Hugo Niebeling

Hugo Niebeling was born and raised in Düsseldorf. As a child, he was evacuated to the countryside during World War II. Once the war ended and he returned home, he found his parents' music store destroyed by bombs.[4] Niebeling developed an interest in modern art, classical music and theatre, but was unable to study acting for financial reasons, and therefore enrolled in a business degree at the Mannesmann-AG in Düsseldorf. Parallel to that, he studied acting privately with Otto Ströhlin, an actor at the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus who had many pupils. Niebeling's role model was Gustaf Gründgens, a famous theatre actor.[5] After working as a theatre actor for a while in Augsburg, Niebeling turned to directing. As a teenager, he had already expressed his thoughts about his definition of art – which he has kept unchanged since:

My definition of art? It's mostly condensed life (...), cast into a mould. Art, born out of the conflict of emotions, cleared by reason, released into the mould, mirroring the whole in a limited form. 'Released' into the mould because the creative process is a painful one.[6]

— Hugo Niebeling, interviewed by Joachim Thommes.[7]

In 1957, Niebeling directed his first film Stählerne Adern, a documentary about steel-production at Mannesmann AG, inspired by the German experimental director Walter Ruttmann. This film won many accolades and led to Niebeling directing numerous much-acclaimed industrial and experimental films during the early 1960s. They combine stylized cinematography and editing with experimental scores, often in collaboration with Oskar Sala. His short film Stahl - Thema mit Variationen is a good example, being an audiovisual poem on steel-production, using only sound and image to explain its subject without any voice-over or other narration. In 1962, Niebeling created the Oscar-nominated documentary Alvorada - Brazil's Changing Face, which received numerous awards. His experimental industrial film Petrol was the only West German film screened at Cannes Film Festival 1965, and went on to become one of the most awarded industrial films worldwide.[8]

The documentary Mit Licht Schreiben (English title: Magic Light), showing production of cameras and filmstock at Agfa, is rather a philosophical look at the nature of photography and reality, featuring highly experimental cinematography and editing, using many different visual styles. Niebeling's combination of music and image in Petrol led to him being asked to work on his music film Pastorale. Niebeling himself called Alvorada his first music-film, and the editing of his early experimental industrial films is often also musical in nature, editing images in rhythm to the soundtrack, often even having the camera move to the music. Despite his career turning more to music-films afterwards, Niebeling still created experimental industrial films throughout the 1970s and 1980s: Allegro in 1970, and Der Auftrag der uns Bleibt in 1984.

Hugo Niebeling created a radical Oscar-nominated editing style that predated, influenced, and informed the 1960s experimental, underground, and new psychedelic cinema, helping to create the modern music video.

— Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival, program-guide to retrospective of Niebeling's industrial films in 2016.[9]

No technique, no angle, no method of camera transport has been left unexplored. What results is an exciting and beautiful kaleidoscope of images.

— Melbourne Film Festival, about "Alvorada".[10]

From the late 1960s on, Niebeling turned to directing mostly music- and ballet-films. Among them, there are three highly influential and acclaimed filmed versions of Beethoven-Symphonies. All three films are considered revolutionary in the way the visuals complement the music, and many filmic techniques pioneered in these films set trends for the following decades:

In 1967, Niebeling directed a film on Beethoven's sixth symphony Pastorale, performed by the Berliner Philharmoniker and conducted by Herbert von Karajan. In this film, he used highly experimental editing-, camera- and lighting-techniques to set the music to images. The film has been considered seminal in its use of audio and visuals that complement the music. It was filmed in a studio using many takes to allow the performance and individual instruments to be filmed and lit from various angles. It employs filmic techniques highly unusual for a music-film: Sometimes, a handheld camera that moves in sync with the music; the lighting changes according to the music, images are superimposed to create a surrealistic effect, and others.

A perfection of transforming music into visuals that has never been achieved again.[11]

— Roger Willemsen, about "Pastorale".[12]

The Pastorale - a highlight of filmed music. This wasn't Karajan's merit, but Niebeling's![13]

— Humphrey Burton, about "Pastorale".[14]

On this level technique becomes what it originally meant in greek: Art.... Today I SAW music.[15]

— Pierre Barthès, about "Pastorale".[16]

In 1972, Niebeling filmed two more Beethoven-Symphonies: Beethoven's third symphony Eroica and Beethoven's seventh symphony, featuring the same performers as the Pastorale. In them, the orchestra is seated in an arrangement similar to the audiotorium of an ancient Greek theatre. Both were recut heavily against Niebeling's wishes on Karajan's initiative to make their styles more conventional, removing a lot of their experimental style. Niebeling was not involved in editing the versions first released in the 1970s. In the 2010s, Niebeling was able to release the director's cuts of both films:

Niebeling's director's cut of "Eroica" was released in 2010 to positive reviews. He was had been able to keep a black&white copy of his original workprint in 1972, which he restored. He considers the resulting black&white aesthetic of the Eroica's director's cut more appropriate to the film.[17] Niebeling's director's cut on the seventh symphony, titled B 7 (Beethoven Seven) was released on German television in 2016, combining music and ballet. Niebeling edited the film based on his original screenplay. Prior to this, Niebeling had first created the short film Apotheosis of Dance in 2015, based on the last movement of the seventh symphony.

An expressionistic work of art, which equally transports the power of music and the intense effect of images.[18]

— Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden, about the Director's Cut of "Eroica".[19]

The (...) music-video aesthetics in their perfection transport an exciting rhythm and a sensual fusuion of music and dance.[20]

— Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden, about Apotheosis of Dance.[21]

In the 1970s, Niebeling additionally planned a film on Beethoven's ninth symphony, which was supposed to interweave the orchestra, singers and dancers. He had drafted a detailed screenplay, but it was not realized.

Giselle, Niebeling's first ballet-film featuring Carla Fracci, Erik Bruhn and the American Ballet Theatre, premiered in 1969 at the Lincoln Centre in New York under patronage of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and was praised for its innovative visual style that complements the ballet-performance.[22] Since the early 1970s, Niebeling often worked in New York City and directed mostly Ballet films in collaboration with the choreographer George Balanchine.

In 1991, Niebeling directed a feature-film in Germany showing the passion of Christ based on Bach's Johannespassion, evoking antique tragedy with its combination of music, language and dance. Niebeling planned it for three decades prior to realizing it, and himself considers it one of his most important works.[23]

Niebeling's experiment is a coherent masterpiece.[24]

— Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden, in 1970 about "Giselle".[25]

2013, the German Historical Museum did a retrospective on Hugo Niebeling. He was present for the screenings, and films from all stages of his career were shown.[26] In 2015, Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival awarded him with its "Award of Excellence" for artistic innovation. In a retrospective during the festival, many of Niebeling's 1960s works were shown, some of them as US-premieres.[27][28]

Since the early 2000s, Niebeling had many of his earlier works scanned in 2k or 4k from the original 35mm negatives, and they were color corrected and restored under his supervision. At the time of his death, he had already scanned and restored all his 1960s works plus some of his later works like Der Auftrag der uns bleibt (1984) and Johannespassion (1991).[29]

Until his death, Hugo Niebeling continued to be active as a director, planning numerous new projects. Of particular interest for him was a proposed film on Bach's Chaconne, which he had already planned in detail and which would have interwoven nature and church architecture through montage and cinematography.[30][31]

Director Alexander Tuschinski (*1988) was a friend of Hugo Niebeling and considers him his mentor. Tuschinski's editing style is influenced strongly by Niebeling's style,[32] and Niebeling edited the films Apotheosis of Dance and "B 7" (Beethoven 7) together with him in 2015.[33]