well, the dogs aren't going to walk themselves and I suppose we can stop by the ice-cream stall on the way. If it's omen. And if you promise not to make a mess. Scoop of pistachio?

Markov: Consider this counterpoint: Actual food. But we can spend the afternoon in the park and you may get ice cream on your own. If they have dark enough chocolate flavour, I might consider having one scoop too...

About the three shots:

Siegfried: It's not like a shot to the shoulder is lethal, especially if you keep your mind and stop the bleeding. I myself am more puzzled how three different people separated by some thirty years managed to hit me in the exact same spot.

Swords:

Siegfried: Fencing, either the fancy sport one or the historical one, make for a good sport. I picked it up first as PE and then stuck to it, because I liked it. Many people nowadays like to do martial arts, because in case of toruble they could also defend themselves, swordsmanship has the same benefit. It also has one additional advantage: People are intimidated by large visible weapons. If someone sees a sword strapped to your side, they aren't even going to start a fight. You can call that preventive damage control.

Siegfried: Besides it is a known fact that everyone looks better with a sword, it just has some people-magnetic properties. But if you carry a sword and don't know how to use it, you are more likely to hurt yourself or worse - make a fool of yourself.

Siegfried: Why would I buy you a sword? Go to the armory, pick one that you like. Something to match your height and strength.

The furry question:

Wolfgang: You aren't the first person to ask me that. According to Markov, who's a fountain of such useless trivia, furry is me but neon green with orange streaks. I hope that answers helps you, because it did not help me at all.

Dogs:

Wolfgang: So right now we are at sixteen. 6 are actually our dogs, these five puppies are for sale or taking if you promise to take good care of them. Yes, you'll get the papers, this is a certified breeding station.

Wolfgang:These three I am sort of looking after until their owners sort out their living conditions - it's not easy to do software and divorce and find a place big enough to live in with a borzoi.

Wolfgang: And these two poor sods got into an accident and the shelter couldn't really provide for them. Together they make for a whole dog and some spare parts. If you wanted to, you could take them, but they are high maintenance.

Being very cool:

Wolfgang: I am so cool it's frosty, lass. *winks with both eyes*

Stabbing people:

Markov: *hands you an anatomy atlas* Make a list of all spots that are lethal to stab, then I shall add in any of those you'll have missed. After that? Stab anywhere but there.

Marriage:

Markov: That is a private information. Nobody was invited, you get equal treatment to everyone else.

Markov: It's not like you've missed out anything. We signed some papers, then everyone went home.

Signing cards:

Markov: Why would I? Everyone knows they are from me. If someone does not know that, they either bother to find out or they do not.

#von karma fan family #markov von karma #ly u a good frog

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squadron-of-damned · 4 months

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Ooooh, dogs. Kiki likes dogs, though just on pictures and not actually being around dogs.

Is there some reason why Markov doesn't talk/see his family? Is he exiled or is it something he chose to do?

There's a lot of people who have a line striking their names. Is there some sort of explanation we get for that?

It does not sound healthy to try to call everyone else a failure. Have they considered not doing that?

There is someone with more than one spouse and only one child came out of it?

Markov has self-imposed on himself the title of the black sheep of the family from his father. He has also quite reasonably concluded that the obsessive perfectionism being rampart in the family is, you know, not healthy for anyone. (He has yet to figure out that it is not okay when he does it, either.) So it is more of his choice. Honestly if he was involved, he would act up to be thrown out, he loves to start fights.

You may have noticed that it is five generations of people. When people get too old, they tend to die. Frieda, Herman, Siegfried, and their spouses have passed away. Whether Manfred is or is not dead is up to debate and which AA canon you hold closer to your heart. His wife is certainly not around. Gandulf's wife Kathrina has divorced him and decided to cut all ties. Markov and Keks just do not want to be included.

It is super unhealthy. They have not considered doing otherwise.

