AllMovie

The "Dada" arts movement in Germany in the first two decades of the century paralleled and prefigured the surrealist movement but had a stronger political content. Among the Berliners prominent in the movement were George Grosz and Hannah Hoech, as well as John Heartfield. In the 20s, Heartfield made photomontages -- artworks composed of images brought from a number of mediums onto one surface. For instance, a photograph of someone might be placed in a compromising juxtaposition with another photo on a background of screaming newspaper titles. Heartfield is particularly well-known for his lampoons of the then-rising figure of Adolf Hitler. This documentary surveys his life and work, which was experiencing renewed popularity in the late 1970s.