Diploma  essay  

Title  
 
“Ambiguous nature of Brechtian aesthetics
in postmodern cinema:
critical distance and evolution of the V-effect”

Student:

Natasha Afanasyeva

Course: Digital Film and Animation (FAD)

Group: 910
Word count: 9585

Editor: Karin Hugentobler

Zürich, 8.01.2011
  

CONTENTS  

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 3

Establishing the context: two types of aesthetics ....................................................................................... 3

Main concepts of Brechtian aesthetics: Illusion, Identification and Empathy ........................................... 6

Estrangement effect: its function and purpose ........................................................................................... 9

Comfortable coexistence: empathy is compatible with maintaining distance.......................................... 10

Three groups of films: the estrangement effect in cinema ....................................................................... 15

The Effectiveness of the V-effect............................................................................................................. 19

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 21

List of film directors and movies mentioned in the essay ........................................................................ 23

References ................................................................................................................................................ 24

Attachment 1: Combining alternative and traditional dramaturgies ........................................................ 25

Attachment 2 (on two pages): list of estrangement techniques according to the area of production....... 26

  2  
“Theatre remains theatre even when it is instructive theatre, and in so far as it is good theatre it will
still amuse”.
Bertholt Brecht “On theatre”

Introduction
Numerous volumes have been written, and even more arguments held on, the Brechtian estrangement
effect (ger.Verfremdungseffekt, or simply V-effect), with its origins and meanings discussed from
within various ideological traditions, such as realistic, formalistic and others. Indeed, why do we
continually speak about Brecht, when postmodernism already seems to be vanishing, and new digi-
modernism1 is creeping in? The fact is, it is not possible to correctly evaluate the present moment
without looking back at the past, as present and past are naturally inseparable. We are only able to fully
understand the influence of the past retrospectively, re-viewing events in a different light, which helps
us to better appreciate their impact and recognize their importance. This is particularly relevant when
discussing the role of Brechtian theories on dialectical theatre, and new techniques associated with it,
which were some of the most influential within modernism in the first part of the 20th century, and later
came to influence the development of postmodern cinema. Despite the fact that non-Aristotelian
dramaturgy and psychical distance has long been widely discussed, it remains one of the most
interesting and controversial topics in the aesthetics of the theatre.
Though not new to the cinema, self-reflexive and subversive movies are still something new to most
people today. In order to better understand the cinema of the last half-century, we have to look at its
source of inspiration, and analyse the evolvement of the estranging devices in the cinema.
The emphasis is to understand how Brechtian aesthetics influenced post-modern cinema, and to look at
the variety of forms V-effects took in post-modern cinematography. The aim is to research if aesthetics
of the dialectical theatre can co-exist with traditional dramaturgy, and understand the effectiveness of
estrangement techniques.

Establishing the context: two types of aesthetics

A friend of mine once said: “The cinematic experience captures you in such a way that a screen in front
of you disappears and after a while there is nothing that separates you from what you see, there is only
you and the story”. In this way, we voluntary submit ourselves to a cinematic illusion, which makes us
forget that what we are watching is a constructed illusion. Even when we know perfectly well that what
is presented in front of us is unreal; we still desire to believe in the veracity of those images. We are
willing to temporarily step out of our reality into a new one, in order to collect new emotional

                                                                                                               
1  Term  used  by  Alan  Kirby  in  his  article  “The  death  of  postmodernism  and  beyond”  

  3  
experiences. That is how it has worked for centuries, and this process is the basis for theatrical, or
cinematic, pleasure.

In “Poetics”, written over 2,000 years ago, Aristotle formulated the basic principles of how a dramatical
work, the illusion, had to be constructed to be believable in the eyes of the audience to make
identification possible. And the more credible and similar to our own the fabricated reality looked, the
easier it was to identify with it. The principles laid out by Aristotle became the basis for, what is
considered to be, traditional, or “Aristotelian”, dramaturgy.

