Schroeter's first feature film, Eika Katappa was no lessexperimental than his earlier short works; by turns operatic, balletic,melodramatic-hilarious and haunting-the film defies subtitles, althougha libretto would be in order. And that is precisely what Schroeterprovides in humorously written, scene-by-scene program notes which wewill make available. The title translates roughly as "ScatteredPictures" and the film is the quintessential example of Schroeter'spastiche style: shards of melodrama are woven together into a nine-partmusical format, opera punctuated by architecture punctuated by opera.The film is less hermetic than The Death of Maria Malibran, andreaffirms that Schroeter's outdoor scenes can be his most lustrous,expressionistic, and dramatically compelling. Among the scatteredvignettes are tales of St. Sebastian and the stigmata of Therese vonKonnersreuth, the romance of Siegfried and Kriemheld, the death of adiva cum "hillbilly star from Massachusetts," the murder by ananonymous noblewoman of her young lover in balletic long-shot, Toscasung by Maria Callas but performed by Magdalena Montezuma, and amodern-day tragedy of two young men of Naples who court to the rhythmsof Carmen. Civilization may be in ruins, but the film ends with the lastwords of the hillbilly diva, "Life is very precious, even rightnow."