Defining Your Terms Clearly, What Elements Of Brecht’s Theories Can Be Traced In Films That Are Said To Be ‘Alternative Cinema’ Essay, Research Paper

Defining Your Terms Clearly, What Element of Brecht?s

Theories Can Be Traced in Films that are said to be

?Alternative Cinema??

The term alternative cinema has certain connotations. To many, it is not alternative, instead it is

the way cinema was meant to be viewed, in that the viewer should be able to define the film in

their own personal terms. In the following essay, I will firstly examine what the term alternative

cinema means, and secondly how Brecht?s theories are evident in many elements of the films that

have been pigeon-holed as alternative cinema.

The word alternative is described in Collins English Dictionary as:

?Denoting a lifestyle, culture, art form, etc., regarded by its adherents as preferable to that of

contemporary society because it is less conventional, materialistic, or institutionalised, and,

often, more in harmony with nature.?(Makin, 1992)

This is an extremely useful definition, as the word ?alternative? has been used to describe a form

of medicine or therapy, and even forms of energy. ?Alternative medicine? examines the persons

physical well-being, and uses acupuncture, feng-shui, massage, and many others, as techniques to

alleviate disease. ?Alternative energy? is energy created from what surrounds us, such as, wind,

the sea and the tides; it is energy that brings us in alignment with nature. The word ?alternative? in

these forms looks at natural processes found in nature. A number of films from around the world

can be pigeon-holed as alternative cinema, that is, the cinema that rejects the mainstream

approach of filmmaking. It is not a particular method of making films because many of these films

are very different from each other and use differing approaches. alternative cinema does not look

at a particular way of doing things but a particular way of not doing things. the Brechtian aspect

of making films centres largely on the theoretical and creative side of film-making, therefore,

many of the films said to be alternative, in terms of production, cannot be discussed in terms of

the work of Bertolt Brecht.

Bertolt Brecht was born in Germany in 1898, and has been cited as the driving force behind

what is commonly known as the ?epic theatre?. Brechts? ethos centred around bourgeoise theatre,

which through the elaborate sets and acting style helped to allow the audience to consider what

they are seeing, rather than a simple attempt to create reality. The bourgoise theatre did this by

presenting storylines and characters that the audience could empathise with and not presenting a

simple construction of reality. The audience were pushed to evaluate the piece and no longer

treated it as simple entertainment.

I once stood, with a friend, in front of a painting by the Italian painter, Gustave Cailebotte. The

painting was called ?Paris: On A Rainy Day?, and to me the painting?s use of drab colours and

suffused light, plus the details of Cailebotte?s characters, distinct in the foreground yet blurred in

the background, gave me a sense that I was a Parisian walking through those streets. I could not

focus on what lay beyond, and was just single-mindedly getting to where I was going. The rain

had turned Paris into a city that conflicts with the Paris that we all know, a Paris that welcomes

you with open-arms, a friendly Paris full of sunshine. This to me was the anti-Paris. In short, my

belief was that Cailebotte was attempting to express the wonder of Paris through challenging what

Paris is not. My friend on the other hand believed that Cailebotte was destroying the notion of

Paris as a city where the sun always shines, where the scenery is beautiful and the streets are full

of friendly faces. This to him was the back-end of Paris, where the locals never wore smiles and

walked about their daily business unaware of how the other half lived. This to him was the real

Paris. This incident perfectly illustrates the essence of alternative cinema, enabling the consumer

to personally interpret the film. It should be possible for two people to walk out of the film with

totally differing views on what they have just seen. It is up to the audience to unravel the film, not

the film to unravel itself. Brecht himself remarked that Epic Theatre: ?turns the spectator into an

observer, but arouses his capacity for action, forces him to take decisions… the spectator stands

outside, studies.? (Brcht, 64)

When the Hollywood studio system started in the 1920s, certain techniques and standardised

operations grew from this. Up until this point most film-making was said to be experimental.

