A. S. Hamrah, the film critic at n+1 and author of the recently published Last Week in End Times Cinema and Algorithm of the Night, will be in person to introduce a screening of Werner Herzog’s Stroszek. The film was selected as representative of the American experience in cinema, a topic he covered on The Film Comment Podcast during the pandemic.

Can anything be more existentially bleak than the shabby slums of Berlin? “Yes!,” exclaims Herzog via Stroszek, “try Wisconsin!”

Bruno S. stars as an accordion-player recently released from a Berlin psychiatric hospital who dreams of the so-called promised land of America. He aligns himself with like-minded prostitute Eva Mattes and elderly, near-senile Clemens Scheitz.

Upon their arrival in Wisconsin, the three misfits find that they’re just as trapped in Dairy Country as they’d been in Germany, if not more so. Their American Dream is clouded by the bleak paradise of TV, football, CB radio, truck stops, debt, and mobile homesteading. The sour, bitter, and often absurd situations of Stroszek earned worldwide critical and commercial acclaim, further establishing Herzog as the master of new cinematic realities. 1977, Germany, DCP, in German, English, and Turkish with English subtitles, 115 minutes. Recommended for 16+.

Co-presented with the University of Louisville’s Department of English.  Special thanks to Kristafer Abplanalp for his programming assistance.

A.S. Hamrah’s books Algorithm of the Night: Film Writing, 2019-2025 and Last Week in End Times Cinema will be available for purchase in the Speed Cinema lobby after the screening.