by MATTHEW HAYS

Though I’ve certainly seen my share of Holocaust documentaries, this past couple of weeks must set some kind of a cinematic record. Last Friday saw the rerelease of Chaplin’s astonishing Adolf Hitler spoof, The Great Dictator, as well as the controversial bit of speculative non-fiction about Hitler as a young man, Max.

This week sees Hitler: A Film From Germany, a 414 minute 1977 experimental epic from celebrated Hun Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, about the Führer and the medium of cinema itself, screening at the Goethe-Institut. Cripes, there’s so much Hitler celluloid going around, I don’t know why some of these people don’t just get together and launch a 24-hour Hitler cable channel. Just think of the possibilities for the channel’s sales team.

Nay, I didn’t have time to sit through this entire whopper (did World War II actually last that long?) but the Goethe did kindly supply me with part 1, and the film is a difficult, ambitious and almost-brilliant meditation on both “the art medium of the 20th century and the subject of the century,” as Syberberg sees them. This film will screen at the Goethe this Saturday, Feb. 1, at 1 p.m. There will be an intermission. Susan Sontag has declared this movie one of the great works of art of the 20th century, and it hasn’t been screened in Montreal since 1985. Hitler screens as part of the Goethe’s excellent ongoing series, “Shadows of Romanticism,” which continues until March 14.

Local filmmaker Dana Schoel will be screening her latest short film, Shadow Riders, this Saturday, Feb. 1, at Concordia’s J.A. De Sève Cinema (in the Library Building across from the Hall Building), at 7 p.m. This taut, finely-acted little 38-minute wonder is a fusion of the Western, suspense and supernatural. It’s also got some pretty wicked torture scenes and special effects which are pretty outstanding, not even considering the budget Schoel was working with. A local entry well worth checking out. Schoel, a Concordia film grad, made the movie with the help of the Crown corporation the NFB. “The support they gave me was outstanding,” she says. As well, she employs (to great effect) the music of local artists Amon Tobin, Deadbeat, Freeworm, Tortoise, Wood and Martin Medeski.

Finally, a word of apology to those readers who feel that I gave away too much information in my pre-Christmas cover story on the film Adaptation. In a write-up of interviews with Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze and Nic Cage, I now fear that I did, indeed, disclose a few too many of the unexpected plot points concerning the movie, rightly being heralded as one of the best of last year. It was such an unusual film that my radar was a bit thrown off; usually, I’m very careful not to give too much away. My apologies to those who felt I’d let the proverbial cat out of the bag. :

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