保罗·埃塞尔

The subtitle of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s first feature, from 1965, “Only Violence Helps Where Violence Reigns,” suggests the fierce political program evoked by their rigorous aesthetic. The pretext of the film, set in Cologne, is Heinrich Böll’s novel “Billiards at Half Past Nine,” which they strip down to a handful of stark events and film with a confrontational angularity akin to Bartók’s music that adorns the soundtrack. The subtlest of cues accompany the story’s complex flashbacks. The middle-aged Robert Fähmel tells a young hotel bellhop of persecutions under the Third Reich; his elderly father, Heinrich, an architect famed for a local abbey, recalls the militarism of the First World War, when his wife, Johanna, incurred trouble for insulting the Kaiser. A third-generation Fähmel is considering architecture, just as the exiled brother of Robert’s late wife, returns, only to be met by their former torturer, now a West German official taking part in a celebratory parade of war veterans. Straub and Huillet make the layers of history live in the present tense, which they judge severely. The tamped-down acting and the spare, tense visual rhetoric suggest a state of moral crisis as well as the response—as much in style as in substance—that it demands.

西德影片《古堡幽灵》是一部政治讽刺剧。它具有独特的艺术表现手法和风格。不仅片中有大段的说唱，而且连片头字幕上导演、演员、工作人员的名单，也是以说唱形式来表达的。另外，情节的编排和人物的描述，都使人感到妙趣横生。这部影片拍摄于五十年代，它配合当时的政治形势，对西德复活法西斯主义给予辛辣的讽刺。　　序幕开始，一百多年前一伙绿林好汉被官府捕获。官府把他们关在一个酒店的地窖里，垒上一堵墙，把他们活活憋死。百年以后，这个酒店被拆除了，这伙幽灵只好到附近的一座古堡里栖身。从此他们在古堡里神出鬼没，闹得不亦乐乎。古堡的主人是一个负债累累的伯爵小姐。她的债主一心想迫使她以古堡抵债，但她坚决不肯。　　债主的儿子奉父命混进古堡来查看建筑的结构，不料他和伯爵小姐一见钟情，马上和她站在一边反对自己的父亲。这时，适逢当局要借用古堡接待一位外国亲王。幽灵们为了帮助伯爵小姐摆脱困境，他们盗窃了亲王的珠宝送给伯爵小姐，结果反而害得她坐了牢。幽灵们立刻四处营救，他们出现在波恩的街头和商店，到处兴风作浪，并且还到法庭上为伯爵小姐申辩，自称是幽灵，引得哄堂大笑。旁听席上有个美国人对他们大感兴趣，愿以重金聘请他们去当宇航员。幽灵们就将这笔巨款赠给伯爵小姐，而他们则乘上火箭飞向月球。　　影片以这个信口编造的故事，讽刺当时的政治、世道和形形色色的社会丑态，让观众在笑声中去好好思考！

伊丽莎白女伯爵（德菲因·塞里格 Delphine Seyrig 饰）是一只生活了上千年的吸血鬼，带着她的女秘书，两人游遍了欧洲各国，也品尝到了不同地方的少女的新鲜血液。尽管吸血鬼不会因为衰老而死亡，但随着时间的流逝，伊丽莎白还是会感到有些力不从心，再加上她的女秘书总是和她闹别扭，伊丽莎白决定为自己寻找一具全新的年轻的躯体。　　很快，伊丽莎白就将目标放到了一对住在奥司登某间旅馆里的夫妻身上，妻子（丹妮尔·维梅特 Danielle Ouimet 饰）因为发现了丈夫（约翰·卡伦 John Karlen 饰）古怪而又可怕的怪癖，而准备离他而去。女伯爵精心设计的计划能够顺利实施吗？