Wolfgang is one of the rare fictional people who not only knows how to put a condom on but does so regularly! More interesting is how Gandulf managed to have three children over the course of 12 years with a woman he didn't know for quite some time he was married to.

#von karma fan family

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squadron-of-damned · 1 year

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pspspspspsps how do the von karmas hold their alcohol? also do they have a favorite drink?

I do believe that all the von Karmas have a solid stamina in their genes and they have been taught to be wine snobs early on. Nevertheless, the actual competency in drinking varies depending on training/exposure, and also size. Minors are not included in this list.

Frieda: Actually couldn't drink that much. Pleasantly relaxed after a glass of heavily watered down absinthe (no sugar)

Bernard: This is where the alcohol resilience came from. A beer guy to the extent that water was just what beer was made from, not something he'd drink.

Herman: Slow to get tipsy, but once tipsy very quick to get absolutely shitfaced. Not recommended, he was a violent type of drunk. Rum was his poison of choice.

Siegfried: Quick to get tipsy, had never toppled under the table so to say. That type of drunk who thought himself to be incredibly funny. Scottish whisky only.

Friedrich: I wager a guess that he gravitates towards brandy, but as long as it's liquid and has some class, he probably doesn't care much what precisely it is. Talkative when tipsy, crying over the unfairness of life when really drunk.

Manfred: Actually quick to get drunk, but then can stay drunk for very, very long without any change. Particular to white wine. He very much does not have problems with alcohol, he just needs a regular intake to make himself a little dumber, because if he was at peak operating capacity, he'd strangle the first idiot to cross him.

Griselda: Is bravely upholding absinthe class and decorum in spite of absolutely hating the taste of absinthe. Actually enjoys sweet wines of all colour.

Wolfgang: Nobody's ever actually seen him drunk-drunk. Was raised on whisky, but actually more of a mead person.

Markov: Doesn't drink much, but when he does, it's to knock himself unconscious, which takes a bottle and half of vodka (40%), and a lot of water come morning. He likes vodka for the honesty.

Helena: Lowest alcohol tolerance of the family, as she found out at her wedding. Likes ciders.

Leonore: I mean, you tell me, Ly, but if it was up to me, I'd say she is a gin gal. That type of a person who downs three gins with tonic and then says "huh, have my knuckles always felt like that?"

Franziska: Possibly the only person who'd be able to outdrink Wolfgang. Fond of funny colourful cocktails, but hates to be seen with funny colourful cocktails. It's a tough life to be Franziska von Karma...

Gandulf: Does not like the taste of alcohol, so he has been abstaining his whole life

#von karma fan family #alcohol

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strechanadi · 5 years

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26 for the ask meme?

Which male role is your favorite?

Physically cannot chose just one, so...

Albert from Giselle. I could and would fight for him till my last breath.

Onegin. I could and would fight for him till my last breath! Plus one of the best variations/pas de deux out there.

Wolfgang/Rothbart from Nureyev’s Swan Lake - like is anyone even surprised anymore?

Could also add Nureyev’s Siegfried to the mix, just to have them all. And Bourne’s Swan.

Not exactly shocking choices, I admit. But thanks for this particular question, since I am one of the people who thinks there are actually more interesting male roles in ballet repertoir than female...

I think all of these roles have such a potential, such depth, so much to discover, which is why I love them so.And why it is so hard to dance them the way I would be happy with, since I have maybe a tad too high expectations and simply basic needs for what I’d like to see in them... Does it make sense?What I meant to say is - I hate all those average Alberts, all those Onegins the-way-they-are-supposed-to-be-according-to-god-knows-who. Just give me your way of seeing and understanding the role you are dancing, that’s what interests me most, that’s why I’m still coming to theatre to watch one ballet over and over again. And I mean - every dancer would say they are making the role their own, but do they actually? Because way too many times I heard them repeating the exact same things over and over again and yes, I get it, there is some basic characterisation of one character or other, like Romeo is in love with Juliet and that’s just a fact, but then there’s so much more and it’s up to the real artist to think about it and then make it alive on stage. You may not seem as the ideal Albert/Onegin/Siegfried/whoever on paper, but if your interpretation manage to convince me that you ARE the character you are dancing, then I swear, I wouldn’t care. Just give me something to work with I would happily do so. But that’s yet another story completely...