Aristotle, for the first time in history, provided definitions to poetic genres - tragedy, comedy and epos,
and set out the principles of dramatic action. He was the first person to put forth the idea that a theatrical
.
drama should be 3-fold: "A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end" (Aristotle, ch. VII-VII) ,
which later developed into the 3-act drama, and nowadays is the basic for any movie structure. In the
time of classicism, in the 17th century, French playwrights developed, from what they judged to be the
rules of Greek classical theatre – "Classical unities" of time, place and action, derived from “Poetics”. In
truth, Aristotle only spoke in his work about the unity of action in detail, under the general subject of
"definition of tragedy" in chapter VII.2 All the same, neoclassical principles of the three unities up to
present-day are milestones of the classical realistic cinema, especially for mainstream Hollywood
movies, which continue to influence most people’s tastes. The wholeness of the play is most important,
when all elements are serving one purpose, when one scene transitions smoothly into another, and
elements work in such a way so as to create a dramatical work during which a spectator, through fear of
destiny and pity for the hero, can undergo a strong emotional transformation – catharsis or purification
– an important grand finale of the dramatic action, according to Aristotle. Thus, most important is that
the audience is able to identify with the action, which has to be absolutely believable, and the characters
– their pain and pleasure - should become our own.
At the end of the play, the audience should believe that the hero had no other possibility other than to do
what has been done, and that life is the way that is. Bertolt Brecht (1964:71) described it in the
following way: “The dramatic theatre’s spectator says: Yes, I have felt like that too – They are just like
me – It is only natural – It will never change – The sufferings of this man appeal to me, because they are
inescapable – That’s great art; it all seems the most obvious thing in the world – I weep when they
weep, I laugh when they laugh”.
An important distinction relevant to the question at hand is the one made by Aristotle between epic
poetry and tragedy (drama): epic poetry can present events that are not necessarily connected by one
action: “It will differ in structure [...] which of necessity present not a single action, but a single period,
and all that happened within that period to one person or to many, little connected together as the events
may be” (Aristotle, ch. XXIII).
In 1797, Aristotelian principles on epic and dramatic forms of representation were revived by Goethe
and Schiller in an essay “On Epic and Dramatic Poetry”. In it they write: “The epic and dramatic poets
are both subject to universal poetic laws, especially the law of unity and the law of development;

  4  
furthermore, they both treat similar subjects, and both can use all kinds of themes; their great essential
difference lies, however, in that the epic poet presents the event as completely past, and the dramatic
poet presents it as completely present.”

In 1927, with the same thoughts in mind, Bertolt Brecht wrote in his work, “Theatre of Pleasure or
Theatre of Instruction?”2, about the difference between the epic and dramatic forms, in which he
discusses how the epic can be opposed to the dramatic in its aesthetics: “ [...] even by Aristotle’s
definition, the difference between the dramatic and epic forms was attributed to their different methods
of construction, whose laws were dealt with by two different branches of aesthetics” (Brecht, 1964:70) ,
and “it also relates differently to certain psychological effects, such as catharsis” (Brecht, 1964:57).

Brecht wanted to bring epic elements into the dramatic form, create a new type of drama, with which to
“re-function” the theatre. He believed that the “old” forms of European theatre (for example, a
Stanislavski system of classical realism), in the face of changing contemporary circumstances, were
inadequate to represent social reality, and thus, needed to be transformed. “To put it bluntly, for those in
the business, present-day subjects cannot be expressed in the old ‘major form’ (Brecht, 1964:25). In his
view traditional aesthetic point of view is “ill-suited to the plays being written at present, even where it
leads to favourable judgments” (Brecht, 1964:21); Brecht also believes that the transformation of the
theatre and the aesthetics is a necessity that is called upon by the modern life: “It is understood that the
radical transformation of the theatre can’t be the result of some artistic whim. It has simply to
correspond to the whole radical transformation of the mentality of our time” (Brecht, 1964:23). Brecht
thought that a new type of drama (epic, in early works, and non-Aristotelian or dialectical, in later
works) was capable of reflecting the complexity and socio-political needs of modern society as well as
the controversial nature of human existence.

Much attention in the new theatre was given to the particular discontinuation in the structure of the play,
and to the fragmented action, which consisted of many separate and individual elements (where
dramatic action is normally seen as a whole). This fragmented action was the predominant feature of the
Brecht’s early epic theatre, which clearly references the epic form in “Poetics”: “ […] the sequence of
events, one thing sometimes follows another, and yet no single result is thereby produced”. In his 1930
work, “The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre”, Brecht formulated his principle of the “separation of
the elements”, which was supposed to eliminate, according to Brecht, the “great struggle for supremacy
between words, music and production”, with each element being as self-contained, independent works
of art, loosely connected, and adopting attitudes towards one another. What was supposed to unite these
pieces was the repetition of motifs and settings. As we will see later, this principle was eagerly
translated on to the cinema screen.

