5 - Re-visioning History
from The Revisionist History Film
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2019
Summary
’ “But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors; every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been great men,” ‘ says history. And indeed, every time conquerors appear there have been wars, human reason replies, but this does not prove that the conquerors caused the wars and that it is possible to find the laws of a war in the personal activity of a single man.
Leo Tolstoy, War and PeaceIn the West they're afraid of collective experiences, they always individualize things. But in Hamletmachine there are lots of Hamlets.
Heiner MüllerDEFINING THEREVISIONIST HISTORY FILM
One important category of films that have made use of the Brechtian, dialectical aesthetic are films concerned with historical questions that investigate how past historical experiences have their effects on the present. This is no surprise given Brecht's desire to make audiences think historically as a means of understanding the dialectics of history and people's ability to change its direction. In these terms, the historical point of view refers to the capacity to imagine one's own position in the world as part of larger collective processes. This argument is stated idiosyncratically in Brecht's collection of philosophical aphorisms influenced by Chinese philosophy, Me-ti: Book of Interventions in the Flow of Things. In one emblematic passage titled ‘On seeing yourself historically’, Brecht states that:
Me-ti found only a few hints about the behaviour of individuals in the classical writings. They mostly spoke about classes or other large groups of people. On the other hand, he found that the historical point of view was praised as very useful. Hence he recommended, after thinking about it carefully, that the individual should consider himself just like the classes and large groups of people in historical terms, and behave historically. Life lived as material for a biography acquires a certain importance and can make history. When the military commander, Ju Seser [Julius Caesar], wrote his memoirs, he wrote about himself in the third person. Me-ti said: You can also live in the third person. (Me-ti: 95)
What does Brecht mean here when arguing that the historical viewpoint lies in living a life in the third person and via what aesthetic strategies can representation achieve such an objective?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Rethinking Brechtian Film Theory and Cinema , pp. 111 - 127Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2018