I think a Brechtian notion of subversiveness and how it has been used in
film theory since the 1970s is very much outdated. It has been very
tempting politically to assume - like for example Peter Wollen did in his
famous text on Godards *Vent d'est* - that films have to be subversive
aesthetically to produce a more self-conscious reader and less passive
reader - like it was possibly to escape ideological implications by adopting
a specific visual style and specific form of story telling. I understand why
people once dreamt of breaking the barrier between film and viewer, but I
don't think it works this way. And I don't like people still doing it,
referring for example to the subversiveness of the Dogma-films because of
its 'daring' aesthetics (nothing is as reassuring as the average Dogma-Film,
not the ones by Lars von Trier, though they sometimes tend to be provocation
for the provotion's sake). Many films make you think about yourself and the
world, but that works on a much more complex level than the concept of
subversiveness often suggests. And I think good film criticism (as it refers
to the experience of a film) should be interested in levelling the degrees
of subversiveness of a film, not film theory or film philosophy.
But like Anja I am also very interested in what others think about
subversiveness 'today'.
Herbert.
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