Despite his conception of the Gesamtkunstwerk (‘total work of art’), Richard Wagner died shortly before the inception of cinema, thus ensuring that any future Gesamtkunstwerks would have at least one more art form to potentially incorporate than he ever did. While many a film score’s use of leitmotifs would eventually grow out of his wake, cinematic adaptations of Wagner musikdramas (or, for that matter, any opera) are rarer on the ground. Attending the 150th anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival may be out of reach for most people reading this description, but Spectacle is pleased to offer a chance to see two rarely-screened Wagner kino adaptations. A one-time film director adapts the first mature Wagner work in Joachim Herz’s 1964 East German production of THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, and an arthouse legend adapts the last in Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s 1982 West German production of PARSIFAL. Despite the contrasts, both utilize all the possibilities of cinema to create Gesamtkunstwerks for a post-Wagner world – right down to both needing to reckon with how his anti-Semitism had influenced the Nazis. Channel your inner Ludwig II and be a patron of Wagner’s arts this August at Spectacle.

Special thanks to Ruben Schwaben (DEFA Film Library) and Viviana Kammel (Filmgalerie 451).

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
(DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER)
Dir. Joachim Herz, 1964
East Germany. 101 min.
In German with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 8 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 21 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 29 – 10 PM

TICKETS

In order to escape her narrow and restrictive life, Senta, the daughter of a rich shipowner, seeks refuge in her fantasies and dreams. In this realm of imagination, a bold and restless sea captain appears to her—the Flying Dutchman—who is cursed to wander the seas forever. In her obsessive dreams, Senta frees this man through her love for him.

“The only East German film to include elements of horror and vampire genres, The Flying Dutchman was the first complete Wagner opera ever made on film. The script clearly separated the real from the imaginary; in the original 35mm format, this was reflected visually by changing the image size—from Academy ratio for reality, to wide-screen for fantasy. The film was produced with a groundbreaking 4-channel magnetic soundtrack.” – DEFA Film Library

“DEFA’s The Flying Dutchman is considered the first attempt to film a Wagner opera in its entirety, although, in point of fact, it too reworks the story to suit both the cinematic medium and the political viewpoint of the GDR. It was directed by opera director Joachim Herz, who, perhaps because it was his first (and only) film, opted to experiment with state-of-the-art sound and film techniques. Director Herz dramatically changes Wagner’s opera from one about a ghostly event to the reveries of a young woman named Senta who is infatuated with the story of the Flying Dutchman. To separate reality from Senta’s imagination, Mr. Herz uses two different film aspect ratios. Whenever we are watching Anna in the real world, the aspect ratio is [in 1.67:1]. When the film shifts to Senta’s dream world, the screen slowly opens up to the 2.35:1 dimensions of DEFA’s Totalvision (the same as Cinemascope). In other films that use multiple aspect ratios, the change in screen aspect is handled as edits, but Herz wanted these switches in perspective to flow like the film’s lush score. To do this required sophisticated in-camera techniques involving animation frames and an American Mitchell camera that accepted double reels. This process meant that everything had to be shot with the larger format while the animation frame was simultaneously running through the camera. That this worked at all is a testament to cinematographer Erich Gusko’s skill with a camera.” – Jim Morton

PARSIFAL
Dir. Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, 1982
West Germany, France. 245 min.
In German with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29 – 5 PM

EVENT TICKETS ($5)

Please note that this film does NOT feature an intermission.

A psychological interpretation of the opera mixing in references to the history of Germany, Wagner’s life, German literature and philosophy. The action is centered on Wagner’s death mask. Syberberg’s version was made on the one hundredth anniversary of the opera’s first performance at Bayreuth in 1882. As in his earlier films, Syberberg shot his Parsifal completely in-studio.