#ballet #ask #albert #onegin #siegfried #wolfgang #the swan

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strechanadi · 5 years

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POB Swan Lake overthinking no. 783

I don’t have time for this, she said. I have to work on actual papers, she said. And here she is, writing shitload of words about another POB Swan Lake, since she’s a respectable, responsible adult human being.

(Dear @spinmelikeyoumeanit, this is purely your fault, please do know I hate you right now. Enjoy the madness and all the mistakes I am far too lazy to correct. If I’d be able to find them in the first place, that is.)

Shockingly enough, I was yet again asked to share my opinions on POB Swan Lake. And we all know the real meaning behind question „what did you think about SL?“ is in POB case „What did you think about Wolfgang/Siegfried relationship?“ Can’t quite believe that after the madness that was 2016 recording, someone think it healthy to let me dive into this once again. But you wanted it, so here we go!

You know, despite my academic title, that was supposed to made me educated in matters of history, theory, aesthetics, and who the hell knows what else of dance, I’m still just 5yo child in a overgrown body deep down. So watching anything on stage I am still very much driven by my feelings, my opinions formed by and based on my liking certain things and disliking others (and by disliking I mean hating – 5yo child, don’t forget that). I am all too well aware of my reviews, critics, even the supposedly professional ones, being strongly personal and not at all objective. (As I think is pretty clear even from bad English translations…) (And let’s not begin with the „is it even possible to write an objective, i.e. unbiased, review at all?“ let’s just… not.) (Because it surely is and it‘s just me, painfully incapable of doing so, and desperately trying to hide my own lameness by saying such things as „it can’t be done, so why wasting time trying?“) (However an essay on me and my way of writing things is absolutely different matter, that no one was asking for, and reasonably so. I’m going to shut up now and maybe even get myself to the point…)

Thinking about yesterday’s performance, there’s one feeling coming back constantly, no matter how valiantly I’m trying to fight it. It’s disappointment. And I HATE it! Partly because – come on, disappointment is not at all something one should feel after watching Nureyev’s POB SL, partly because it’s utterly absurd – the company was in top shape, 2nd and 4th act corps de ballet flawless, Nureyev’s choreography still one of the best I know. And yet…

It’s like I cannot be given POB SL I would like 150%, without questions, without reservations.

Don‘t get me wrong, I love the 2005 recording. It opened my eyes, it made me realize French technique is IT for me, it showed me Karl for the first time and made me fell in love with him (and with Wolfgang) the second he stepped on stage in prologue (if anybody ever tells you love at first sight doesn’t exist, well…). I utterly loved Agnes as Odette/Odile and after few years I realized I actually adore the costumes, the faded colours, the weirdly dreamy atmosphere. But even though I got to understand José Martinez and his interpretation of Siegfried at the end (like after 3 years, never said I was the brightest one), I still felt there’s something missing for me to be completely happy. (But then again, there was Karl the-best-Wolfgang-one-could-ever-hope-for Paquette, and that alone could make me happy for days!)

Knowing me you are probably a bit confused right now, because hello, you were obsessing over 2016 recording for literal weeks, you wrote utterly mad review on it AND another positively deranged essay on main characters, you were clearly unable to shut up about it for even 5 seconds, so what the hell are talking about now, not being 150% happy with any SL recording so far. Well yes, I got to see Siegfried I loved embarrassingly much, and Wolfgang/Rothbart that worked so well with him, that I was almost able to forget Karl (for exactly 27 seconds or so), but then there was Amandine, whose Odette was just… well… eh, nothing special, and as minor issue as it may seems, it still left the faintest bitter taste somewhere deep, deep down, thanks to which I simply couldn’t make myself to say – yes, this is the best Swan Lake of all Swan Lakes I’ve ever seen and you all should just stop with whatever you are doing right now and go watch it (even thought it was one of the best Swan Lakes I’ve ever seen and you all should stop with whatever you are doing right now and go watch it).

