Corneille-Brecht

A young woman (Cornelia Geiser) is standing with her back to the window. From the street below, the distant noise of cars and voices fills the air, while the woman above, at the window, recites a text, lines by Pierre Corneille: “Rome l’unique objet ressentiment! / Rome à qui vient ton bras d’immoler mon amant!” In order to speak about the injustice and barbarity of his days, Corneille clad his verses in the stylistic garments of classical antiquity. Sparks of the Paris of the French Kings flash through Ancient Rome. Afterwards we see the young woman, with loose sheets of paper in her hand, reciting from Brecht’s play “Verhör des Lukullus”: “Denn das ungeheure Rom konnte mich dereinst nicht schützen vor dem ungeheuren Rom.” In Brecht’s text, which was written in Swedish exile in 1940, the old also becomes a lively testimony, with Ancient Rome being quoted in the trial against old and new commanders. The present strikes sparks from the past. What is referred to as sprechgesang (a kind of singsong) in music, can be called singing manner of speaking in cinema. A liberated language that is no longer simply a vehicle for sense and contents, but an independent, living subject. (Long version: 80 minutes). —Viennale