Stanton Kaye's legendary, award-winning Georg (1964) is an affecting, formally inventive narrative that follows a German émigré in America seeking to escape the encroaching militarism that threatens his family's existence. The film unfolds as a series of diaristic sequences supposedly assembled after the protagonist's death, as a found audiovisual document, a formal approach that was a great influence on Jim McBride's David Holzman's Diary, and countless other films that followed.
On its surface level, the film appears to be the story of a war-torn German soldier who, after having emigrated to America, finds that he cannot live within any civilization-but he cannot live without it either... the choice is not his. The expansive arm of the military-industrial complex reaches even to his hideaway in the mountains, where he is haunted by the construction of a military missile base. In GEORG, the aesthetic means are home-movie techniques, a congruence of intimate sounds, and a unique narrative... to unite the audience with the presence of a Georg
In the 1960s we started to see fiction films that presented themselves as recordings of the events as the camera operator experienced them. One early example is Stanton Kaye's Georg (1964). The first shot follows some infantrymen into battle, but then the framing wobbles and the camera falls to earth. We see a tipped angle on a fallen solider and another infantryman approaches. He bends toward us; the frame starts to wobble and we are lifted up. On the soundtrack we hear, "I found my camera then."