                                                                                                               
2  «Vergnügunstheather oder Lehtheater?»  

  5  
Believing that catharsis is a term that belongs to aesthetics in general, Brecht nevertheless thought that
the “catharsis of Aristotle […] is an ablution, that not only occurs in a pleasurable form but precisely for
the goal of pleasure”, and there was no place for this sort of catharsis in Brecht’s theatre.

Refining his ideas on the Epic Theatre, Brecht asked himself what could take ‘[…] the place of fear and
pity’ in the classical pair for the causation of ‘Aristotelian catharsis’. He wondered, “Would it be
possible, for example, to replace fear of destiny with desire for knowledge3 (or intellectual curiosity), to
replace pity with cooperativeness (readiness to help)4?”

As a result, a new type of theatre rose almost in antithesis to the traditional one. Apart from the new
aesthetics, Brecht put a stress on socio-political themes, which were inspired by Brecht’s Marxist
political beliefs, and in-tune with the spirit of political awareness that prevailed at the time in Europe.

Main concepts of Brechtian aesthetics: Illusion, Identification and

Empathy

Why was the ‘old drama’, according to Brecht, inadequate in representing social reality? In order to
understand this, we have to discuss the central concepts of Brechtian dialectical theatre – illusion,
identification and empathy. So, let us see how they work.

The basis of traditional dramaturgy and classicism was that constructed illusion was supposed to be one
hundred percent credible, in order to induce the audience into experiencing the pleasure and pain of the
characters, which should result in a strong emotional experience.

Brecht felt that there was something fraudulent in the whole process: the spectators were emotionally
manipulated, without any awareness, and are left unable to critically think about what is being
presented. This sort of emotional manipulation, which forces the audience to feel pleasure or pain for
the sake of feeling pleasure or pain, Brecht referred to as ‘barbaric’ (Brecht, 1964:270). And that is
exactly what he wanted to change: to bring in a critical attitude into the theatrical event, so that the
audience would no longer be in a “pet state, when it is impossible to refrain from tears” (Brecht,
1964:271), and would, therefore, be able to ponder what is being presented in front of them. This ‘non-
thinking’ attitude was inadequate, in Brecht’s opinion, to present full of contradictions modern life.

With this new approach, Brecht wanted to bring the theatre in-tune to the demands of modern society by
presenting in his plays controversial problematics, and making the audience active: spectators are not
passively consuming what is offered to them, but actively interpreting and deciding what they see. In
other words, Brecht`s aim was to teach his audience, through his plays, that the presented idea, in the
end, should be gleaned through a process of learning and discovery. That is why Brecht often called his

                                                                                                               
3   ger.  Wissensbegierde  
4  ger.  Hilfberaitschaft  

  6  
approach “instructive”, as he wanted his plays to present moral dilemmas, making their meaning
accessible to a conscious public, whose minds were not clouded by emphatic judgment.

On the way to this critical attitude, according to Brecht, there is credible illusion, overwhelming
identification and empathy. That is why the main strategy of the dialectical theatre became the creation
of a critical distance between the viewers and the action, preventing the audience from complete
identification with the characters. “The spectator was no longer in any way allowed to submit to an
experience uncritically (and without practical consequences) by means of simple empathy with the
characters in a play” (Brecht, 1964:71).

In his theoretical writings, Brecht equated self-identification (Brecht, 1964:195), or what he sometimes
referred to as ‘total identification’ with the characters, with empathy.

Hans R. Jauss takes a more differentiated approach in his article, “Levels of Identification of Hero and
Audience”, in which he distinguishes inter-personal identification into five main modalities: associative,
admirative, sympathetic, cathartic and ironic. In other words, the identification can lead to different
feelings, such as admiration, sympathy / antipathy, cathartic identification with a suffering hero, a tragic
and hard-pressed hero (comic), and also ironic identification through comic discharge. According to
Jauss, all of these modalities differ to varying degrees, pointing out that cathartic identification produces
the strongest emotional reaction. Although, “the essential point of the epic theatre is perhaps that it
appeals less to the feelings than to the spectator’s reason”, he notices right here: ”At the same time it
would be quite wrong to try and deny emotion to this kind of theatre”, which gives us a clear indication
that Brecht did not reject emotions in his performance as such (Brecht, 1964:23). Then why does Brecht
equate total identification only with empathy? Before we can call Brecht’s approach too general, we will
try to understand the concept behind his notion of ‘total identification’. In order to understand this
notion, the concept of empathy must first be explained. Let us look at the following definitions:5:

D. M. Berger: "The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the
frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put
one’s self in another’s shoes."

