Werner Schroeter (born in 1945), a leading stage and opera director in West Germany, is possibly the most brilliant of all the talents in the New German Cinema, but most of his films have proven too personal and experimental for popular consumption in movie theaters. His first seven features - all but one produced for ZDF - were made in 16mm with deliberately “amateurish” effects. As Jonas Mekas noted: “he works with operatic posings, with cliches, and (unlike his American ancestors, Jack Smith and Andy Warhol) with romantic images and passions reminding one very much of the early German romantic paintings.” Ironically, Schroeter's use of operatic arias on the soundtrack, which are used to counterpoint and contradict the situations dramatized in the image, has prevented some of his best films from receiving wide distribution: he simply did not have the funds to clear the rights to use the opera recordings for commercial screenings. However, his first 35mm feature, Kingdom of Naples (1978) - a prizewinner at many festivals - proved Schroeter's ability to integrate his operatic techniques into a completely “professional” and riveting narrative.