“It’s as if Wagner’s hypnotic allure and Brecht’s intellectualized alienation have been somehow mystically united.” – John Rockwell

“Unlike the Ring or Der Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which were both gleefully embraced by the Nazi Party as expressions of good German nationalism, Parsifal already had a contended status among the upper-level Nazis: it was never “banned”-banned, but it was withheld from being produced at Bayreuth starting with the 1940 festival (that is, the first one after the outbreak of World War II), despite having been produced at the festival every year of the opera’s existence other than 1896. The obsession with Christology, the focus on spiritual and religious transcendence, and the embrace of non-violence and the rejection of earthly power all contributed to the opera being viewed with some suspicion by Nazi leadership, including, if we are to trust the word of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler himself. Which is perhaps part of why Syberberg picked it as the capstone to his ‘unwieldy epic-length cinematic dissections of Germany history’ project: the opera is in a paradoxical space, at once tainted by Nazism (as all Wagner operas pretty much have to be), and yet untainted by Nazism (because it was the one Wagner opera that made the Nazis nervous).” – Timothy Brayton

The colorful, quirky style that is associated with the members of the West Coast experimental film scene has long been defined by the foundational work of Bruce Baillie, Robert Nelson, and Pat O’Neill. Despite being every bit as critical to that scene’s origins and their subversions of New Age aesthetics, the small body of work that Will Hindle (1929-87) left behind has frequently resulted in many of his 11 films being far more discussed than seen. The increasing rarity of prints in good condition has further contributed to a certain obscurity, despite praise from writers such as Amos Vogel and Gene Youngblood. Happily, the breadth and depth of his work has experienced something of a revival in appreciation, with Joshua Minsoo Kim of Tone Glow putting together the first complete retrospective of Hindle’s filmography, Unknown Nostalgia, at Chicago’s Sweet Void Cinema in December 2024. Spectacle followed suit with their own complete retrospective, Unearthly Poetic Visions, in July 2025.

Spectacle is pleased to bring back a 6-film sampler of Will Hindle’s films due to collective demand for another dip into the pool. Whether you saw these films previously or not, it’s likely that this might be the last chance for New Yorkers to see the only good print of Watersmith in existence for quite a while, along with the rarity of theatrical screenings for his other titles. Come on in, the water’s fine.

Co-programmed by Andrew Reichel and Giovanni Santia. Special thanks to Joshua Minsoo Kim, Mark Toscano, Canyon Cinema, the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, and Lynne Sachs.

SATURDAY, JUNE 13 – 5:15 PM
SUNDAY, JUNE 14 – 5:15 PM

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NON CATHOLICAM
1963. United States.
10 min. 16mm.

Soundtrack by Paul Hindemith. Cinematography assistance from Bruce Baillie.

“In 1958, Will Hindle shot, edited, and printed a film called Catholicam, which does not seem to have been circulated. He returned to this film in 1963, re-edited and augmented it with additional material, and released it as Non Catholicam.” – Mark Toscano

“Another granddaddy of the American Personal Film movement. Set to the music of Hindemith, filmed entirely in a Gothic cathedral and edited to precision counter-point. An almost somber beginning that rises to brilliant exaltation. As with Pastorale, extremely innovative for its day and even now. Entire film was an ‘optical print’ to retain light nuances.” – Canyon Cinema

FFFTCM
1967. United States.
5 min. 16mm.

AKA Fanfare for the Common Man. Music by Aaron Copland.

“Renewed income and the ability to work on one’s own produced this feeling and work. A Promethean awakening, de-bonding of the human spirit … reaching for the unfiltered blaze of Light and Life. The driving sounds of heart beat, fanfare for the Common Man and devotional chants. A time of sharing … a touch of vision in the night.” – Canyon Cinema

“FFFTCM arrived in mid-1967, and it was like a 180-degree turn. It was a film that bet violently on life… for being, for advancement, for the right to look for and get a job. It didn’t look like it was going to be distributed, but a review by Lenny Lipton helped and they bought it. More than one person has told me that they see it as an orgasmic movie. In his new book, R. Pike, from Creative Films, says it’s a movie about ‘male masturbation.’” – Will Hindle

CHINESE FIREDRILL
1968. United States.
25 min. 16mm.

Cinematography assistance by John Luther Schofill.