R. R. Greenson: To empathize means to share, to experience the feelings of another person is

the nature of identification.

Nancy Eisenberg: "An affective response that stems from the apprehension or comprehension of
another’s emotional state or condition, and that is similar to what the other person is feeling or
would be expected to feel."

Simon Baron-Cohen: Empathy is about spontaneously and naturally tuning into the other person’s
thoughts and feelings, whatever these might be [...] There are two major elements to empathy.
The first is the cognitive component: Understanding the others’ feelings and the ability to take

                                                                                                               
5  from    Wikipedia,  article  “Empathy”  

  7  
 their perspective [...] the second element to empathy is the affective component. This is an
observer’s appropriate emotional response to another person’s emotional state.

Further on:

“Empathy is distinct from sympathy (which includes empathizing with, in addition to having, a
positive regard, or non-fleeting concern, for the object), pity, and emotional contagion
Sympathetic or empathic concern is the feeling of compassion or concern for another, the wish to
see them better off or happier. Pity is the feeling that another is in trouble and in need of help, as
they cannot fix their problems themselves, often described as ‘feeling sorry’ for someone.
Emotional contagion is when a person (especially an infant or a member of a mob) imitatively
"catches" the emotions that others are showing without necessarily recognizing this is
happening”6.

In other words, empathy is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes (“I weep, when they weep”), and
is normally subconscious and automatic. Which in its turn means, that the emotional empathic response
arises before the cognitive one, so it overtakes the judgment. The intuitive emotional component of
empathy is so strong, that it has the ability to totally involve us in the action (put us in a ‘pet state’), so
that it becomes a hindrance to critical distance. Brecht refers to empathy as ‘total’, not in the sense that
it is the only possible type of inter-personal identification with the hero, but according to its
overwhelming power, the intensity of feelings it provokes, and the degree of involvement of the
audience.

As I pointed out previously, even when Brecht took a careful approach to the use of empathy, he never
wanted to reject emotional component. In, “About rational and emotional point of view”, Brecht wrote
that ”the rejection of empathy is not the result of a rejection of the emotions, nor does it lead to such.
The crude aesthetic thesis that emotions can only be stimulated by means of empathy is wrong” (Brecht,
1964:145). It shows that Brecht believed that emotions can arise not only through empathy and
identification is not the sole source of their creation. It is at all possible?

Apart from empathy, there is also a well-constructed, continuous and believable illusion that prevents
from being critical, which is why, in his theatre, Brecht did not pretend to recreate a scene in order
to ”convey the flavour of the particular place”, i.e. a realistic and credible scene; he wanted his audience
to be on alert, to be aware of the fact that what is shown is not real, and the “audience’s tendency to
plunge into illusions has to be checked by specific means” (Brecht, 1964:136).

These specific means were new techniques developed by Brecht with the purpose of achieving a critical
distance through “verfremdung” or estrangement (often wrongly translated as alienation7).

                                                                                                               
6  the  same  as  above  
7  Due  to  English  translations  of  Brechtian  works  by  John  Willet.  

  8  
Estrangement effect: its function and purpose
Brecht offered many definitions of the term Verfremdungseffekt (further V-effect), which gave rise to
many arguments around its nature and aesthetic distance in general. In this section, we will look at some
of the implications of this term.

The term seems to have migrated8 from the Russian term ‘priem ostraneniya’ (device of making strange)
used by the Russian Formalist and poet, Viktor Shklovsky, who claimed it was the essence of all art.
The underlying intention was to de-familiarise our perceptions, in order to re-discover the world around
us anew. “The purpose of art, then, is to lead us to a knowledge of a thing through the organ of sight
instead of recognition. By estranging objects and complicating form, the device of art makes perception
long and ‘laborious’. [...] After being perceived several times, objects acquire the status of ‘recognition’.
An object appears before us. We know it’s there but we do not see it, and, for that reason, we can say
nothing about it. The removal of this object from the sphere of automatized perception is accomplished
in art by a variety of means” (Shklovski, 1917). Thus, ostranenie or defamiliarization serves to take
things out of habituality or pre-formed belief: objects become so familiar or taken for granted, hence
automatically perceived, that we tend to not reflect on them anymore. Normally, this automatism is a
characteristic of all human beings, which helps us to accomplish things more quickly through
recognition, but at the same time, it impedes critical approach, i.e. prevents one from critical thinking.
We filter images and sounds that are not serving our immediate needs. As the world around us becomes
more and more familiar, we see less and less of it. “Art exists so that one may recover the sensation of
life; it exists to make one feel things as they are perceived, and not as they are known. The technique of
art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms sofisticated, to increase the difficulty and length of
perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged”
(Shklovski, 1917). Defamiliarization impedes the process of comprehension and creates awareness of
the artistic devices causing them.

