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Alexander Kluge

By Christopher Pavsek

Though often acknowledged as one of the most important avant-gardists ofhis generation in Europe Alexander Kluge does not think of himself as such! "e

considers himself a partisan of an #arriere-garde$ whose pro%ect is not to push into

new aesthetic territory or &e the vanguard of a new kind of 'lm art &ut to #&ring

everything forward$(to &ring forward all the lost utopian aspirations of past

political and aesthetic pro%ects all the wishes and hopes that history has left

unreali)ed! "is is a pro%ect of redeeming past failures! This might seem an odd claim

&y Kluge who was a pioneer of the *erman +ew ,ave as it emerged in the late

./s and early 0/s and a signatory and moving force &ehind the famous

1&erhausen 2anifesto of 3405 which declared #The old 'lm is dead!$ But like his

intellectual precursor ,alter Ben%amin Kluge has always thought any pro%ect forauthentic renewal must consciously detour through the past in order to avoid

creating what another of his great intellectual mentors Bertolt Brecht called the

#&ad new$(essentially the recreation of existing oppressive social relations and

tired aesthetic forms in the guise of a glossy marketa&le and illusory #+ew!$ 6or

Brecht 6ascism was the exemplary #&ad new$7 for Kluge the #&ad new$ consisted

of the dreary products of the #culture industry$ and the tedious social conditions

prevailing in *ermany(a&out which he once said that they were &ad enough that

no one was really happy &ut not &ad enough to make anyone do anything a&out

them!

2ay&e our times are not so di8erent so it9s 'tting that the *oethe :nstituteand the *erman 6ilm 2useum in 2unich have decided to &ring out a de'nitive

edition of Kluge9s collected cinematic works in honour of his ;.th &irthday! :t is long

past due to &ring Kluge9s work into pu&lic consciousness outside of *ermany where

he is far from forgotten and where his style of creation and his role as a pu&lic

intellectual are not so foreign! To make us aware that such 'gures still exist might

&e the greatest service this new edition of

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'lms and almost 5/ shorts in his almost 've decades of activity Kluge has also

written at least two novels and thousands of short stories that have garnered

virtually every ma%or literary and cultural pri)e that *ermany has to o8er! "e is also

an important critical theorist the most interesting heir to the 2arxist tradition of

Ben%amin and Adorno who has pu&lished several ma%or volumes of political

philosophy with his colla&orator 1skar +egt most nota&ly The Pu&lic @phere andExperience 34;5 a verita&le &i&le for many leftist intellectuals in the ;/s and the

massive *eschichte und Eigensinn "istory and 1&stinacy 34D3 a &eautiful and

complex rethinking of 2arx9s theory of la&our that explodes the generic and formal

&ounds of what has &ecome known as #theory$ mixing together original work with

hundreds of images and uotations from the past D// years of *erman history! And

since the mid-D/s Kluge has &een producing a series of eclectic weekly television

shows as a private entrepreneur(a contemporary cultural &usinessman cast in the

mold of the auteurs who came to prominence in the European new waves of the

./s and 0/s!

:t is diFcult to think of a compara&le contemporary intellectual anywhere in theworld nor someone who o8ers such a radically di8erent image of %ust what a

'lmmaker can &e! The 6ilm 2useum9s 'rst

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retreated to the studio canteen and &egan writing the short stories that would later

&e collected in his 'rst pu&lished work of 'ction Case "istories 3405! The

experience only furthered Kluge9s conviction that a new independent kind of

cinema one not exclusively oriented towards commercial success was necessary if

a vi&rant 'lm culture was to emerge in *ermany! :n 340/ he teamed with Peter

@chamoni to direct his 'rst 'lm the 35-minute Brutality in @tone 3403 whichinaugurated Kluge9s decades-long o&session with *ermany9s contemporary

relationship to its fraught past! Brutality9s topic at 'rst seems remote from the

horrors of +a)i *ermany &eing a study of +a)i architecture and its apotheosis in the

+urem&erg Party *rounds site of the famous +a)i Party rallies and the shooting set

for Triumph of the ,ill 34J.!

