Landscapes of Resistance.

The German Films of Daniele Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub by Barton Byg Review by: Margret Eifler The German Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Summer, 2000), pp. 339-341 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of German Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3072892 . Accessed: 21/01/2013 17:21
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BOOK REVIEWS EuroBildungzu einem "kosmopolitischen erfuhrauch Peter de Mendelssohnin paiertum" der Schule und Kiinstlerkolonievon Hellerau. Hier wiirde man gern mehr fiber Entstehung und Geschichte dieser bei Dresden gelegenen Provinzerfahren.Liitzelerliasst ptidagogischen jedoch eine groBe Zahl von Autoren, die nach Hellerau kamen, und ihrer Europa-Gedanken Revue passieren. Nach dem Kalten Krieg lenken auch deutsche Autoren den Blick vermehrt von Europa der aufdie Welteinschliel3lich Dritten.Luitzeler gibt eine erste Summierung ihres Schreibens aus europfiischer Perspektive. Es wird sich wohl noch herausstellen, ob sie alle von Hans Christoph Buch iiber Eva Demski, Ingeborg Drewitz, Hubert Fichte, Giinter Grass, Botho Kirchhoff,FranzXaverKrotzund Luise Rinser ganz einheitlich nicht "mit dem iiberlegenen, besserwisserischen,ausbeuterischenund missionarischenkolonialen,sondernmit dem offenen, wissbegierigen,solidarischenund gleichwohl kritischen Blick" (144) reisten. Vieles wurde notgedrungenfiir den Tag geschrieben, vieles hat sich inzwischen geiandert,ob in Indien oder New York.Litzeler differenziertjedoch auch und stellt ganz zu Recht Peter Schneiderals einen exemplarischenAutor dar, der, ob iiber Siidamerika oder Deutschland schreibend,jeweils das andere mitdenkt und der eine heilsame "Kulturdes Zweifels"an der Zivilisationiibt. europaiischen Im dem abschliel3enden Essay iiber "Briissel und Sarajewo"wird die Haltung deutscher Autoren zur EuropaiischenGemeinschaft einerseits und zum Bosnien-Kriegandererseits in den Blick gefasst. Wieder tun sich enorme Unterschiede auf, und Litzeler spart nicht an Kritik.So erscheintBriisselFC. Delius als Kopf eines Europa der Ausbeuter,ffir Hans Manus Enzensberger ist es der Zerstbrerkultureller Vielfalt. Zu den wenigen, die sich ffir ein Eingreifen in Bosnien engagierten,gehorte neben Hertha Miiller wiederum Schneider,wiihrend Enzensbergersich nur fiir den deutschen"Biirgerkrieg" in Moelln und Hoyerswerda.Peter Sloterdijkmit seinem Traumvon einer europaiischen GroBmacht,der Coudenhove Kalergis Europa erwacht! in ein Falls Europa erwacht umschreibt, und Peter Handkes Medienkritik in seinem Essay "Gerechtigkeitfiir Serbien" werdenkritischundklugabwigenddiskutiert. WelcheWirkunghaben aber all diese, z.T. heftig gefiihrten Debatten-man denke nur an

339

die zwischenSchneiderund Handke-in Wirklichkeit? Auch dazu sagt Liitzeler ein wahres Wort: "Der Einfluss der Literatur im Bereich des Politischen ist sehr begrenzt" (192).
SIGRIDBAUSCHINGER

Amherst of University Massachusetts,

Byg, Barton. Landscapes of Resistance. TheGerman Films ofDanieleHuilletand

Jean-Marie Straub. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995. 303 pp., 44 b/w photos, 3 illus., $19.95 paperback.

Hardlyanybodyin today'sinternationalindependent-film scene is so intransigent and retroverse as the longtime filmmaker couple Daniele Huillet and Jean-MarieStraub.Due to their relentlessly difficultfilm style, which demandsa decipheringintellect and does not supply thrill-oriented gratification, public reception of them is almostnonexistent. Even among cineasts their films have a rather mixed resonance. They are viewed as either stiff, deadly boring,and amateurishor as ingenious and toThe assessment of Straub/ tally misunderstood. Huillet's work by Barton Byg is therefore a highlywelcomeretrospectiveof an ongoingand still very active, if little viewed and reviewed film production.The approximately150 publications listed in Byg's index indicate that Strauband Huillet's workamountsto not more than narrowlyfocused article interpretations, feuilletonisticreviews or interviews. There exist only one or two in depthbook-lengthstudies on Straub/Huillet,written decades ago. Byg's book therefore, originally his dissertation, is truly a workof devotionto bringthese rather neglected filmmakers to the fore. The study is situated in a myriad of contextualizations and explications reaching from Brecht, Benjamin, and Adorno to contemporary film theory and social-historicalfilm criticism. Onedoes at times get a bit lost in the overload of heterogeneous information. Several chapters of the book were already published elsewhere and they stress at times extraneous aspects that detract to a degree from the inner core of the study.The overall conceptionof the book,therefore,should have concentratedon a more comprehensivework biographyand not

