Film Screening: Baal

For the final film in our Germany on Campus series, we are proud to present Baal (1970), a film lost for nearly half a century and only recently restored for viewing. Director Volker Schlöndorff transported Bertolt Brecht’s 1918 debut play to contemporary West Germany for this vicious experiment in adaptation. Oozing with brutish charisma, Rainer Werner Fassbinder embodies the eponymous anarchist poet, who feels that bourgeois society has rejected him and sets off on a schnapps-soaked rampage. Hewing faithfully to Brecht’s text, Schlöndorff juxtaposes the theatricality of the prose with bare-bones, handheld 16 mm camera work, which gives immediacy to this savage story of rebellion. Featuring a supporting cast drawn from Fassbinder’s troupe of theater actors that also includes Margarethe von Trotta, Baal demonstrates the uncompromising vision of its director, a trailblazer of the New German Cinema.

This screening is presented in partnership with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. Pizza and drinks will be served.