“Hindle’s prize-laden work of cataclysmic visual and mental schisms stands as one-of-a-kind. Human universals crammed into a moment (infinity?) in one small enclosure (the universe?). The identifying viewer will judge.” – Canyon Cinema

“Many people appear in the movie (again, it’s like a first time), but very briefly, in the manner of memories or visions. The film focuses on the whirlpool of the room/cell/universe in which a Hungarian gypsy lives. And there is a disjunction. The editing will take the film even further. The Savage 1967.” – Will Hindle

BILLABONG
1968. United States.
9 min. 16mm.

“Winner of the main prize of the Oberhausen (Germany) International Film Festival, Billabong has gone on to even greater acclaim than its much-awarded predecessor. Now in collections and archives on three continents, Billabong … mates verité camera and violently creative and master editing … revealing the mood of youths contained by the government. On location in Oregon. Empathetic in the extreme.” – Canyon Cinema

“A remarkably intimate and at times palpably erotic study of boys in a Job Corps camp on the Oregon coast, Billabong is a sensuously humanist encounter with alienated youth, told in the filmmaker’s trademark undulating lap dissolves and scintillatingly grainy high contrasts. Loneliness and longing-for-elsewhere alternate with horseplay and horniness, and hijinks around urinals and pool tables culminate in an ecstatic moment of onanistic release.” – Chuck Stephens

WATERSMITH
1969. United States.
32 min. 16mm.

“Perhaps Hindle’s magnum opus to date. New York Times critic Vincent Canby calls Watersmith ‘beautiful abstract patterns of lines of energy. A kind of ode to physical grace.’ A deceptively ‘calm’ film requiring an equally calm audience and a superior soundtrack reproduction system, Watersmith weaves its lone visual threads closer and closer until the screen is awash with multiple levels of artistic achievement, technical supremacy, physical and mental demands and rewards … for the relaxed and receptive viewer. Not a flash and funk work. A film to be seen again and again.” – Canyon Cinema

“Watersmith is a mind movie. Hindle turns his film into a celebration of the freedom of bodies moving through water, the implacable grace of human forms freed from gravity. It ripples between reality and abstraction. There hasn’t been a movie quite like this since Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia.” – Entertainment World

“‘I was photographing champion swimmers,’ Hindle said of the Olympic athletes he shot, ‘and I wanted to be a champion filmer.’” – Joshua Minsoo Kim

SAINT FLOURNOY LOBOS-LOGOS AND THE EASTERN EUROPE FETUS TAXING JAPAN BRIDES IN WEST COAST PLACES SUCKING ALABAMA AIR
1970. United States.
12 min. 16mm.

“Presaging details and intent of Charles Manson’s cult and actions was not meant to be one of this film’s greater attributes. It was, however, filmed uncannily months before the facts were known. The resemblance is oblique. The film: the mysticism of a ‘calling,’ a journey to be made, a vision in mid-desert to behold and oneness with it all. Filmed in Death Valley.” – Canyon Cinema

“The title of celebrated ’70s experimental-filmmaking mainstay and current cine-avant-garde Invisible Man Will Hindle’s Saint Flournoy Lobos-Logos and the Eastern Europe Fetus Taxing Japan Brides in West Coast Places Sucking Alabama Air (1970) is almost impossible to remember. The film itself—a gorgeously photographed, fluidly edited slice of fin de siècle ’60s love and dread, shot largely in Death Valley, and both of the Manson Family moment and altogether adrift in time—is impossible to forget. In it, a shirtless bearded dude in flour-sack yoga pants treks and stumbles barefoot through the white-hot desert, pausing occasionally to assume the lotus position and radiate silent “om”s into the shimmering heat—Gus Van Sant’s Gerry (2002) as one man show. Dude might be ‘Saint Flournoy Lobos-Logos’ (whoever that is), we’re never really sure. The ‘Eastern Europe Fetus’ shows up, “crawling” through a fiery mandala in some indeterminate space and looking like a cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey’s (1968) star child and one of those hideous little edible chocolate babies. There are lens flares and eclipse halos, dude’s supple movements mesmerizingly match cut and complexly lap-dissolved one into the next, and there are more dudes, and nudes, dancing on balconies to bongos and the tinkling of ice cubes in drink glasses echoing down through the canyon…then the orange slash of a shadow-play knife in the night.” – Chuck Stephens

TRT: 93 min + reel changes