Poetry, Rhythm, Landscape, Decay: The Films of Klaus Wyborny

I first saw Klaus Wyborny's Studies for The Decay of the West last fall at the avant-garde section of the New York Film Festival and have been haunted since.  Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West provides the intellectual framework, and the music of Schoenberg and Webern provide the musical and rhythmic structure of the film.  In Wybonrny's film each sound triggers a new image of an industrial site that is no longer there.  The images visually approximate the attack and decay of the sounds creating a flickering tapestry of the detritus of Western civilization.  6299 images in all--a tour de force.



Klaus Wyborny at IVAC 2012



This year's Images and Views of Alternative Cinema and the community that formed around the festival had the privilege to have Klaus Wyborny with us at the screenings of Federico Rossin's program Poetry, Rhythm, Landscape, Decay:  The Films of Klaus Wyborny.  The tryptych of films selected by Federico trace the movement in Wyborny's work through the emergence and then decay of Western civilaztion--from the European awakening in At the Edge of Darkness through Wybonry's Homage to Beethoven, through which we see an industrial age Beethoven that runs against the common view of Beethoven as a pastoral composer, to Wyborny's latest film Studies in the Decay of the West. 

The consommate filmmaker, Klaus filmed the old copper mines in northern Cyprus during his stay, and he continued his project of talking footage of the light from his Studies in the Decay of the West flickering across the audiences' faces.  His films and conversations provoked many discussions into the night.

I will be posting a wonderful conversation between Klaus Wyborny and Ferderico Rossin later this week.  In the meantime, here is information on each of these films presented at Theatro Ena earlier this month in Lefkosia, Cyprus:

Poetry, Rhythm, Landscape, Decay:  The Films of Klaus Wyborny

curated and presented by Federico Rossin



Wyborny's 'At the Edge of Darkness' 1981-1985



Am Rand der Finsternis  (At the Edge of Darkness)

Germany  1981-1985

Klaus Wyborny Typee-Film 16mm /1:1,33/ Colour

65  minutes

This place has never been anything special (except in the eyes of those who inhabited it). It was flat, and it was swampy because of the humid climate for most of its recent history. The summers were short and cold, the soil was hard and difficult to cultivate. A strange race of people lived on that soil, whose energies were focused to overcome the long, dark winters.

First part of a cycle of five films titled SONGS OF THE EARTH, whose theme is the emergence of European civilization. As part of this cycle, AT THE EDGE OF DARKNESS tries to encompass the glow of European awakening in the late Middle Ages, around the period from 1350 to 1490.



Wyborny's 'Homage to Beethoven'--1978-2006



Hommage an Ludwig Van Beethoven (op. 111 und Missa Solemnis)

Germany  1978-2006

Klaus Wyborny

Music Ludwig van Beethoven op. 111, op. 123 ("Missa Solemnis")
Typee-Film Digital Beta /1:1,33/ Colour
74  minutes

This film is a highly accomplished attempt to visualize two late works of the German musician (op. 111 and «Missa solemnis).

1. op. 111 - 1

2. op. 111 - 2

3. Gloria (aus der Missa Solemnis)

With pictures from (in order of first appearance): Lake Baringo, Nakuru, Tambach, Ndarawga, Sagana, Kabarnet, Karatina, Kiganjo, Nyahururu, Kapsabet, Chebloch, the Kenya Mount, Mugondoi, Biretwo, Marigat, Naru Moru, Rumuruti, Nyeri, Nandi Hills, Loruk, Subukia and Subukia Valley. The Christian sentiment falls upon the African huts and it draws them in its order, till when, in the Gloria’s great Fugue, it reveals its other nature: music is at once like a giant wheel that rolls over Africa, crushes the life there and in part makes a violent pattern, against which there is no defense.

4. Sanctus (aus der Missa Solemnis)With pictures from (in order of first appearance): Rothwell, the Liverpool docks, Ravensthorpe, Sheffield, Runcorn, Huddersfield, Bradford, Ashton-upon-Lyne, Stockport, Manchester, Leeds, Glossop and Keighley. The places, from which once emanated the domination of the world, will be canonized one last time, but the vibrant proud sentiment of the Benedictus meets only on derelict factory buildings on the submerged harbors, onto a whipped earth, that has become the victim of their ambition.

5. Agnus Dei (aus der Missa Solemnis)

With pictures from (in order of first appearance): Oltepesi, Tigoni, Olepotos, Limuru, Eldoret, the Magadi Lake, Naivasha, Kaptagat, Muguga, Plateau, Chepkorio, Magadi, the Equator, the Elementeita Lake, Gilgil and the Hell's Gate. In addition to the huts of the inhabitants, we can see now more results of the Europeanization of Africa: roads, rural urbanity and the traces of an industrialization, which is at the same time half-hearted touching and brutal. An angry harpsichord tries to address against the compassion of Beethoven’s music, till when even that music becomes a cacophony, and gives expression to its dismay over the state of the world.

