Werner Schroeter, Germany, 1972, 104 min
Maria Malibran was a Spanish opera singer who died in a horseback riding accident in 1836 when she was 28 and at the height of her fame. The film is no biopic; rather, it unfolds as a series of tableaux, primarily featuring pairs of performers in static, dramatic poses. While the extremely heightened emotionality hearkens back to German Romanticism, the stylized facial expressions and baroque use of light and shadow recalls expressionist silent cinema. The Death of Maria Malibran is at once a celebration of the generosity of the diva, whose life is lived for her audience; a gesture of thanks for this generosity; and an expression of the intense, even morbid emotionality of the bond between star performer and adoring fan.