The Edge

Part two of the trilogy on the radical New Left, shot in crystalline black and white on 35mm. A seismogram of the nervous search movements of a revolutionary cell of nine men and four women. With the first shots, police photos of the suspects, accompanied by the sound of typewriters, the invisible enemy - the USA, which is massively increasing the bombing of Vietnam at this time - is in play. One of the group, Dan (Jack Rader), has the obsessive idea of assassinating the president. His plan to move from theory to violent practice hovers over the tense six days shown in the film. Bernard Eisenschitz in October 1968 in the Cahiers du cinéma, where Kramer graces the cover as one of ‘Quatre Américains’ alongside Shirley Clarke, John Cassavetes and Andy Warhol: ‘The Edge is already, in preparation for Newsreel, a collective creative process’ - with Norman Fruchter (sound) and Robert Machover (camera and editing), important protagonists of the collective founded at the end of 1967 are involved. (Volker Pantenburg)

Courtesy Cinémathèque française

Photo: Austrian Film Museum