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340

THE GERMANQUARTERLY

Summer 2000

focused exclusively on the directors' German film production.Nonetheless, the study delivers the most respectable,detailedwork assessment on the subjectto date. More focus should have been given to the profilingof the female of this cinematicteam. Byg's attention to Daniele Huillet does not really capture her contributions. In a too short section of the first chapter titled "Straub/ he Huillet'sAuthorship" addressestheir collaboration.Huillet is describedas disinterestedin a feminist or gender specificstance and highly information. reticent in divulgingbiographical WhileByglamentsthe fact that she is totallyignoredby filmcriticismhe doesnot set out to correct this demise (12). Bygcorrectlysees the needto studythe gender issues and the separate work methods involved,but defers them to others for follow-up. Assessingher rolemorefullywouldhavefilleda long-neglectedvoid and would have strengthened the book's overall intent. In the first part of the book, Byg sets out to explain that Straub and Huillet adhere to a strict film practiceof reductionand simplification of form. Both filmmakersclaim to be radical critics of the culture industry and thus adhere to the high ethics of cinematic frugality and essentials. They both followthe Brechtian traditionof workingextremelycloselywith the actors, effecting, for example, heightened expression through lay actors not familiar even with the foreign language of the film text. Byg also delineates very poignantly and clearly Straub/Huillet's complex strategy of creating visual pleasure through an intense concentration on the cinematic constituents of light, sound and motion in juxtapositionswith landscape and poetic text. As such, Byg very effectively analyzes the meticulous scripting and preparations underlying all films of Straub/ Huillet andhe gives an excellentunderstanding of their film language and film ethics. reMuchof the filmmakers'misunderstood stems from their choice of ception probably filmic style. Byg explains that it relies extensively on highly photographic camera work. Shooting is always done very directly from a strategicpoint that recordsall spatialrelations and makes only very little use of the shot-reaction-countershottechnique.Theyalso have not compromisedtheir artistic stance to reach a mass audienceas Fassbinderand Wendersdid. their workkeeps the classicalimmediActually,

acy of early sound cinema or even the silent film. Byg is also correctwhen he states that the criticalcomplaintsaboutStraub/Huillet'sfilms being stiff or ascetic probablyresult fromtheir almost "archeologicallysearched" film locations. They all convey a stark atmosphereand have an almost static quality to them. Their renditionseems to avoidall more photographic effects. The natural space is kept psychological simple or empty, speaking so to say only through its surface texture of the world. This becomes,in turn, extendedto an idea, conveyed not through the narrativeconvention of a plot but supplied by a highly stylized, estranged text. These spoken or inserted (but never selfauthored,self-imposing)texts are a web of citations fromrathercomplexand multiple artistic realms and rest on an array of adaptation sources (Corneille, Cezanne, Hblderlin, MalAll larm6,Schbnberg,Kafka,Brecht, B611). are structuredin layers, connections,andjuxtapositions of history and different modes of discourse.Byg's knowledgeableexplanationshere quite successfully establish Straub/Huillet's films as highly crafted artifacts that do intend to resist easy consumption.They demandto be seen intelligently.Byg thereforedismisses critics who label their films anti-cinematic, antinarrative,minimalist, or abstract. From such aesthetic considerations, Byg moveson to morepoliticalcontextualizationsof their work. He places Straub/ Huillet among of the majorfigures of the neo-avant-garde the late fifties and early sixties. They were influential precursors to the next generation of the "New German Cinema." Their films became paradigmsof a Brechtianpoliticalmodernism, they stoodat the foundationof criticalfilm theory and belongedto the foundersof the concept of "counter-cinema." Withthe onset of political conservatism in the late seventies and early eighties a backlash against socio-criticalculture broughta silencingto most leftist counterculture.Straub/Huillet,however,rigorouslydefied these changes and continued to preserve their avantgardist tradition in filmmaking. Both filmmakershad alwayscreateddeeplypolitical films via a materialist approach to filmmaking,which means not deceivingor manipulating the viewer and "bring[ing]people face to face with the ideas in their naked state" as Straub likes to put it (34). Such austerity of filmmakingrests, in Byg's view, on the convic-

