Hans Richter: Ghosts before Breakfast

Hawks Pavilion
Media Gallery H6

Hans Richter’s Ghosts before Breakfast is a classic short film that reveals mysterious forces lurking beneath the orderly façade of modern life. In the span of ten minutes, ordinary objects rebel from their daily routine and follow their own impulses. A bowtie undoes itself, bowler hats float through the air, windows open and close, and coffee cups leap from a tray to smash themselves on the ground. At the stroke of noon, all returns to normal.

Richter eschewed the conventional expectation of narrative and embraced film for its ability to create movement. He used techniques like stop motion, negative-positive reversals, and distorting playback speed to expand the faculties of perception and cognition. Building on the innovations of avant-garde movements from Dada to Surrealism to Constructivism, Richter sought to bring radical ideas to a general audience. His ideas were grounded in the utopian vision of a new society born out of the ashes of World War I and the sweeping technological changes of modernity. A century later, Ghosts before Breakfast offers a potent reminder of how the confluence of art and film has transformed the way we see the world.

Pictured: Hans Richter (German, 1888–1976), Ghosts before Breakfast, 1928, black and white film without sound, approx.: 8 min. 45 sec., © Hans Richter Estate/ Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek