mdblist.com logo The Best Hartmut Bitomsky Directed Movies


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7.8
/11/
10
/1/

Highway 40 West (1981)
"Highway 40 West" (1980/81) is the first of a series of documentaries by Hartmut Bitomsky (born 1942 in Bremen) which brought him international fame. Each of these films is dedicated to both, a specific and title-giving object and its historical-critical analysis. Such as in "Highway 40 West": For a time span of 169 minutes, the film shows Bitomsky’s emblematic US-road trip with a rented car on the eponymous road number 40, crossing the country from East to West. From early travel routes of the "Native Americans" to the trails of early colonizers, this street is loaded with American history - and with the present ruins of the American dream, which Bitomsky indulgingly captures on film. He himself appears as actor/author, conducting innumerable interviews, shooting the landscape, the diners and hotels - and his sonorous narrator’s voice reviews what is seen, and tries to understand and make it understandable.
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6.3
/67/
30
/2/

B-52 (2001)
A detailed, historical documentary about the construction and capabilities of the United States military's B-52 bomber.
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5.2
/8/
10
/1/
50
/1/

Imaginary Architecture, the architect Hans Scharoun (1995)
Hans Scharoun has built houses which show not only structural substance and aesthetic forms but also how human beings should live in buildings. This depiction can only be imaginary - like reading invisible writing on walls. Bitomsky's film looks at several of Scharoun's buildings.
poster
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10
/1/

Playback (1995)
The film documents a debate about early 20th century films, mainly 1910 to 1920, from short news reels to excerpts from full-length movies. At Amsterdam's Film Museum, film directors, students, and film researchers and archivists look at the moving images and discuss their meaning, in the social and technical contexts. Moody live music was added to the edited film.
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10
/1/

Das Vöglein (1966)
Short thriller about an older woman and an escaped convict.
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10
/1/
40
/1/

Johnson & Co. and the Campaign Against Poverty (1968)
Clearly influenced by Brecht and Jean-Marie Straub, criticizes the reduction of human relations to economic relations as well as the US imperialism in Vietnam.
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10
/1/

Kino/Kritik. Über die Wörter, den Sinn und das Geld von Filmen (1974)
N/A
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10
/1/

Die Teilung aller Tage (1970)
A worker is sitting at a conveyor belt on which light bulbs are coming in at regular intervals. He takes the light bulbs from the conveyor belt and inserts them into a testing device. The light bulbs light up briefly and bathe the scene in glistening light. The worker puts the light bulb back on the conveyor belt, looks directly into the camera and shouts against the noise of the machines: "We create wealth."
poster
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7.8
/16/
10
/1/
80
/1/

Die UFA (1992)
Die UFA, a film essay about the eponymous German studio.
poster
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7.0
/11/
40
/2/
52
/4/

The Cinema and the Wind and Photography (1991)
How should one define the relationship of documentary film to reality? Does it aim at authenticity or is it rather an “exile of reality”, a “foreign homeland of reality”, where the pre-filmic, stripped of its immediacy, comes to its own right in the first place? Where in its mis-en-scène would be the line drawn to a fictional film, if drawing a line would succeed at all? These are the kind of questions this film essay on the history and aesthetics of documentary film deals with in its seven chapters.
poster
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6.3
/7/
10
/1/
50
/1/

Barrage and Bunker (1991)
Barrage and Bunker is an essay film about the (narrative) space imagined by fiction films. Reflections and associations about movement in space are the basis of every kind of story-telling. The film is sometimes referred to as part of Bitomsky's Cinema Trilogy. Sequences from over 20 movies are quoted and commented on by a team of three "researchers" (Bitomsky, Petzold, Tanner) in a sort of laboratory. TV-monitors, production stills and screenshots are used as well as quotations from books. A long night's work.
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62
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6.3
/158/
60
/4/
64
/7/

Dust (2007)
A look at the pervasive power of dust from its tiny particles settling in unseen places to its ability to cause illnesses and create the cosmos.
poster
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7.5
/13/
10
/1/

Something Self Explanatory (15x) (1971)
An educational film about an aspect of political economy. The concepts of use value, barter value and labor as a commodity are the subjects; they are intended to introduce the process of understanding the theory of value of work and the law of values, alienation and fetish.
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5.9
/14/

Bent or Broken (1975)
A darkly comedic exploration of personal struggle and societal pressure, we follow the story of a middle-aged man named Max, who is trapped in a life of monotony and frustration. After a series of unexpected events, Max finds himself in increasingly absurd and challenging situations, forcing him to confront his own limitations and fears. With sharp humor and a critique of societal expectations, the film delves into the pressures that shape our lives and the lengths we go to in order to break free from them. A poignant yet quirky tale about bending to life's demands or breaking under the weight of it all.
poster
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9.0
/17/
10
/1/

Einmal wirst auch du mich lieben. Über die Bedeutung von Heftromanen (1973)
N/A
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10
/1/

3000 Houses (1967)
“Six young people move through a city in order to establish the starting point of their joint action. But they can’t agree on the topic. In the end everybody goes their own way and leaves the city.” - Hartmut Bitomsky
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7.3
/31/
50
/4/
64
/5/

Cinema and Death (1988)
“Why does cinema need death, when it can’t show it?” The filmmaker’s monologue and the discourse of images meet
poster
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8.3
/27/
35
/2/

The VW Complex (1989)
Documentary about the history and the fabrication of Volkswagen.
poster
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7.8
/38/
10
/1/

Reichsautobahn (1986)
Documentary about highway constructions in Nazi Germany.
poster
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7.4
/15/
10
/1/

Deutschlandbilder (1983)
This compilation film focuses on the contents of Nazi propaganda shorts such as "The Beauty of Work" (1934), "We Have No Problems" (1933), or "The Will To Live" (1944) that preceded the feature films in German movie theaters between 1933 and 1945. The shorts reveal that men and women workers were idealized, uniformity was stressed, optimism in the face of adversity was the goal, and, in general, all the classic lies that dictatorships use to control and mold their citizens are featured.
poster
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5.0
/5/

Caravan of Words (1977)
The two-part film by Hartmut Bitomsky is an "essay film with a plot." It revolves around the transportation of books that are meant to go from Munich to Cologne. It's about reading the right texts, deciphering secret messages, the violence that emanates from books and sometimes doesn't return. At the same time, it's about cinematic storytelling; suspense arises where it doesn't belong and gets resolved when no one expects it. (Subtitle of Part 1: "Wandering Plot," Part 2: "At the Inferno of Silence")
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Isaak Babel - Die Reiterarmee (1990)
N/A
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Shakkei. Geborgte Landschaften (2017)
Bitomskys new film was inspired by the Japanese shakkei, which stands for the “borrowing” of a landscape. Japanese gardens are often planned so that a found “natural” landscape is connected with designed elements. For his film Bitomsky rediscovers his own material – like STAUB (2007) and B-52 (2001) – and creates a new whole. (Marius Babias)
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Telekritik: Unter einem Himmel schwarz von Häusern von erloschenen Bränden schwarz (1975)
N/A
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Der Schauplatz des Krieges. Das Kino von John Ford (1976)
Documentary about the films of John Ford.


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