Studien zum Untergang des Abendlands - 58 Stücke auf Film

Wyborny's 'Studies for the Decay of the West--58 Pieces of Film'--1979-2010

Studies for The Decay of the West - 58 pieces on film

Germany  1979-2010

Klaus Wyborny Typee-Film
Rungholt 11
22149 Hamburg, Deutschland

DigiBeta /1:4:3/ Colour
80  minutes

also conceived as an installation in which - in 58 parallel DVD based loops - each piece is presented on an individual monitor

In Wyborny's 'musical film', every new sound triggers a new image: 6,299 shots, all directly edited within his Super-8 camera. An intoxicating, stroboscopic trip to industrial, natural and urban landscapes in East Africa, New York, the Ruhr district and Rimini.

This experimental music film refers to Oswald Spengler’s world-famous philosophical work Der Untergang des Abendslandes (The Decay of the West, 1918). Culture pessimist Spengler argues that progress is an illusion and that the modern era brings little good. People are no longer able to understand the rationality of the world. Wyborny did not set out to make a film version of Spengler's theories, but rather a visual reflection on the modern age; a stroboscopic journey in five parts to industrial, natural and urban landscapes. He uses 6,299 shots, edited directly in a Super8 camera. Each piano note and violin vibrato evokes a new image: demolished buildings, rubble, destruction and nature, all shot between 1979 and 2010 in locations such as New York, the Ruhr, Hamburg, East Africa and Rimini. This film forms a counterpart to Wyborny’s previous films series Eine andere Welt. Lieder der Erde II (2004/2005).

Rotterdam Film Festival 2011

Klaus Wyborny at IVAC 2012--Cyprus

Klaus WYBORNY (1945, Magdeburg) is one of the most important German experimental filmmakers, co-founder in 1968 of the "Filmacher Cooperative" in Hamburg and of literary newspapers "Bona Vista" and "Henry". He studied theoretical physics in Hamburg and New York. He is a teacher (New York State University, Binghampton; Ohio State University, Columbus;  University of the Arts, Berlin; University for Applied Sciences, Mannheim, etc.) as well as a filmmaker, a performing artist as well as a painter. His work has been recognized worldwide since the 1970s.

FILMOGRAPHY

• 1968 Im KZ
• 1968 Drei Tage mit Janine, Drei Tage mit John
• 1968 Thorium 232
• 1969 Das abenteuerliche, aber glücklose Leben des William Parmagino
• 1969 Dämonische Leinwand. Demonic Sceen.
• 1970 Percy McPhee - Agent des Grauens (6. + 7. Folge)
• 1970 Ludwig van Beethoven - Ein Leben für die Musik
• 1971 Dallas Texas - After the Goldrush
• 1971 Chimney Piece
• 1971 Rot war das Abenteuer - Blau war die Reue
• 1971-1976 Elementare Filmgeschichte
• 1971-1978 Verwegen den Wellen entgegen
• 1972 4 Rural Pieces
• 1973 Die Geburt der Nation. The Birth of a Nation
• 1974 The Ideal (Ecstasy & Beauty)
• 1971-1975 Pictures of the Lost Word. Bilder vom verlorenen Wort
• 1976 Bartleby
• 1976 Fensterfilm
• 1977 Der Ort der Handlung. The Scene of the Action
• 1978 Sechs kleine Stücke auf Film. 6 Little Pieces on Film
• 1978 Unerreichbar Heimatlo. Unreachable Homelesss
• 1979 Potpourri aus »Östlich von keinem Westen«. Potpourri from »East of No West«
• 1980 Das szenische Opfe. The Scenic Sacrifice
• 1981 Am Arsch der Welt. To have and to be
• 1982 2084
• 1982-1991 Verlassen; Verloren; Einsam, Kalt. Abandoned; Lost; Lonely, Cold.
• 1981-1985 Am Rand der Finsternis - At the Edge of Darkness
• 1985 Gnade und Dinge (11 Stücke auf Film) - Grace; Things
• 1987 Ohne Titel (Out of New York)
• 1986-1990 Das offene Universum. Open Universe
• 1980-1993 Aus dem Zeitalter des Übermuts: Dichtung und Wahrheit. From the Age of Lightheartedness
• 1990-2001 Sulla
• 1993/2005 Eine andere Welt. Another World
• 1978-2006 Hommage an Ludwig van Beethoven. Hommage to Ludwig van Beethoven
• 2003-2009 Das letzte Jahr. The Last Year
• 2005 Histoire du Cinéma
• 1979-2010 Studien zum Untergang des Abendslandes. Studies for The Decay of the West