A film about finance because “the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issues the first paper money on February 3, 1690”. The oldest surviving paper bill in what is now the United States bears the date February 3, 1690. The first documented paper money was issued during the Tang and Song dynasties in China, starting in the vulgar year 618. Who would have thought those new colonies were not the center of world history… sigh…

 

In the fourth instalment of the Homunculus saga, the artificial man callously heads the nation's financial powerhouse while secretly goading the workers in revolt against the ruling class. Soulless and unable to love, he aims for the annihilation of mankind.

 

Some claim that Die Rache des Homunculus, “The Wrath of the Homunculus”, foreshadows Hitler. I say, beware of businessmen enthralling the working classes.

A film about New York to commemorate the incorporation of New Amsterdam. The official Bales' rule states the year 1624, but that is the year of settlement, and even that is one year off. To cut a long story short, New Amsterdam was incorporated as a city on February 2, 1653.

“My name is Elia Kazan. I am a Greek by blood, a Turk by birth and an American because my uncle made a journey.”

– Elia Kazan, voice-over

America America tells the story of director Kazan's grandfather through the life of the Greek Stavros Topouzoglou (Stathis Giallelis), who was adamant to start anew, in New York.

A film about filmmaking, or Hollywood, to celebrate the opening of Edison's Black Maria in 1893.

“You and I are going to be filming the actors. The two of us, see, are going to be filming the actors – continuously – and you will be filming me and the actors. I'm going to be filming the actors and Terry is going to be in charge of filming the whole thing. You see?”

– William Greaves – Director

During a screentest for a documentary in a documentary in a film, director William Greaves attempts to cast the leads for his upcoming piece Over the Cliff, while a documentary crew records their progress.

A freebie for someone's birthday, with bonus points for high fashion. Petra von Kant is a fashion designer who, during a particularly icy birthday party, tells the world that her new lover is a woman. Then, one day, said lover returns home to her husband.

– You have a good figure. You could use it to your advantage. Get in touch with me some time. – I'd love to.

With its exuberant costumes and set design, a Greek chorus of mannequins, and Sirk-ish larger- than-life melodrama, Fassbinder's Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant delves deep into the absurdities of love and fancy.

A gateway or door for Janus, god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and ending.

 

A man named Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) accidentally runs over a rabbit, who is dressed to the nines and carries a pocket watch. Slowly, the man finds himself in a sort of Wonderland.

Snakes (巳) in celebration of Lunar New Year.

 

Ormen is an adaptation of the first two chapters of the novel Berättelsen om Iréne (Stig Dagerman, 1945).

 

In an army barrack, a sergeant is bitten by a snake. A soldier hides the animal in his bag in order to blackmail his superior. Iréne – who works in the same barrack's mess and is the soldier's lover – pushes her mother off a train during a quarrel about the daughter's lack of morals.

 

Dagerman's novel is a metaphor of Sweden's uncomfortable position in a post-WW2 world (it had declared itself neutral, which by default made it complicit in helping the Nazis). Due to its violence and nudity, outside its homecountry the film adaptation mostly played porn theatres.

Gaslights for the first recorded public street lighting powered by gas, demonstrated in Pall Mall, London, on 28 January, 1807. The introduction of gaslight had a major influence on theatre and opera, including the new Paris Opera (1875), which was lit by no less than 960 gas jets. Thanks to the brilliant light, stage actors could tone down their mannerisms and stage makeup.

“Feast your eyes. Glut your soul on my accursed ugliness.”

– The Phantom

However, in the dark dungeons under the Opéra lives a pitiful creature, doomed to dwell in darkness. His makeup, provided by The Man of a Thousand Faces, Lon Chaney, was both grotesque and eerily real .

Turn on your television on the day* in 1926 John Logie Baird demonstrated the first working TV.

 

An unknown foreign agent manipulates Brazil's radio en television antennas to emit subliminal messages to the oblivious population. Slowly, society descends into violent chaos.

 

O 5º Poder precedes Ray Nelson's story Eight O'Clock in the Morning by one, and John Carpenter's adaptation They Live by 26 years. But what's much more fascinating is this film's place in Brazilian history: right between Professor Baskarán's – hypnotist Carlos Pedregal – televised mass hypnosis experiments from 1958, and the violent coup of 1964.

 

In how far was the population primed for this revolt? And how much, are you?

 

* In reality this was on January 26, 1926.

Convicts: a convict settlement in Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788 marks what is considered the founding of Australia.

Winter sports in celebration of the Chamonix 1924 Winter Olympics.

“Ich sollte eigentlich ganz allein auf der Welt sein, ich, Steiner, und sonst kein anderes lebendes Wesen. Keine Sonne, keine Kultur, ich nackt auf einem hohen Fels, kein Sturm, kein Schnee, keine Straßen, keine Banken, kein Geld, keine Zeit und kein Atem. Ich würde dann jedenfalls keine Angst mehr haben.”

– Walter Steiner

In a film that is as much about Herzog as it is about Steiner, we follow the soft-spoken woodcarver in preparation of his definitive ski flight in Planica, Yugoslavia.