The term ‘estrangement’ was later adopted by Brecht and applied to a similar concept he called
Verfremdungseffekt. In his early works, he describes it thus: “The V-effect consists in turning the object
of which one is to be made aware, to which one’s attention is to be drawn, from something ordinary,
familiar, immediately accessible, into something peculiar, striking and unexpected. What is obvious is
in a certain sense made incomprehensible, but this is only in order that it may then be made all the easier
to comprehend. Before familiarity can turn into awareness the familiar must be stripped of its
inconspicuousness“ (Brecht, 1964:143-144). It is clear that in essence the meaning of the V-effect is
similar to Shklovski’s concept (“a representation that alienates is one which allows us to recognize its
subject, but at the same time makes it seem unfamiliar” (Brecht, 1964:192)), and that Brecht developed
his term to refer to an approach that could awaken the awareness of the audience by estranging it from
‘hypnotic’ involvement in an illusory world of the stage, and investment in the emotions of the
                                                                                                               
8  There  exist  theorists  who  do  not  agree  with  that  concept    

  9  
characters: ”In order to produce V-effects the actor has to discard whatever means he has learned of
getting the audience to identify itself with the characters which he plays. Aiming not to put his audience
into trance, he must not go into trance himself” (Brecht, 1964:193). Aristotelian theatre, on the contrary,
aimed at the identification of the spectator with the character and an emotional involvement. In order to
be able to reflect on what is being presented in a more critical and objective way, Brecht thought the
emotional distance could be achieved through estrangement techniques that directly or indirectly
influenced emphatic participation. The estranging devices were meant to minimise empathy in order to
achieve a critical distance so that spectators could be freed from the grip of emotional manipulation.
“The technique which produces a V-effect is the exact opposite of that which aims at empathy” (Brecht,
1964:136).

At their most basic, Shklovski and Brecht’s estrangement are similar (to make the usual appear
‘strange’, thus to provoke thought about them). Shklovksi, however, puts more stress on
defamiliarization as a way to re-consider familiar things and concepts for the sole purpose of extending
awareness, i.e. on the process: “The perceptual process in art has a purpose all its own and ought to be
extended to the fullest. Art is a means of experiencing the process of creativity. The artefact itself is
unimportant”. For Brecht the artefact is important: not just the prolongation of the experience itself, but
the inner transformations of the human nature as a result and uncovering the important social
phenomena, i.e. the result of the process. The purpose of using V-effect was to create an aesthetic
distance in order to provide space in which to ponder upon the problems presented. Only this approach,
according to Brecht, is able to create a socially and politically active audience. Shklovski finds
satisfaction when attention is brought to the subject, but for Brecht awareness in itself is not the aim but
the means, important is what the audience learns at the end that is important. “The classical and
medieval theatre alienated its characters by making them wear human or animal masks... Such devices
were certainly a barrier to empathy, and yet this technique owns more, not less, to hypnotic suggestion
than do those by which empathy is achieved. The social aims of these devices were entirely different
from our own […] The new alienations are only designed to free socially-conditioned phenomena from
that stamp of familiarity which protects them against our grasp today” (Brecht, 1964:192).

Comfortable coexistence: empathy is compatible with maintaining

distance

In his approach, Brecht writes about minimising illusion and identification, but it is important to stress
that his aim was to minimise them only to a degree suffice to create a critical distance. Brecht’s attack
on illusion, and focus on the learning value of theatre, is often interpreted as an effort to eradicate
entertainment, as illusion is naturally a foundation of theatrical and cinematic experience. The question
could be asked, however, whether empathy is not also a basis for catharsis, and an important ingredient

