Susan Sontag

Directing

Susan Sontag

Born 1933-01-16 · New York City, New York, USA

Susan Sontag (January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American essayist, literary and cultural theorist, icon, and political activist whose works include On Photography, Against Interpretation, The Way We Live Now, and Regarding the Pain of Others.

Acting credits

Zelig poster
7.4

Fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.

Zelig

1983

Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens poster
7.7

An account of the professional and personal life of renowned American photographer Annie Leibovitz, from her early artistic endeavors to her international success as a photojournalist, war reporter, and pop culture chronicler.

Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens

2007

Improper Conduct poster
5.1

The story of the persecution of homosexuals and intellectuals in Cuba under Fidel Castro's dictatorship, from the beginning of the Cuban Revolution (1953-59) until the early 1980s. Interviews with relevant personalities of Cuban culture who suffered persecution demonstrate that concentration camps for gays existed in Cuba.

Improper Conduct

1984

365 Day Project poster
10.0

This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calendar form. Every day as of January 1st, 2007 and for an entire year, as indicated in the title, a large public (the artist's friends, as well as unknowns) were invited to view a diary of short films of various lengths (from one to twenty minutes) on the Internet. A movie was posted each day, adding to the previously posted pieces, resulting altogether in nearly thirty-eight hours of moving images.

365 Day Project

2007

Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful poster
6.2

Women were clearly at the core of legendary photographer Helmut Newton's work. The stars of his iconic portraits and fashion editorials – from Catherine Deneuve to Grace Jones, Charlotte Rampling to Isabella Rossellini – finally give their own interpretation of the life and work of this controversial genius. A portrait by the portrayed. Provocative, unconventional, subversive, his depiction of women still sparks the question: were they subjects or objects?

Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful

2020

Promised Lands poster
5.6

Susan Sontag scrutinizes the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the growing divisions within Jewish thought over the question of Palestinian sovereignty. Shot in Israel during the final days of the Yom Kippur War. Promised Lands is less straight documentary than visual collage. There are images of combat zones and soldiers, but also everyday street life, desert landscapes, funerals, supermarkets, the Wailing Wall. The soundtrack is snatches of radio, bursts of church bells and gunfire, and an extended voiceover from two politically opposed Israeli thinkers.

Promised Lands

1974

The Illegal Film poster
NR

Since time immemorial, we have used images to form a picture of the world. But never before has there been as much filming and photography as there is currently. But how do people deal with it when the world and its image merge? The filmmakers Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer show how quickly and profoundly the way we deal with images is changing. Will we eventually move into a world in which reality and image can no longer be distinguished from each other?

The Illegal Film

2019

Annie Leibovitz 1993 Phaidon Documentary poster
NR

Produced in 1993, this documentary depicts the development of Annie Leibovitz's career as a celebrity photographer.

Annie Leibovitz 1993 Phaidon Documentary

1993

The Great Magician poster
5.0

"The Great Magician" - A portrait of Frans Zwartjes (1927-2017), sometimes called 'the most important experimental filmmaker of his time' by the American essayist Susan Sontag.

The Great Magician

2006

150 Miles of Rotting, Rutted, Lumpy, Dilapidated Pavement poster
NR

A Woman Watches People.

150 Miles of Rotting, Rutted, Lumpy, Dilapidated Pavement

2021

13 Most Beautiful Women poster
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

13 Most Beautiful Women

1964

Regarding Susan Sontag poster
5.7

An intimate study of one of the most influential and provocative thinkers of the 20th century tracking feminist icon Susan Sontag’s seminal, life-changing moments through archival materials, accounts from friends, family, colleagues, and lovers, as well as her own words, as read by Patricia Clarkson.

Regarding Susan Sontag

2014

Andy Warhol Screen Tests poster
8.0

The films were made between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol's Factory studio in New York City. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong key light, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film at 24 frames per second. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in 'slow motion' at 16 frames per second.

Andy Warhol Screen Tests

1965

Screen Test: Susan Sontag poster
NR

Susan Sontag was one of the many subjects of Warhol’s Screen Tests, a silent-film portrait series capturing well–known cultural figures of the 1960s. Warhol filmed seven Screen Tests of the journalist and author Sontag in his Factory—a space of collaborative and interdisciplinary artistic production. Of the Sontag films, ST318 is perhaps the most direct and severe. The intricacies of Sontag’s facial features are heightened by the film’s slow–motion progression, stretched out to four minutes and thirty seconds.

Screen Test: Susan Sontag

1964

Screen Test [ST323]: Susan Sontag poster
NR

Screen test of Susan Sontag.

Screen Test [ST323]: Susan Sontag

1964

Symphony Of The Invisible poster
NR

"Symphony of the Invisible" is a reflection on creation and how through art, poetry and images you can break the limits that have been imposed on language and life itself.

