In short: Schatten aus der Zeit (1975)

aka H.P. Lovecraft: Schatten aus der Zeit

The genres of the fantastic have generally played a tiny, nearly non-existent role in German-made TV programming. Before the advent of the “Privatfernsehen” (“privately owned TV channels”, about the German equivalent of what was cable in the US) with their early thirst for any content whatsoever, even getting to see imported genre fare outside crime series was a bit of crapshoot, though the situation was by far not as dire as with homegrown product.

German TV and streaming production companies – despite a handful of pleasant positive surprises – still haven’t quite developed the knack or the interest getting these things right. In 1975, when future soap opera director George Moorse made this somewhat experimental, fifty minutes short, and surprisingly close to the text adaptation of Lovecraft’s novella “The Shadow Out of Time”, these things simply weren’t done at all. I’d love to tell you how Moorse managed to get the ZDF (Germany’s second publicly funded TV channel) to finance this piece, but my sources are dry and the – obviously still very important – DVD version doesn’t tell. It was quite the find when the disc came out a couple of years ago in any case, for the film hasn’t been available in any form since its last TV showing in 1981, when your humble blogger was all of five years old.

Moorse’s approach to this adaptation suggests a direct influence by La Jetée, because this is shot as a series of stills of mostly actor Anton Diffring accompanied by Diffring’s voice narrating the action. For the most part, this works curiously well for the material; Moorse has a fine sense for an editing rhythm that gives the film the impression of heft and movement, creating a strange and rather strong pull that adds a feeling of true weirdness to the tale, as is only right and proper. Schatten is particularly effective when it treats the peculiar “dreams” its protagonist has about the time when he was quite literally not in his own mind. Moorse managed to hire the artist Waki Zöllner for these scenes, and Zöllner provides a series of collages, drawings, abstractions and found bits and pieces that do via the non-naturalistic and staunchly non-realistic what no special effect at the time (and most certainly not at the budget this must have had) could have achieved by creating a feeling of true, dream-like strangeness.

It’s all rather evocative and brilliant, and not at all the sort of project you’d expect of German TV of this era – and most certainly not one ending up quite this artistically successful and satisfying.