  10  
in our cinematic enjoyment. How can we do without it? Some of us can say: “I want to experience some
strong emotions, that is why I go to the cinema – if it the movie fails to satisfy my expectations, I feel
disappointed”.
Brecht`s aim was to teach his audience something, so the object or idea that he estranges should be that
from which we derive our lesson. That is why Brecht often called his approach ‘instructive’, and he
wanted the meaning of the play to be accessible to a public whose consciousness is unobstructed by
empathic judgment. He aimed to educate the audience through theatrical entertainment, and believed
that Expressionism and Realism were incapable of exposing human nature; and, as a result, they had no
educational value. As disliked as the words ‘education’ and ‘instruction’ are, an approach that brings
spectators back to the student bench has an important function: Brecht wanted his plays to express
important social and moral dilemmas, and he wanted to encourage people to ponder over these
dilemmas with critical detachment.
It was not only the ‘instructive’ approach of his plays that people of his time found difficult to digest, it
was the totally new aesthetic principle that Brecht tried to integrate, which was so strikingly different
that it remained unappreciated. In order to be artistically appreciated, a new drama required a different
approach: a spectator must “adopt a quite different attitude from what he used to” (Brecht, 1964:57). “It
is possible that the epic theatre may need a larger advance loan than the ordinary theatre in order to
become fully effective; this is a problem that needs attention” (Brecht, 1964:56).

In Brecht’s commentaries, he points out that the first decades of experimenting with the new drama in
Europe indeed resulted in less artistic appreciation of the plays, and that “any fresh increase in educative
value” was followed by “an immediate decrease in ability to entertain”, “In other words, the greater the
grip on audience’s nerves, the less chance there was of its learning. The more we induced the audience
to identify its own experiences and feelings with the production, the less it learned; and the more there
was to learn, the less the artistic enjoyment” (Brecht, 1964:132-133). Most people of that time were not
ready to change their tastes, and detachment from empathy resulted in the decline of entertainment
value, and a lack of appreciation. This concerned him, as he wanted to make plays that were both
appealing and interesting to watch: “How can the theatre be both instructive and entertaining? How can
it be divorced from spiritual dope traffic and turned from home of illusions to a home of experience?
How can unfree, ignorant man of our century, with his thirst for freedom and his hunger for knowledge
[...] obtain his own theatre which will help him to master the world and himself?” (Brecht, 1964:135).
Aiming to educate the audience through theatrical entertainment, Brecht was keenly aware of the
audience’s role in the theatrical event. “Theatre consists in this: in making live representations of
reported or invented happenings between human beings and doing so with a view to entertainment. At
any rate that is what we shall mean when we speak of theatre, whether old or new” (Brecht, 1964:180).
“Theatre remains theatre even when it is instructive theatre, and in so far as it is good theatre it will
amuse” (Brecht, 1964:73). At the same time, Brecht did not want to provide the ‘old type of
entertainment’; he despised ‘culinary’, purely entertaining plays, and favoured his enlightenment

  11  
project. He thought epic theatre was not only capable of teaching the audience, but was also able to offer
a new kind of entertainment: learning is supposed to contain its own amusement. “Our enjoyment of old
plays becomes greater, the more we can give ourselves up to the new kind of pleasures better suited to
our time” (Brecht, 1964:276). We can clearly see that Brecht was not going to walk the path of
satisfying the audience’s desires: “It is true that the audience had certain desires which are no longer
taken into account by the new. What is the audience’s attitude during an opera; and is there any chance
that it will change?” (Brecht, 1964:39).

Brecht was keenly aware of the fact that public was resistant to the changes, and although he wondered
why audience was not ready to part with their old theatrical pleasures (“Why this obstinate clinging to
the pleasure element? This addiction to drug?” (Brecht, 1964:40)), he knew why: “In our present society
the old opera cannot just be ‘wished away’. Its illusions have an important social function. The drug is
irreplaceable; it cannot be done without”, and provides the following commentary:

“The life imposed on us is too hard; it brings us too many agonies, disappointments, impossible
tasks. In order to stand it we have to have some kind of palliative. There seem to be three classes of
these: overpowering distractions, which allow us to find our sufferings unimportant, pseudo-
satisfactions which reduce them and drugs which make us insensitive to them. The pseudo-
satisfactions offered by art are illusions if compared with reality, but are non the less
psychologically effective for that, thanks to the part played by the imagination in our inner life. Such
drugs are sometimes responsible for the wastage of great stores of energy which might have been
applied to bettering the human lot” (Brecht, 1964:41).

