During the period in the 1920's that Gerhard Lamprecht was directing narrative films based on working class life in postwar Berlin (see SLUMS OF BERLIN (DIE VERRUFENEN) & CHILDREN OF NO IMPORTANCE (DIE UNEHELICHEN) and THE PEOPLE AMONG US (MENSCHEN UNTEREINANDER) & UNDER THE LANTERN (UNTER DER LATERNE), also available from GME), his German compatriot Hans Richter was creating movies in the abstract and Dadaist vein, while also increasingly turning to social critique in his later films. Here, for the first time, we offer HANS RICHTER: EARLY WORKS (1921-1929), published by Re:Voir Vidéo.

About his filmmaking practice, Richter himself wrote in 1924 that, "By film I mean visual rhythm... to see movement, organized movement, wakes us up, wakes up resistance, wakes up the reflexes, and perhaps wakes up our sense of enjoyment as well."

Richter emigrated to the United States in 1940 and taught in the Institute of Film Techniques at City College in New York City; his teachings would influence many of the "New American Cinema" filmmakers.

By film I mean visual rhythm... to see movement, organized movement, wakes us up, wakes up resistance, wakes up the reflexes, and perhaps wakes up our sense of enjoyment as well. This kind of film gives memory nothing to hang on. At the mercy of "feeling", reduced to going with the rhythm according to the successive rise and fall of the breath and the heartbeat, we are given a sense of what feeling and perceiving really is: a process - MOVEMENT."

- Hans Richter 1924

Richter's position in the art world was unique. As one of the earliest exponents of Dada, he was also one of the first to recognize the new possibilities cinematography offered the artist. He participated in the first avant-garde film movement alongside Léger, Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia, Cocteau and Dali, and later in New York his teachings would influence many of the "New American Cinema" filmmakers.

FILMS

Rhythmus 21 1921 4min
Rhythmus 23 1923 4min
Filmstudie 1926 5min
Ghosts Before Breakfast (Vormittagsspuk) 1927-28 7min
Race Symphony 1928-29 7min
Two Pence Magic (Zweigroschenzauber) 1928-29 2min
Inflation 1927 3min
Everything Turns Everything Revolves 1929 3min