The choice of +ational @ocialist culture per se as opposed to +ational @ocialist

politics or racial policy as the starting point for his lifelong historical pro%ect is no

accident convinced as Kluge is that the cultural realm and cinema in particular is

crucial to #organi)ing human experience$ in the 5/th century! :t is characteristic of

Kluge9s adamant modernism that his work &ears this mark of cultural guilt that must&e processed as much as any su&%ective and personal guilt felt on the part of

individual *ermans! The 'lm9s &rilliance lies in the way it locates the +a)i genocide

within the heart of this falsely utopian culture a culture that took great pains to

prevent the horrors of the regime from &reaking through its glossy and well-

choreographed edi'ce! :n a fantastic &it of montage the camera slowly tracks

through a&andoned rooms and colonnades on the party grounds as excerpts from

Hudolf "ss9 Auschwit) diaries are read as if the very spirit of +a)i crimes haunted

these now empty spaces! Though Kluge remains concerned with the legacies of

+ational @ocialism to this day it should &e noted that Brutality stands out as the

only consistent and sustained treatment of the +a)i genocide within Kluge9s 'lmicoeuvre whereas his later more reticent meditations on the su&%ect have occasioned

some serious criticism!

Kluge9s &reakthrough came with his 'rst feature 'lm grievously translated in

English as ?esterday *irl 3400 which won the @ilver Iion in =enice in 3400! A truer

rendering would &e #Taking Ieave of ?esterday$ an ironic title pointing to the plight

of the main character and her ina&ility to ever really escape the past! This is

perhaps Kluge9s most accessi&le feature and many critics have noted its o&vious

stylistics aFnities to the early work of *odard who had an enormous in>uence on

Kluge at this time Kluge has remarked that Breathless inspired him to go into

'lmmaking in the 'rst place!

?et those critics who paint the early Kluge as little more than a degraded imitator of

*odard miss out on the fact that there9s something very di8erent going on in Kluge

something that sets him apart from *odard and the other modernist 'lmmakers

who would later &e cele&rated in the ;/s in %ournals such as @creen! The 6rench

&rand of #political modernism$ as

intellectual tradition deeply informed &y various strains of 6rench 2arxism

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especially Iouis Althusser and *uy

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rapprochement &etween them Brecht9s didacticism matched with a healthy dose of

Adornian negativity and skepticism! At no point do Kluge9s 'lms resolve into either

propagandistic sloganeering or an irresponsi&le withdrawal from their o&ligations to

engage the world!

As he constructed his program Kluge withdrew to the :nstitut fLr6ilmgestaltung in Mlm a 'lm school he had helped found in the 0/s and made two

lo-' science 'ction 'lms The Big 2ess 34;3 and ,ill To&ler and the @inking of the

33th 6leet 34;5 &oth rather forgetta&le &ut nonetheless peppered with some

hilarious moments and spectacular performances most nota&ly from the actor

itinerant intellectual and fellow traveller of the 6rankfurt intellectual scene Alfred

Edel! After this Kluge em&arked on a truly remarka&le period of production turning

out his 'rst ma%or theoretical work with 1skar +egt The Pu&lic @phere and

Experience and a series of 'lms deeply entwined with the political pro%ect outlined

in this work! 6or Kluge and +egt the term #pu&lic$ or #pu&lic sphere$ designated

two things! 1n the one hand it referred to an actual social space where human

experience was shaped and ena&led including a &road variety of institutions suchas the press the media and of course the cinema! This pu&lic sphere is dominated

&y corporate-owned media and constitutes what +egt and Kluge call the #&ourgeois

pu&lic$ whose values and terms are those of the dominant class! 1n the other

hand Kluge and +egt9s notion of the pu&lic includes an ethical principle that

demands an ever greater transparency for larger areas of collective social life that

the private dealings of politics 'nance and the economy &e made matters of pu&lic

control and discussion and that greater control over the institutions of the pu&lic

sphere &e accorded to those most a8ected &y it! :t9s easy to see from this how

Kluge could su&seuently rethink the role of political cinema with this concept of the

pu&lic sphere as a guide! As cinema helps structure experience it can contri&ute tothe creation of #proletarian$ or #counter-pu&lic spheres$ free from the in>uence of

&ig money and the demands of the market!

The 'rst of these 'lms Part-Time ,ork of a 6emale @lave 34;J follows

Hoswitha Bronski wife and mother of two who works as a part-time a&ortionist to

feed her kids! This 'lm was intended to engage with the emergent women9s

movement in *ermany &ut its portrayal of Hoswitha as a hapless ingNnue along

with Kluge9s rather patroni)ing voiceover and its pro&lematic representation of

a&ortion and a&ortion rights elicited well-deserved criticism in *ermany and

a&road! +evertheless the 'lm is an attempt to carry out part of the program put

forth in Pu&lic @phere and Experience namely to reconstitute the realm of pu&licde&ate in terms generally excluded from conventional pu&lic discourse! The next

'lm :n

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fragmented and diFcult(&ut rewarding('lm always seem outpaced &y history

trying to understand their world and orient themselves within it with o&solete tools

and social skills incompati&le with the pace of modern life and its cold rationality!