And now, now I got Odette/Odile with personality and strong charisma again, Wolfgang that is still more Rothbart that anything else, but that I got used to. And Siegfried, who I fucking hate. There. My inner child strikes again. In full force.

Honestly, Germain was my biggest disappointment. And kind of the only one, thinking about it now. It’s rather ridiculous, dismiss the whole performance because of one character, isn’t it? And that character being Siegfried. It’s not like there are not quite few SL with a bit boring princes, right? It’s kind of expected, not that shocking, is it? But hell – if I love Nureyev’s ballets it’s because he’s given his male heroes more time, more space, more dance, more personality. If I love Nureyev’s SL it’s because of Siegfried being the main character (and because of Wolfgang/Rothbart, because of corps de ballet, because of many other things, but you get my point, surely). This SL demands much from its main hero, and is not forgiving. Or maybe in reality it is and the unforgiving bitch is me. And rest assured I am. I love Siegfried. I love his character, the possibilities the dancer’s given in interpretation and I fucking love his variations. And Germain kind of killed everything, or almost everything for me. It is personal, of course it is, how it cannot be? But one just couldn’t mess one of the most beautiful variations ever made and expect I’d be just, you know what, whatever, your feet were pointed, your 5th position perfect, your technique overall crystal clear, and you are pretty, so who cares? Who cares about interpretation? Who cares about how it seems you have no idea, what you were doing 5minutes ago, what you are doing now and where your character is heading? God, Germain, please, this Siegfried is not just some other prince. He’s so much more than that. You could do practically anything with his character, built it the way you want, the way you are, the way you believe. Just use that pretty head of yours and what’s inside!

There were moments in act 1 (that, let’s be clear, sets the mood for the whole thing), that were promising. I loved what a child Siegfried was, how eager he was to pleased Wolfgang, what an adorable little puppy he could be. (And what is it with me and puppies lately?! First Armand, then one of Bourne’s princes, now Germain, when does this stop? I should choose different animal, seriously. Or different comparison altogether…), but the more promising these moments were – like the one, where Siegfried was looking at Wolfgang as (and I cannot describe it in any other way) a blushing virgin, which, and I swear, made me screamed so loud it could be heard across the ocean! - the more frustrating the outcome.

As I said yesterday, Germain’s Siegfried was like 5yo. You can tell just by looking at him the moment Wolfgang stopped him from following the other boys. I kind of expected Siegfried’s going to stamp his feet or something equally mature :D (but he just went and killed off my favourite variation) (I cannot watch it without screaming, so don’t make me just so you would know what exactly I found problematic).

If anything, his interpretation was simply incoherent. All right, you decided to portray your prince as a child, so pure, so clueless, fine. But if the only thing you can do is one smile, it’s too little, and it is really hard to make your character convincing and not simply annoying after 5 minutes. (Yeah, we got it, you are dreamy, starry eyed kid, cool, could you maybe do something different now? ANYTHING?) But OK. Still could work. But then there’s Siegfried’s variation at the end of act 1. And suddenly you are acting like the teenage prince who is about to marry, who is forced to become and adult and who is scared and has his doubts and all that, but – there was exactly NOTHING before in your way of building your character, that would justify such change. No self-doubt during whole act. None. Zero. Who are you trying to convince now? It’s not going to work all of sudden! And then, another ultimate favourite part of mine – Siegfried/Wolfgang duet. And Siegfried is yet again his unsuspecting, depending, pure baby self. And reading this, you may think, OK, well it could make sense, don’t be such a bitch about it. But it didn’t make sense. The whole interaction had so much potential from Francois‘ part and almost nothing from Germain in return (apart from his perfectly perfect legs – I swear, should he spent as much time thinking about his character as much as he seemed to be thinking about his technique, what an interpretation we could‘ve seen)!

