Ghosts Before Breakfast

Vormittagsspuk (original title) | Hans Richter | Germany | 1928 | Short, 9 min

October 20, 2012



Ghosts Before Breakfast. Designed and directed by Hans Richter (1888-1976). Shot in Berlin in 1927-1928 for showing at the 1928 International Music Festival of Baden Baden. Photographed by Reimar Kuntze (1902-1949). Cast: Paul Hindemith, Darius and Madeleine Mihaud, Jean Oser.

Painter, filmmaker and theoretician Richter became involved in the activities of the Dada movement in Switzerland and Germany and was eventually recognized as Germany's most important exponent of surrealism. When the Nazis took over, he emigrated to the US.

The Nazis destroyed the sound version of this charming work as "degenerate art." An absurdist comedy in which everyday objects (hats, ties, coffee cups) rebel against their daily routine, the film defies all conventions, cinematic and social alike. Its fantasy elements are a nod to the trick films of early cinema and American slapstick comedies, but its particular with belongs to the world of Dada.

Critic Ed Lowry noted: "The liberation of objects from their functional roles, in a total rebellion against their owners, against logic, against the laws of time and space, becomes a joke on the narrowly defined, stuffy lives of the bourgeoisie, the society which defines itself by the clock. Utilizing time-lapse photography, pixillation and split screen, Richter creates a delightful bit of film trickery that challenges our perception of the cinema."