In the organizer's words:

THE STRANGER (OmU)

Lecture and film series DAS "FREMDE" IM FILM in cooperation with the Institute for European Art History at Heidelberg University

Date: 10.12.2025, 18:00 hrs
Lecture: Henry Keazor - University of Heidelberg, Institute for European Art History

Alienation as subversion

USA 1946 | Director: Orson Welles | 95 min.

"The Stranger's Trace still has Welles' visual sophistication, but by 1946 film noir had already adopted his penchant for shadows and the grotesque. [...] Would-be philosophers cheating at checkers and high school beauties marrying fascists - with this small-town idyll, Welles anticipates David Lynch by decades." (Film critic Kim Newman)

Orson Welles' film The Stranger has a number of connections to the subject matter of this series - beyond the already significant title: the work itself is the product of a process of alienation between Hollywood and the director - Welles reacted to previous criticism by indirectly trying to prove with this film that he could function according to the conditions of the system. At the same time, the film
itself is about alienation, which both shapes the relationship between the characters and undermines and traumatizes the idyll of a small American town. The Stranger also incorporates documentary material that is strictly speaking "foreign" to its own genre of feature film.

Price information:

11 € regular, 9 € reduced, 8 € for students (reduction: Guild pass, pupils, senior citizens over 65, severely disabled pass, social pass)