Menu

Alexander Kluge

The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time (The Blind Director), 1985

December 28, 2017

Curiously opening near the end of the second act of Tosca as the heroine (Maria Slatinaru) fends off the advances of Scarpia (Günther Reich), the corrupt police commissioner, the unexpectedly abrupt, in medias res performance of the Puccini opera provides an incisive prelude to the elliptical structure of Alexander Kluge’s “anonymous city” symphony, The Assault… read more »

The Power of Emotion, 1983

December 28, 2017

A subtly interconnecting mosaic of staged vignettes, non-fiction footage, archival prints, and found film excerpts, Alexander Kluge’s The Power of Emotion is an organic, densely layered meditation on the intangible (and often irrational) essential mechanism of human emotion. At the core of Kluge’s exposition is the interrelation between two disparate observations: 1) that objects, in… read more »

Strongman Ferdinand, 1976

December 28, 2017

Something of a wry spiritual ancestor to Harun Farocki’s 1990 found film montage, How to Live in the German Federal Republic on the pervasiveness of efficiency training and preparedness exercises in German society and their intrinsic reflection of a people’s stunted growth, repressed conformity, and evasion of human experience in a climate of increasing economic… read more »

Yesterday Girl (Anita G.), 1966

December 28, 2017

In his early short essay film, Brutality in Stone, Alexander Kluge channels the contemplative spirit of Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog and Statues Also Die (co-authored by Chris Marker) to convey the idea of architectural memories, the traces of memory that subconsciously remain within the de-contextualized images of derelict structures and abandoned ruins, in this… read more »

Sidebar