Symphony Of The Invisible

2020

Town Bloody Hall poster
5.8

On the evening of April 30, 1971, a standing room only audience of local literati and feminists packed New York City’s Town Hall to watch Norman Mailer, who had just written “The Prisoner of Sex,” grapple with a panel of passionate feminists. The subject was Women’s Liberation, an issue on which Mailer seemed like the devil’s own advocate.

Town Bloody Hall

1979

No artwork available
NR

Television essay on the work of choreographer Pina Bausch, presented by Susan Sontag.

A Primer for Pina

1984

Le Bel Âge poster
5.6

Steph, Jean-Claude and Jacques work in a Parisian art shop, but they mainly work in the field of eroticism, which they conceive as a wide-ranging field of exercises and experiments.

Le Bel Âge

1960

Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box poster
NR

This is a 1991 documentary film about the legendary artist and filmmaker, Joseph Cornell, who made those magnificent and strange collage boxes. He was also one of our great experimental filmmakers and once apparently made Salvador Dali extremely jealous at a screening of his masterpiece, Rose Hobart. In this film we get to hear people like Susan Sontag, Stan Brakhage, and Tony Curtis talk about their friendships with the artist. It turns out that Curtis was quite a collector and he seemed to have a very deep understanding of what Cornell was doing in his work.

Joseph Cornell: Worlds in a Box

1991

Galaxie poster
10.0

In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his New York circle, including Parker Tyler, W. H. Auden, Jasper Johns, Susan Sontag, Storm De Hirsch, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, and George and Mike Kuchar, most observed in their homes or studios. Filmed in vibrant color, Galaxie pulses with life. It is a masterpiece of in-camera composition and editing, and stands as a vibrant response to Andy Warhol's contemporary Screen Tests. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2001.

Galaxie

1966

Behind the camera

Unguided Tour poster
10.0

Also known as “Letter from Venice,” Susan Sontag’s fourth and final film tells of a relationship that is fragmenting as the partners tour the decaying ruins of a hallucinatory Venice.

Unguided Tour

1983

Unguided Tour poster
10.0

Also known as “Letter from Venice,” Susan Sontag’s fourth and final film tells of a relationship that is fragmenting as the partners tour the decaying ruins of a hallucinatory Venice.

Unguided Tour

1983

Promised Lands poster
5.6

Susan Sontag scrutinizes the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the growing divisions within Jewish thought over the question of Palestinian sovereignty. Shot in Israel during the final days of the Yom Kippur War. Promised Lands is less straight documentary than visual collage. There are images of combat zones and soldiers, but also everyday street life, desert landscapes, funerals, supermarkets, the Wailing Wall. The soundtrack is snatches of radio, bursts of church bells and gunfire, and an extended voiceover from two politically opposed Israeli thinkers.

Promised Lands

1974

Promised Lands poster
5.6

Susan Sontag scrutinizes the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the growing divisions within Jewish thought over the question of Palestinian sovereignty. Shot in Israel during the final days of the Yom Kippur War. Promised Lands is less straight documentary than visual collage. There are images of combat zones and soldiers, but also everyday street life, desert landscapes, funerals, supermarkets, the Wailing Wall. The soundtrack is snatches of radio, bursts of church bells and gunfire, and an extended voiceover from two politically opposed Israeli thinkers.

Promised Lands

1974

Duet for Cannibals poster
6.6

Arthur, a university professor, and former political activist, lives in France with Francesca. They decide to hire a young man in order to help the teacher organize his notes. The employee leaves his girlfriend Ingrid and moves in with the couple.

Duet for Cannibals

1969

Duet for Cannibals poster
6.6

Arthur, a university professor, and former political activist, lives in France with Francesca. They decide to hire a young man in order to help the teacher organize his notes. The employee leaves his girlfriend Ingrid and moves in with the couple.

Duet for Cannibals

1969

No artwork available
NR

Eddy Maplethorpe wants to escape his suburban life without anyone noticing. He builds a clockwork dummy that can care for his family and go to work for him, leaving him free to pursue the life he always dreamt of. Unfortunately, his dummy also develops a desire for a better life.

The Dummy

2003

No artwork available
NR

A documentary about Susan Sontag staging Waiting For Godot in Bosnia.

Waiting For Godot... In Sarajevo

1993

No artwork available
NR

Television essay on the work of choreographer Pina Bausch, presented by Susan Sontag.

A Primer for Pina

1984

Brother Carl poster
6.2

Two women, Karen (theatre director) and Lena, visit an island, a Swedish resort, where Lena's ex-husband, Martin (choreographer), lives in comparative seclusion with a mentally disturbed ballet dancer named Carl. Carl is brother by guilt rather than blood, for Martin is somehow responsible for his breakdown.

Brother Carl

1971

Brother Carl poster
6.2

Two women, Karen (theatre director) and Lena, visit an island, a Swedish resort, where Lena's ex-husband, Martin (choreographer), lives in comparative seclusion with a mentally disturbed ballet dancer named Carl. Carl is brother by guilt rather than blood, for Martin is somehow responsible for his breakdown.

Brother Carl

1971