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Alexander Kluge (Halberstad, 1932) is a writer and film director, that has produced both cinematic and television work. He studied Law, History and Music in the universities of Marburg and Frankfurt, graduating in Law in 1956. Working in close collaboration with Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School, he also worked as an assistant for Fritz Lang (1958). As one of the founders of The Oberhausener Group, Kluge’s influence was crucial for the New German Cinema of the following decade (Werner Herzog, Harun Farocki, Reiner Weiner Fassbinder…). In this article I will trace some connections between Brecht’s playwriting and Alexander Kluge’s filmmaking, paying especial attention to how the latter’s practice is significantly based on the idea of recycling Modernist imaginaries –not just Brecht, to whom he makes direct allusion, for instance, in Part Time Work of a Domestic Slave, but also to sources of early twentieth-century cinema and documentary. Besides that, I will point out how Kluge’s filmmaking tries to recover the programmatic character of modernity, in terms of intertwining his artistic practice with some aspects of avant-garde.
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Title The Use of Brecht's Method as a Revival of Modernism; Kluge, Avant-garde and Utopia
Alexander Kluge (Halberstad, 1932) is a writer and film director, that has produced both cinematic and television work. He studied Law, History and Music in the universities of Marburg and Frankfurt, graduating in Law in 1956. Working in close collaboration with Theodor Adorno and the Frankfurt School, he also worked as an assistant for Fritz Lang (1958). As one of the founders of The Oberhausener Group, Kluge’s influence was crucial for the New German Cinema of the following decade (Werner Herzog, Harun Farocki, Reiner Weiner Fassbinder…). In this article I will trace some connections between Brecht’s playwriting and Alexander Kluge’s filmmaking, paying especial attention to how the latter’s practice is significantly based on the idea of recycling Modernist imaginaries –not just Brecht, to whom he makes direct allusion, for instance, in Part Time Work of a Domestic Slave, but also to sources of early twentieth-century cinema and documentary. Besides that, I will point out how Kluge’s filmmaking tries to recover the programmatic character of modernity, in terms of intertwining his artistic practice with some aspects of avant-garde.
Work type Article
Tags brecht, execution of an elephant, the willful child, kluge, experimental cinema, method, documentary, docufiction, brechtian cinema
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Identifier 1706242713362
Entry date Jun 24, 2017, 1:41 PM UTC
License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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Author. Holder Alba Giménez Gil. Date Jun 24, 2017.
Information available at https://www.safecreative.org/work/1706242713362-the-use-of-brechts-method-as-a-revival-of-modernism-kluge-avant-garde-and-utopia
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