Someone on twitter or somewhere said Germain did his variations beautifully, but they looked more like from concours, than from an actual performance. And that’s exactly it. Not just he became all melancholic out of blue, but the second he was about to do a sissone or a pirouette or a developpé or anything, he was all about technique, about pointed feet, about jump higher and I wanted to scream (so I did).

What hurts me the most is knowing it really, truly could have made sense. Were Germain’s presence more genuine, more real… (or at least consistent!)

Francois was his usual self as Wolfgang. Still more Rothbart in disguise (*sigh* I want Karl *more pathetic sigh*), smug smile on his face the entire time (I caught myself smirking with him, so he did something right, I’d say) (or maybe I’m just a bad person who would love too much to play with this Siegfried and make him suffer without him even knowing what’s going on) (I told you he was annoying, didn’t I?), he was aware of his power, he was using it freely, enjoying himself (maybe in a bit more reserved manner than in 2016, more for his sake, than for show, even though he could probably laugh at Siegfried’s face and the prince would still run to him happily). And there was Siegfried, all wide eyes, unguarded smiles, so out of touch with anything he physically needed Wolfgang to hold his hand to take him here and there (at one moment pretty disturbing idea crossed my mind – how it would be easier for Wolfgang to just have a leash… I sincerely apologize for my brain, I’d like to say it’s not my fault, truly, but it most probably is.)

Honestly – it was far too easy for Wolfgang this time. This Siegfried believed him implicitly, without question, without doubt, completely, unreservedly, with everything he has, while having no idea, while being completely unaware of a single thing going on around him, not to mention with him. Their relationship was (or could have been) (sorry, inner child, remember) even more uncomfortable, with all those touches literally all over prince’s body – his bare neck, his chest, his arms, his hands, and yet there was anything remotely sexual (not even intimately intimate – if it makes sense) between them. Which was a good thing, because that would be pure child’s pornography…

In act 4, Francois‘ Rothbart was positively mad. Like cartoon villain mad. And it is so not for me… (give me Karl, please, give me all his performances, and if it’s too much, give me just his 4 acts, that’s all I would ever ask for, pretty, pretty, pretty please with the whole cherry tree on top)

You know me (well you don’t, but you do in a way, which is terrifying and I hope you all have already come to terms with me have to kill you some day), I love looking for things, for meaning of this and that, analysing every tiny bit of one interaction between characters (i.e. overthinking everything and making up more and more insane theories) (this applies on ballet only, I’m literally unable to see anything that is not canon in literature/tv shows/films/whatever, so if I had the misfortune of stumble over fandom of one thing or another, I’m more often than not at loss for what the people are talking about, but that is probably just my own autism showing…) – but with this SL, this Siegfried, I had to try unreasonably hard to see something. And that’s simply wrong. The (over)analysing should be an outcome of pure need, that was brought into life by strong emotions you felt while watching something, it should come naturally. There should be no effort, no trying… It’s quite easy – heart, then mind. If there’s nothing in your heart in the first place, why bother your poor, overworked brain with it? While it probably doesn’t even exist. It doesn’t make sense.

So to sum this whole SL up, here you have my ultimate conclusion:

Siegfried wasn’t just autistic, he had serious mental affliction. I mean, weren’t Wolfgang right sadistic bastard, he could tell Siegfried to jump out of window, be done with it and spare himself all the effort.

And since it’s 3.30 AM again, I’m going to bed. To sleep. Not watching Siegfried variations when they were perfect and therefore the world still made sense… (God, it is I who have mental affliction!)

#ballet #swan lake #le lac des cygnes #overthinking #who needs sleep anyway #I clearly hate myself #woohoo!!!#also I'm clearly Karl-deprived #looking at you POB!

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