Hans-Jürgen Syberberg is an original, the most controversial of all the New German directors and a figure who has long been at the vanguard of the resurgence of experimental filmmaking in his homeland. Syberberg’s most characteristic films examine recent German history: a documentary, for example, about Richard Wagner’s daughter-in-law, who was a close friend of Hitler (The Confessions of Winifred Wagner [1975]). But especially “hist...

Andr&eacute Bazin (1918–58) is credited with almost single-handedly establishing the study of film as an accepted intellectual pursuit, as well as with being the spiritual father of the French New Wave. Among those who came under his tutelage were four who would go on to become the most renowned directors of the postwar French cinema.