These two 'lms were not particularly successful and with @trongman

6erdinand 34;0 Kluge em&arked on a new experiment in response to make apolitical 'lm with a conventional realist narrative and a recogni)a&le television star

"ein) @chu&ert in the title role! 6erdinand a #security expert$ who has a hard time

keeping a %o& &ecause he pursues his work a &it too enthusiastically ends up

getting arrested after shooting a low-level government minister in a &otched

attempt to highlight the ineFciency of *erman security services! Another

commercial failure the 'lm also fails within the context of Kluge9s pro%ect! Kluge9s

'lms always convey some sort of political content as a legi&le #message$ or idea

&ut the heart of their politics lies in their form in the degree to which they not only

oppose or ignore the protocols of "ollywood realism &ut also prompt a new form of

engaged spectatorial activity! Kluge9s fundamental conviction is that 'lm form is as

signi'cant as its content in situating the viewer! ,hen the concern for form fallsaway the truly utopian elements of Kluge9s pro%ect disappear with it!

The late ;/s saw another remarka&le &urst of activity with Kluge9s

participation in the classic collective 'lm *ermany in Autumn 34;D along with

such others as @chlndor8 Heit) and most notoriously 6ass&inder who plays

himself as an a&usive lover and exhi&itionist desultorily mastur&ating as he talks

on the phone with his mother! The 'lm was made in response to the events of the

#*erman Autumn$ of 34;; when the HA6 a&ducted and killed "anns-2artin @chleyer

and three mem&ers of the HA6 Gohannes Baader *udrun Ensslin and Gan-Carl

Haspe were found dead under extremely suspicious circumstances in their cells in

@tammheim prison! @pecial laws were enacted to com&at terrorism and there was a

palpa&le fear on the left that an older form of authoritarianism might &e emerging!

Though made as an intervention into an extremely speci'c political context the 'lm

has held up ama)ingly well over the past three decades and stands as an example

for a potential colla&orative political cinema or video practice today!

Kluge9s episode from the 'lm features the 'ctive history teacher *a&i

Teichert who he would reprise in the eually cele&rated and condemned The Patriot

34;4! Teichert played &y one of *ermany9s great theatre and 'lm actresses

"annelore "oger gets uite practical in her e8orts to &etter understand *erman

history and the particular fascination nationalism has held for the country she drillsinto historical tomes cooks them in &eakers in makeshift science la&s and literally

ingests them! :n one of the &est examples of Kluge9s favoured formal trick of

com&ining documentary and 'ctive modes Teichert attends a real @P< party

gathering to demand a #*erman history worth teaching$ from perplexed and

annoyed delegates!

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But despite the 'lm9s o&vious claims to deal with *erman history and nationalism it

ignores the most o&vious victims of that history! :ts opening passages tread on

extremely controversial ground when Kluge9s voiceover declares that Teichert as a

teacher of history and a patriot #is concerned with all the dead of the Heich!$ This is

followed &y old war-'lm footage of a &attle'eld strewn with corpses accompanied

&y "anns Eisler9s well-known music from Hesnais9 +ight and 6og 34..! Perhapsthis %uxtaposition is meant to register the presence of all the victims of the Heich

with Eisler9s music somehow standing in for the victims of +a)i extermination

policies and the visuals somehow standing in for the *erman dead &ut the e8ect is

to euate the two groups and their su8ering! :n the su&seuent two hours of the

'lm there is no mention of the "olocaust let alone any distinction made &etween

innocents and perpetrators or soldiers and civilians nor is there any re>ection on

the degree to which *erman national identity ostensi&ly a serious concern of

Kluge9s relied upon the demoni)ation of an entire people! :t is this sort of historical

o&tuseness which at times lessens the power of Kluge9s often remarka&le formal

e8orts and it makes us recall that at a fundamental level no degree of formal

su&tlety or innovation makes up for a crude insight!

After The Patriot Kluge made two further colla&orative pieces The

Candidate 34D/ a&out the candidacy of the corrupt far right 6ran) Gosef @trauss

for Chancellor and ,ar and Peace 34D5 a rather moving montage 'lm made in

clear opposition to the stationing of Pershing :: missiles on *erman soil &y the M@!

Both of these 'lms pushed forward Kluge9s program to create an alternative pu&lic

sphere responsive to the needs and demands of the so-called +ew @ocial

2ovements that had emerged in the ;/s! But the works that stands out from this

late period are his two essay 'lms The Power of Emotions 34DJ and The Blind

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@imilarly The Blind