HISTORY, NARRATIVE AND FILM FORM: JEAN-MARIE STRAUB AND DANIELE HUILLET (FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY)

Four works by the filmmakers Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet provide the subject of the dissertation. All four are based upon German language texts, which in turn touch problems of history and politics. A comparative study is undertaken of the narrative structures of the films and the source materials. This study then leads to a consideration of questions of Marxist aesthetics, an implied audience, and the relationship of art to history and politics.;The theoretical implications are presented in the context of Brecht's theory of epic theater and T. W. Adorno's Aesthetic Theory. The productivity of these theories for film aesthetics, as well as their limitations, make a critical contribution to issues of film form, film theory and Marxist aesthetics. The films document the separation of art from life, art from history, and therefore art from politics. However, the postulation of an audience to address these historical contradictions is an aesthetic achievement in the furtherance of revolutionary utopia.;The four films considered are the following: Not Reconciled or, Only violence helps where violence rules (1964-1965), based on Heinrich Boll's novel Billiards at Half Past Nine; History Lessons (1972), based on Bertolt Brecht's novel-fragment The Business Affairs of Mr. Julius C. (1937-1939); Moses and Aaron (1974), a performance of Arnold Schoenberg's unfinished opera of the same name; and Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg's Accompaniment for a Cinematographic Scene' (1972), based on documents of Schoenberg's life, historical materials, and a text by Brecht.