Depicts the reading of a long letter by Schoenberg to Kandinsky in which he explains that, as a Jew, he cannot accept Kandinsky’s invitation to teach at the Bauhaus.
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Introduction to Arnold Schoenberg's Accompaniment to a Cinematic SceneDirected byJean-Marie Straub
The film starts with the nightmare image that ends History Lessons & confronts Schoenberg's letters to Kandinsky about antisemitism with Brecht's text about fascism & capitalism. That cut from one to the other through a prickly Huillet stroking her cat is astonishingly provocative. THIS is the true 'alienation effect': a scourge to the ethical imagination, not the 'we are playing at playing' tripe that passes for it