> What does "Brechtian" mean?
Hey, Scott,
Brechtian, as you may have gathered by now, is TV/film/theater that is
inspired by the theories of Bertolt Brecht.
Brecht was a German playwright (wrote the THREE PENNY OPERA with Kurt
Weil: "Oh, the shark...") who developed a theory of the theater that
ran counter to conventional, Aristotelian theater. Brecht's "epic
theater" (which didn't have much to do with the traditional "epic")
sought to break down some long held assumptions about the theatrical
experience. For one, he argued that spectators should NOT be
encouraged to identify with a play's characters. Instead, they should
be distanced from the characters so that they might better critique the
characters' social positions.
This distance, according to Brecht, could be achieved by a variety of
techniques--including disrupting the linear narrative flow,
interrupting the story with songs, projecting slides and films in the
midst of plays, making evident the usually hidden devices for
presenting stories theatrically (foregrounding theatrical technique),
having actors acknowledge their roles _as actors_ and so on. In short,
keeping the spectator at a distance.
Hence, Brecht argued that spectators should be "alienated" from the
characters and the story. Brecht's alienation effect (in German,
_verfremdungseffekt_), his theory of distanciation, found its way into
film in the sixties--principally in the work of Jean-Luc Godard (see
especially, VIVRE SA VIE, made one year after a special CAHIERS DU
CINEMA issue on Brecht).
Hope that sheds some light...
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