Brecht never tried to eradicate entertainment, however he was still convinced that strong addiction to
pleasure element stays on the way of progressive thinking and far not every entertainment is suitable for
the theatre: “But what has knowledge got to do with art? We know that knowledge can be amusing, but
not everything that is amusing belongs in the theatre” (Brecht, 1964:190). In view of these opposing
comments, Brecht wrote that V-effects were supposed to uncover contradictions in a way of
entertainment, and to bring out the emotions in the spectators, but not through identification, through
automatic transfer of emotions: “The alienation effect intervenes, not in the form of absence of emotion,
but in the form of emotions which need not correspond to those of the character portrayed” (Brecht,
1964:94).

Later experiments in this direction demonstrated that there was an increase in appreciation of new
drama style. Brecht also used Aristotelian aesthetics when working on his own plays, and never thought
that dialectical theatre was exclusive. In 1941, he wrote in his dairy: “It must be never forgotten that
non-Aristotelian theatre is only one form of theatre; it furthers specific social aims and has no claims to
monopoly as far as the theatre in general is concerned. I myself can use both Aristotelian and non-
Aristotelian theatre in certain productions” (Brecht. 1964:135).

All the same Brecht thought that theatre in general needed to extend its functions, and become not only
a place for entertainment, but a place where amusement goes together with awareness and

  12  
understanding is used to transform the reality: “We need a type of theatre which not only releases the
feelings, insights and impulses possible within the particular historical field of human relations in which
the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the
field itself” (Brecht, 1964:73).

If we sum up Brecht`s ideas on this account, we will clearly see that in order to combine entertainment
with critical distance, it is suffice to minimise empathy to a certain degree (but not exclude it), to leave
enough space for the aesthetic distance. In order to understand how the process works, we can look at
the definitions of empathy provided earlier. We can see that there are two ingredients responsible for the
emphatic response: empathy, with its intuitive emotional aspect and perspective-taking (as the more
cognitive aspect)9. Emotional emphatic appeal is a subconscious process; critical distance or awareness
of the emotions, although can be achieved, is not. Edward Bullough (1912) gives the following
comment on this account: “[…] this distanced view of things is not, and cannot be, our normal outlook.
As a rule, experiences constantly turn the same side towards us, namely, that which has the strongest
practical force of appeal”. One can thus say that because critical view is not our ‘normal’, namely
natural way of looking at things, an effort is required to achieve it. Brecht devised estrangement
techniques in order to tap into the subconscious process (for example, grasping pleasures) and to delay
the emotional emphatic response. It is important to note that even if the emotional empathy is disrupted,
it does not mean the perspective-taking is brushed away as well. “Its peculiarity lies in that the personal
character of the relation has been, so to speak, filtered. It has been cleared of the practical, concrete
nature of its appeal, without, however, thereby losing its original constitution”, – notices Bullough.

The main advantage of perspective-taking would be that while having an emotional distance we would
still be able to connect with the characters, while at the same time it would allow us to stay conscious
and more critical, speeding the process of comprehension of the presented problems. “Distance is
obtained by separating the object and its appeal from one’s own self, by putting it out of gear with
practical needs and ends. Thereby the ‘contemplation’ of the object becomes alone possible” (Bullough,
1912). Thus, it can be said that through delay of empathy comes distance with awareness but not all
distance becomes automatically critical. When, then, does distance becomes critical?
Edward Bullough (1912) points out: “There exist two different sets of conditions affecting the degree of
distance in any given case: those offered by the object and those realised by the subject. In their
interplay they afford one of the most extensive explanations for varieties of aesthetic experience, since
loss of distance, whether due to the one or the other, means loss of aesthetic appreciation. In short,
distance may be said to be variable both according to the distancing power of the individual, and
according to the character of the object”.

Thus, there are two ways of losing distance – too much distance created on the side of the author (‘over-
distance’) (“frequent failing of the work of art”) or not enough distance (‘under-distance’) (failing on
                                                                                                               
9  although due to the differences in the functional aspects of the two phenomena, the latter tends to be separated from the

empathy itself  

  13  
the part of the subject to understand the work of art); both are the reasons why art stays
underappreciated. In other words, the author risks distancing the audience too much, and the unaware
public risks failing to appreciate what is shown. “The consequence of a loss of distance through one or
other cause is familiar: the verdict in the case of under-distancing is that the work is ‘crudely
naturalistic’, ‘harrowing’, ‘repulsive in its realism’. An excess of distance produces the impression of
improbability, artificiality, emptiness or absurdity.” Thus, concludes Bullough, “both in appreciation
and production, most desirable is the utmost decrease of Distance without its disappearance” and
empathy “should be as complete as is compatible with maintaining Distance” to become critical. It
means that somewhere there exists a thin line between – a critical psychic distance that depends both on
the sender and the receiver. It also depends on the interplay or synergy created through a combination of
the content and estrangement techniques: ”It becomes a matter of fusion of techniques and content: a
political consciousness, on the simplest level, is raised by the subject matter, to which attention is being
drawn by the distancing devices ” (Chaim, 1984:35).