However, with the advent of the major five studios (Paramount, MGM, RKO, Warner, Fox) and

the minor three studios (Universal, United Artists, Columbia), a divide between what can be

classed as ?alternative? and what can be classed as ?mainstream? cinema appeared. There was an

?assembly line? technique of production within the fully integrated studios and their sole aim was

economical rather than artistic. Mass production was the vogue. Henry Ford made cars for the

masses – the studios made films for the masses.

The studios tried to open a fictional world and drag the audience inside by hiding the technical

side of film-making. They would obide by specific rules of operation, such as the 180? rule (A line

is drawn through the action in which the camera cannot cross, thus keeping the right perspective

on the action) and the 30? rule (The camera cannot cut to more than thirty degrees around the

axis of an object), to name just a few. Temporal continuity kept the story flowing in the right

direction, and all these techniques helped the audience to be totally absorbed in the action on

screen and to believe in the fictional narrative.

In contrast to this, it was Jean-Luc Goddard who remarked that his films are ?more essayistic

[and use] less narrative than ever before, [and] have become a continuous free-form commentary

on art, society, memory and, above all, cinema.? (Romney, J) This way of thinking was largely foreign to

Hollywood and the mainstream film-makers, and this quote typifies the ethos of the alternative

film-makers. To exemplify the methods of the mainstream filmmakers versus the alternative

filmmakers we can simply look at the film, Cape Fear.

The 1962 version of this film by J. Lee Thompson works on the Hollywood ethos of

equilibrium. The sugar coated portrayal of family life, is soon followed by the disequilibrium

caused by the entry of Max Cady and then the film ends with the equilibrium that returns when

Cady dies. In the 1991 version, Martin Scorsese, its director, who although not generally classed

as an alternative filmmaker, is classed as an auteur in that his films are personal journeys, and

express personal beliefs. His version of Cape Fear begins with a family already in disequilibrium

and the entry of Cady exacerbates this. Cady eventually dies and an equilibrium is found that was

not evident at the beginning. The film of Scorsese can be seen as working in the mainstream

because of the happy ending but still does not follow standardised narrative procedure. This

method of working is indicative of the modern film-makers? move away from what is generally

thought of as mainstream, and instead illustrates a newly realised technique of storytelling. Peter

Wollen remarks that ?The beginning of the film starts with establishment, which sets up the basic

dramatic situation – usually an equilibrium, which is then disturbed. A kind of chain reaction then

follows, until at the end a new equilibrium is restored.? (Wollen, 99). Scorsese?s Cape Fear does appear to

have an economic purpose above everything else and closure gives the mainstream film its own

reality, with nothing existing ouside its own bounds, and no need to reach ouside this perimeter to

find closure. Mostly, Mainstream cinema is fictional entertainment and its aim is to be

unchallenging and above all enjoyable, with social and political issues largely ignored and even

biographical and true-life films presented as simple representations, all this differs from what the

documentary film and alternative cinema is trying to achieve.

The acting style withing the Brechtian film should have an ?alienating effect? on the audience.

The actors would use various techniques to seperate themselves from the characters they were

playing. Lines were delivered as if simply quoting from the script, which had the effect of

seperating the actor from the part they were playing. It would disregard the 4th wall of the theatre

and address the audience directly.

I will now look at German expressionism (commonly cited as alternative cinema) and in

particular Robert Wiene?s Cabinet of Dr Caligari. This film displays many elements of Brechtian

theory, with it?s distorted view of reality. One reviewer started his critique by saying:

?Is the film what it is on the surface? Is Francis a madman who has concocted the story? Or is

it yet again reversed, with the framing device an epilogue which illustrates how corrupt power

protects itself? or, again, can any part of the story be believed? Could some aspects be true

and others false?… The speculation produced in the minds of the audience have the same

effect as the scenery: they put everything off-balance. No one can be trusted. In this way, the

message about crippling power and the nature of authority is even stronger because of its

actual mentally disorientating quality.? (Brown, 98)

The film poses questions. It?s dream-like quality avoids a realist take and therefore lets the

audience pose its own questions and then answer these questions, therefore in effect forming its

own reality. The actors use exaggerated gestures to externalise the characters? emotions. The

audience discovers the characters? emotions without being sucked into the world that the

characters inhabit. This style of acting was seen as a response to method acting, a style developed

by Stanislavsky between 1910 and 1920 and taken up by actors such as Marlon Brando and

Dustin Hoffman in modern cinema. German expressionism used the actors as an extension of the

sets, making a psychological link between the two. The expressionist movement was clearly an

alternative to the mainstream and was similar in many ways to Brecht?s epic theatre and in that

respect can be called alternative cinema.

