The subtitle of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s first feature, from 1965, “Only Violence Helps Where Violence Reigns,” suggests the fierce political program evoked by their rigorous aesthetic. The pretext of the film, set in Cologne, is Heinrich B
A rowdy, womanizing merchant mariner, leader of an eccentric crew of misfits and drunks, is almost killed by a Japanese torpedo strike. The brush with death seems to make him even more reckless. In San Francisco, he clashes with a sophisticated, cold libr