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BOOKREVIEWS
tion and hope of finding at least some audience open to utopian fragmentsin this culturalmarketplace with its dictates of consumerism. Chaptersthree through eleven, the core of the study,providea thoroughinterpretationof nine filmsthat arebasedon Germantexts. They all concern adaptations from diarist material, literarywriting,biblicaltexts, andmusicalcomposition. In 1967 Straub/ Huillet produced "The Chroniclesof Anna MagdalenaBach;"in 1962-64 followed two B611adaptations "MachorkaMuff" (HauptstiidtischesJournal) and "Not Reconciled"(Billiardat Half Past Nine); in 1972 "HistoryLessons" (based on Brecht's Die Geschlifte des Herrn Julius Caesar); in 1974-75 Sch6nberg'smusicaladaptations"Moses andAaron"and "Accompaniment a Cineto matographicScene";in 1983 "ClassRelations" based on Kafka'snovelAmerica;and finallythe H6oderlin renditions of "The Death of Empedocles" in 1986-88 and "Antigone"in 1991-92. Since most of these films do not contain direct depictions or references to fascist/postwarGermanyand since Straub/Huillet left Germany due to Fassbinder's and Wenders's returns to more narrativepracticeswith ironic re-workingsof Hollywoodgenres, their work found only marginaltreatment in the established critical literature of the "New German Cinema"(Santner,Kaes, Elsaesser). It is therefore Byg's primarygoal in his film interpretations of Straub/Huillet to correct this omission and to demonstrate the significance and the extent of their cinematicconfrontation with Germanhistory and culture (35). Though Straub/Huillet'sfilms seem removedfromcontemporarytexts and contexts, centering more on musicalor painterlysourcesandbiblicaland classicalmyths, they evoke a utopian forcethat is not without a strong sense of history; their films are directed towards an underlyinguniversal obligationto resistance and resisting-hence Byg's book title. Byg's ultimate intent is to dismiss the notion that both filmmakersbelongto an inaccessible avant-garde.Unfortunately,I think this reputation will be hard to efface-despite the enormousexplicatoryefforts of this book-due

341

in New Yorkand one at the University of Wisconsin (4). In 1997, in conjunction with the opening of Straub/Huillet's most recent film "VonHeute auf Morgen"in Paris, there was a retrospective of all their 35mm and 16mm films, alongwith articlesin Cahiersdu Cinema. Even this Frencheffort couldnot muster much of a revitalizingmomentum.Receptionof their workwill remain limited in an era where intellectual filmmaking is drowned out by an action-based Hollywoodfilm industry.There are also no readily accessiblefilm/videooutlets for Straub/Huillet's film work, evidenced by the fact that Byg does not list any distribution sourcesin his filmography. Furthermore,none ofthe films since the earlyeighties have English subtitles (3-4), making reception for an international audience even more unlikely. Nevertheless, both the films of Straub and Huillet and Barton Byg's devoted critical assessment of them will remainarchivalgems for those whoappreciate cinematicalternative. the
MARGRET EIFLER

Rice University

Barg, Werner. Erzdhlkino und Autorenfilm. Zur Theorie und Praxis filmischen Erzdhlens bei Alexander Kluge und Edgar Reitz. Miinchen: Fink. 1996. 502 pp. DM 98.00 paperback.

Die vorliegendeArbeituiber AlexanderKluge und Edgar Reitz ist eine gekiirzte deutsche Dissertation aus dem Jahre 1992. Sie fand angesichts ihres Volumens, nicht ihrer Qualitdit wegen, erst im Jahre 1996 durch SelbstfinanzierungVerlegung.Dieser Umstand ist bedauerlich, aberdurchdie Griindlichkeitmit der die Thematik abgehandelt ist, bleibt die Abhandlung von dauerndemWert.Im deutschen Wissenschaftsbetriebhat man jedoch immer noch nicht gelernt, Dissertationen leserfreundlich aufzuarbeiten. Man vermisst eine klare, anschaulicheKonturierungder beiden Filmemato the intellectualist mode and lack of accessi- cher und ihrer werkbiographischen Kontexte. bility (novideooutlets carrythem, no subtitles). Die dargelegtenProblematikenverschwimmen The films ofStraub/Huillethavehadhardlyany in einem uniibersichtlichen Volumen von showings or special retrospectiveseven in the Nach-und Nebeneinanderstellungen.Dariiber off-marketsof alternative cinema. Byg reports hinaus erschwert der deutsch-biirokratische of only two US events in the early eighties: one Gliederungsapparatder Kapiteleinteilungen

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