History Lessons (1972)

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Directors: Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub

Screenplay: Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub

Based on a novel by Bertolt Brecht

Cast: Gottfried Bold as Der Bankier; Johann Unterpertinger as Der Bauer; Henri Ludwigg as Der Anwalt; Carl Vaillant as Der Dichter; Benedikt Zulauf as Der Junge Mann

Back with the Straub-Huillet connection and there's a sense, for every film so far that has succeed, there's examples like History Lesson which I am becoming fonder of in ambition, which is an odd pleasant sentiment to use for intentional didactic avant-garde cinema, but with the realisation that I would've done things slightly different if I could make these films, always a little detail which yet a huge construction flaw when amplified. Their structuralised forms don't always succeed as, in all due honesty, to completely remove a sense of sensation from a cinematic work, interest or/and emotional resonance, is to completely undercut one's work, a vast difference between challenging the viewer and a disconnect that loses most, and it's a shame here as the material, an unfinished Bertolt Brecht novel about a biographer of Julius Caesar being confounded by contrasting opinions, has so much that for the duo perfectly works in lieu of their political attitudes.

Like Othon (1970), ancient Rome reflects than then-modern day, and even today revisiting this film from the now past, as we have Julius Caesar turned into an unseen Charles Foster Kane figure, a being of power and stature who various Romans interviewed by a biographer tell differing versions of. From a banker to a former soldier who now lives in a hut in the countryside, these figures are all in period dress but being interviewed by a younger man who wears a suit and drives around the then-modern Rome in a car, the interview scenes inter-spliced between lengthy driving scenes that somewhat (a little) evoke Chris Petit's Radio On (1979) in slow contemplation of the driver dashboard and everything outside the front window.

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The problem begins in how entirely didactic History Lessons is, reminiscent to the issue between Jean-Luc Godard, who I once hated but have come to admire as an innovator, and the infamous Dziga-Vertov Group era of his career, where he renounced mainstream cinema and even his original experimental art films, and made entirely didactic films which History Lessons shares the same lengthy monotone dialogue sequences from, off-putting when there's a disembodiment to the material within them from the felt disinterest. This is worst as, even with this mute extreme Bressonian acting style, History Lessons (where four length dialogues exist in-between the driving scenes) is actually fascinating in its material, the four different views of Caesar between the military hero to conniving exploiter who worked for merely profit and for power, pertinently in an anecdote where he was captured by pirates, working with them and still had them executed after making a deal with them. It is fascinating text, more so as with modern Italy as the location there as juxtaposition, the timelessness of political powers and its many issues shining among the environments. Another issue is that, with knowledge that the source material had the biographer go through an existential crisis when he couldn't get an agreement on Caesar, I could've had more participation of the character even if he's still a neutral figure deliberately for the viewer to enter the story through. Again, it raises the issue of disconnect as such a character, even paper thin, is designed for the viewer to enter the film which the film itself belies in its obstructions.

The driving scenes, quiet and meditative, offer a calming form of slow cinema and are more successful, paradoxically more enticing as, if you can enter their tone, we see documentary footage effectively of Roman as the car passes along, camera in the back seat so we follow the vehicle along and watch outside the window. Bustling, crowded with cars, old women blocking the street and forcing the car to have to reverse, these scenes of Italian streets is strangely pleasant and somewhat amusing in very dried humour.

The issue though, again, is that the film puts forward a pointless structural tone, especially as with patience, the film can be understood and rewarding whilst still retaining the reason Straub-Huillet deliberately choose these problematic creative choices, of purposely removing an sentiment that might obfuscate their message in "cinematic" terms. Not Reconciled (1965), one of their most well known films, is an accomplished piece of art, compiling a dense plot into merely fifty minutes and yet not pointlessly obtuse, instead when watched repeatedly growing in weight as you understand what is going on. History Lessons however is like Orthon, which made sense (Ancient Roman drama in modern Rome) but made the mistake of mute acting for no distinct justification. Again, here, vastly different from Robert Bresson and Roberto Rossellini where muted acting was for clarity of meaning, one little aspect scuppers a perfectly sound construct.

Abstract Spectrum: Avant-Garde/Minimalist

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None

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