Der Tod der Maria Malibran
This film loosely uses the real on-stage death of 19th century diva Maria Malibran as a point of departure. Most of the film is set in tableaux, with heavily made-up women standing still while lip-synching opera arias or American popular songs. The film begins in a theatrical manner with a close-up of two women standing as if living funeral steles. German opera arias are played on the soundtrack. A town is seen across a river against a sunset. The scene cuts to a woman running across a hillside to meet her love, another woman. The women kill each other. The next tableaux presents a woman in blackface singing the blues in English ("St. Louis Woman"). Four women appear in the following tableaux, standing while a naked woman crawls across the floor before them. On the soundtrack, a man's voice is heard reading in English lines from Shakespeare on war and battles. A woman's voice is then heard reading Ophelia's lines from Hamlet, followed by the scene of a woman dressed as Ophelia (wearing flowers in her hair and a loose gown) lip-synching the American song "Ramona."
Film, German, [1971]
[Werner Schroeter], [Germany], [1971]