Black Sin

(Schwarze Sünde)

featuring

Andreas von Rauch, Howard Vernon, Vladimir Theye,

History doubles back on itself like a noose in Straub-Huillet’s second version of The Death of Empedocles, based on Hölderlin’s third account of the Greek hero’s life. A philosopher, prophet, and priest whose advocacy of democracy led to banishment and crisis, Empedocles debates his disciple Pausanias on the powers of love and strife, while above shine the great Sicilian blue skies, and below lies the hardened, volcanic rock of Mt. Etna. Here, the eternal—both of nature and of man—lives in every frame.

Jason Sanders
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Jean-Marie Straub
  • Danièle Huillet
Based On
  • based on the third version of The Death of Empedocles by Friedrich Hölderlin

Cinematographer
  • William Lubtchansky
Language
  • German
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • 35mm
  • 42 mins
Followed By

Itinerary of Jean Bricard
(Itinéraire de Jean Bricard)

Jean-Marie Straub, France, 2007

Occupied by the Nazis during World War II, site of both terror and resistance, the Loire’s Coton Island provides a fittingly haunted setting for this work on resilience, completed by Straub after Huillet’s death in 2006.

FILM DETAILS 
Language
  • French
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • 35mm
  • 40 mins