ABSTRACT
Meaning and illusion function synonymously, in “a totally un-Brechtian manner,” if Brecht is incorrectly understood as historicizing practice. The misunderstanding of Brecht, and his own contradictory formulations on the subject of representation's effects, (“thinking whilst crying … political tears”) has been voluntarized to reduce Brecht-in-cinema to “films with modernistic style touching on important social issues.” Such an all-purpose rationale leads to a broadened, rather than a reduced, concept of experimental cinema. The silly results of this are that, according to New York's Village Voice, “Tarkovsky, Syberberg, perhaps Chantal Akerman, and the Martin Scorsese of Raging Bull (are) avant garde features, on a budget of more than peanuts” (Village Voice, 3 May 1983). Such positions have become standard in Screen, Frameworks, October, and Camera Obscura as well as in all French and German film journals.
