- character and illusionist tradition -

Brecht believed that an actor should present a character in a way that wasn't an impersonation, rather, a narration of the actions of the character. He constantly reminded his audience that they were watching a play. According to him, if the audience developed an emotional attachment to the characters, then they could not evaluate the social realities of the play. Stanislavski's opinion was that if an actor believed he was a character, then the audience would believe this as well, and feel the emotions that the character was feeling. Acting in Brecht's Epic Theatre means that an actor is required to play characters believably without convincing either the audience or themselves that they are, indeed, the characters. There is an audible and visual distance between the actor and their character and the actors will often 'break the fourth wall' and address the audience, play multiple characters, and use exaggerated or repetitive actions to make their distance and social commentary known.

Brecht's idea (and subsequently of Walter Benjamin), was that radical work or art must oppose the illusionist mode at every level. Thus, the means of expression are itself called into question. Because the “means of expression” are ideologically determined, it is no longer sufficient to place a new “content” within the old structures of expression. Instead, the signifying system itself must be attacked, in order to overthrow the basis upon which the dominant ideological message rests. This procedure constitutes the crux of Godard’s work, particularly since 1968, and it lies similarly embedded in the films of Jean-Marie Straub. Much of Straub’s work may be elucidated in terms of a systematic “deconstruction” of the old forms of cinematic expression. The camera, in an illusionist film, is subordinated to the central dramatic characters’ movements. It pans to follow their motion, or it moves to a close up to record moments of “intensity”. Straub’s camera never pans to follow movement, but follows a logic of its own. That logic is devoted to the articulation of the material space in which the action takes place.

Where the illusionist film centers its lead actors in the frame, Straub does not. And where the illusionist film cuts when a character exits from the frame, in order to expedite the progress of the narrative, Straub frequently lets his camera rest for twenty or thirty seconds on the “empty” screen. Thus, the materiality of the space in which the characters operate is reasserted.

There is, however, a crucial difference between the austerity of Bresson, and that of Straub. Bresson pares away the non-essentials in order to enable the viewers to feel their way to the heart of the film. His end is epiphanous, transcendental. Straub’s austerity is functional. It forces the audience to think. For Straub, conscious mental activity is a prerequisite of understanding. In taking this position, he clearly stands in opposition to the mainstream of cinema’s evolution. The conventional film denies the eye’s responsibility to the mind. This filmic technique is devoted to the total creation and sustaining of illusion, in the course of which the director attempts to make the viewer forget the camera’s omnipresence and manipulation of one’s perspective. Emotional identification, in which the spectator associates with a character and thus vicariously enters the world of the film, is another staple of the “illusionist” tradition.

Straub rejects any attempt to anaesthetize the viewer’s mind. He refuses to make concessions to his audience’s expectations. We are never allowed to identify with the characters that inhabit his films. Our eyes are not glutted by sweeping camera movements or cluttered frames. We cannot enter into his worlds, but we may reflect upon them. His style’s “spareness” functions as an invitation to reflection, to analysis. Straub’s later films, in particular, create spaces in which, deliberately, nothing happens. They offer spaces in which the eye and mind are invited to interact.