However, it is difficult to class German expressionist filmmakers as Brechtian in approach,

although there are similarities. German expressionism does not succeed in breaking the fictional

barrier, it distorts what is recogniseable enough to increase the impact of the film. German

expressionism along with soviet montage, (and especially the films of Sergei Eisenstein) both bear

similarities with Brechtian theory, however, this is seen as more by coincidence rather than

influence. It was with the emergence of the French new-wave that Brechtianism was embraced

fully. Filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Goddard focused largely on the audiences? relationship with

the action on screen, and their main aim was to push back the boundaries that the mainstream

cinema up until then had promoted. in 1959 Jean-Luc Goddard released A Bout de Souffle

(Breathless) which illustrated how he was trying to experiment in film.

Goddard has attempted to remove many of the techniques used by mainstream film-makers to

pull the audiences into the filmic reality, and he has replaced them with characters that talk to the

audience, a total removal of transparent editing, and an anti-illusionist method of acting. The film

is a milestone in world cinema for a number of reasons. Firstly its style of editing which, according

to John Francis Kreidl:

?does not allow the viewer – like in the normal Hollywood film viewing experience – to set

up a preconceived notion how to take a shot and assign to it meaning. Shots are cut in ways

that confound anticipation the exact opposite of the way the classical Hollywood film of the

1930?s sets up each successive group of shots. Every act by the hero of ?Breathless?, Michel

Poiccard, seems as if he had just, on the spur of the moment, decided to do what he did.? (Kreidl, 80)

Michel as a character often comments upon himself as a character in the film, which distances

Michel from the filmic world, and lets the audience ask questions themselves as to what they

would do. Michel has chosen to go one way, would we have done the same? Whilst Michel asks

questions of Patricia, her vagueness in answering them allows the audience to step in and answer

them for her so giving the audience a feeling of participation, a feeling that this is not reality and

therefore we are allowed to enter the world and choose the outcome. The cinematographic

technique is ahead of its time, with innovations in the jump cut (a few feet of film is cut in random

places) and the quick cut (short shots are cut out that break up the continuity of a given scene).

With these shots the audience is invited to fill in the missing gaps. In one scene Michel is seen

lying in Patricia?s bed, and in the next he is walking out of the bathroom. The film also uses highly

professional actors in very amateurish situations which does not ring true, (the same situation

would arise if amateur actors were in professional situations). This technique adds to the falseness

of the film and the involvement of the audience.

In 1967 Vent D?Est was released. The French New-Wave had already petered out but here was

a film that embraced Brechtianism wholly, as Brecht remarked, ?Character is never used as a

source of motivation; these people?s inner life is never the principle cause of the action and

seldom its principle result; the individual is seen from outside.? (Brecht, 64) Vent D?est involved characters

talking directly to the camera, different characters using the same voice, and different voices for

the same character. Therefore, a distancing from reality occured and as an audience, we, rather

than following the plot in a logical fashion, have to force our own perception onto proceeding to

garner our own meaning from what we see.

Jean Marie Straub followed Brechtian theory closely in his work. His first feature film, Not

Reconciled, begins with a Brechtian quote, ?Only violence serves where violence reigns? and

Bordwell and Thompson remarked that ?Straub… films invite us to consider the actors not as

psychological beings but as reciters of written dialogue. We thus become actively aware of our

own conventional expectations about film acting, and perhaps those expectations are broadened a

bit? (Bordwell, 97) Not Reconciled uses the theory that fiction in the context of another time period was

inevitably alienating for the audience. In short, each period of history has its own beliefs and

values inapplicable to any other, so that nothing can be understood independently of its historical

context; Brecht called this ?Historicization?. In Not Reconciled, the narrative flits around between

differing time periods and does not clearly seperate each period from the next, therefore,

alienating the audience from the events on screen. The actors in Not Reconciled spout their lines

as if reciters of written dialogue. Through this the audience, become aware of the expectations of

film acting and then they broaden these expectations which again helps to alienate them.

Brecht only briefly toyed with the film industry, making the left wing communist picture Kuhle

Wampe, yet his theories were applied liberally by the French New-Wave cinema and can be seen

as early as German Expressionism. The German New-Wave cinema of the 1960?s also displayed

many of Bertholt Brecht?s theories, with directors such as Alexander Kluge displaying these ideas

in films such as Disorientated. The film Disorientated was typified by episodic narrative,

alienating acting and the seperation of sound and image. alternative cinema is not just a term used

to describe French, German and Soviet cinema, although these were simply the countries most

renowned for this type of production. Countries such as Brazil, Iran, India and Britain have all

produced films classed as alternative or new-wave. The Brechtian philosophy, if used in the

production of film, will nearly always get the film the title of alternative cinema because the

concepts of pleasure, spectacle and identification all take a backseat whilst the differing concepts

of alienation, sporadic and episodic narrative take the front seat and help the audience to

understand the film on many differing levels.

Many barriers have been broken down in recent years with directors such as Quentin Tarantino

offering Jean-Luc Goddard as a major influence in his work. Yet he is still classed as Mainstream

because his films gain high box-office receipts, although, at the same time, garnering ?cult? status.

The film-makers that emerged through the seventies, for example Stanley Kubrick, Martin

Scorsese, Francis Ford Copolla and Arthur Penn, all displayed prominent anti-Hollywood threads.

Yet their box-office returns proved that the so-called Hollywood rules of production set up in the

studio years, can be ignored and a specific effect achieved. These directors were great innovators

yet still gained huge box-office returns, which forged the alliance between the alternative and the

mainstream. Hollywood is still concerned with the economic side of film-making yet it has been

shown to be possible to innovate and also side with the mainstream movement.

b5f

Makins, M (Managing Editor) (1992) Collins: English Dictionary. HarperCollins Publishers

Bordwell, D & Thompson, K (1997) Film Art: An Introduction. McGraw-Hill.

Willett, J (1964) Brecht on theatre. Methuen.

Cook, P (1999) The Cinema Book.

Elsaesser, T From anti-illusionism to hyper-realism: Bertolt Brecht and Contemporary Film.

Brewser, B (1975-76) Brecht and the Film Industry. Screen. 16(4).

Heath, S (1975-76) From Brecht to Film: Theses, Problems. Screen. 16(4).

MacCabe, C (1975-76) The Politics of Seperation. Screen. 16(4).

Kuhle Wampe. (1974) Screen. 15(2).

Kreidl, J, (1980). Jean-Luc Godard. Boston: Twayne Publisher.

Internet Resources

Romney, J. Praise be to Godard. The Guardian/The Observer Visited Apr 2000 URL: http://

www.filmunlimited.co.uk/ Feature_Story/interview

Brown (1998)The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. The Magic of the Movies Visited. Apr 2000. URL:

http://members.aol.com/aechrist/6/das.html

Filmography

A Bout de Souffle (1960) Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Written by Jean-Luc Godard. French:

Les Films georges de Beauregard, Imperia, Societe Nouvelle de cinematographie, societe

Nouvelle de Cinema.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) Directed by Robert Wiene. Written by Hans Janowitz & Karl

Mayer. Germany: Decla-Bioscop

Kuhle Wampe (1932) Directed by Slatan Dudow. Written by Slatan Dudow & Bertolt Brecht.

Germany & Switzerland: Praesens-Film AG, Prometheus Film.

Not Reconciled (1965) Directed by Daniele Huillet & Jean Marie Straub. Written by Heinrich

Bolle & Daniele Huillet. West German: Unavailable.

Vent D?Est (1969) Directed by Jean-Luc Godard & Jean0Pierre Gorin Written by Sergio Bazzini

& Daniel Cohn Bendit. French: Film Kunst, Anouchka Films, Polifilm.