The critical distance can co-exist with empathy, but in order to strike the right balance – is what the
director attempts to master. The immediate emotion is something some directors often refuse, while
trying to emancipate the spectator instead of dominating him. From a rational point of view, it may
certainly be the most logical cinematic development, although it contradicts with the viewer’s natural
need to feel for, and identify himself with, the characters straight away. Brecht was aware of the fact,
that the work of art that completely alienates the viewer does not have the same emotional impact as a
highly dramatic work constructed as Aristotelian. The bottom line is: a great work of art must be
capable of both. The emotional appeal should be able to support the message, and the message should
be able to produce an emotional impact and influence the audience on the subconscious level. “There
are many contemporary works of art where one can speak of a decline in emotional effectiveness due to
their isolation from reason, or its revival thanks to a stronger rationalist message” (Brecht, 1964:145).
Seeking connections with the world around through self-identification and emphatic participation,
which is natural (as mentioned previously by Bullough). In other words, first comes the empirical,
subconscious, emotional, then the rational, conscious and logical. It means to distanciate oneself is an
effort, and even when this effort is made the distance will hardly be too big: there rather will be an
interesting contradiction between the presented dilemmas, content and the presentation, which was
pointed out by Brecht (1964:277): “However dogmatic it may seem to insist that self-identification with
the character should be avoided in the performance, our generation can listen to this warning with
advantage. However determinedly they obey it they can hardly carry it out to the letter, so the most
likely result is that truly rending contradiction between experience and portrayal, empathy and
demonstration, justification and criticism, which is what is aimed at”.

  14  
Three groups of films: the estrangement effect in cinema
Post-Brechtian cinematic development gave birth to the array of films, which vary in the amount of the
estrangement effects employed. Some estranging techniques directly migrated into the cinematic screen
from the theatre stage (separation of the elements, exposing equipment, actors speak about themselves
in the 3d person, episodic linking of events) and enjoyed further development there; other estranging
devices are purely cinematic (jump cut, obtrusive camera movement) and belong mainly to the
dimension of camera and montage.
Modern cinema tends to go cross boundaries, when traditional elements are combined with non-
traditional, and there are fewer and fewer films that exclusively belong to one or another dramaturgical
form, which today are also referred to as ‘open’ and ‘closed’ forms. It goes beyond the scope of this
paper to look at the differences of each dramaturgical form in detail, although I summed up the main
characteristics in the attachment 1 (combining traditional and non-traditional).

In general, there are three different kinds of post-Brechtian films, which vary in the amount of
defamiliarization used, and in the power of the estranging effects employed, which results in numerous
variations of form, genre and style. First, the works of Straub/Huillet, Alexander Kluge and Godard,
names associated with the Nouvelle Vague (most prominent in 60’s) and avantgarde, which remained
faithful to the analytical Brechtian project. These directors used maximum means to create critical
distance and minimized appeal to the affectionate participation of the audience, in order to deliver social
and political ideas. In the second group, there is the ubiquitous Brechtian style, a vernacular of
aestheticised estrangement effects, exemplified in the works of Marguerite Duras (India Song), in the
films of the directors of New German Cinema of 1970s, who created eclectical, artistically ambitious
and critical films with references to well-established movie genres: Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog,
Rainer Werner Fassbinder; neorealists like M. Antonioni, and partly films by Lars von Trier. The
estrangement devices are used here to create some distance and dramaturgy constitutes cross-boundary
approach, but affective component is also quite strong. The themes can be political or not, but are all
quite complex and controversial. And there also exists a third group, a hybrid form, which attempts to
employ estrangement techniques within the framework of more or less conventional narrative cinema,
and where estrangement devices and non-traditional elements have no critical effect, although the films
produced can touch upon controversial and socially important issues. V-effects employed in these
movies can impede perception, complicate narration to encourage thinking but generally follow a
conventional, well-constructed story with a very high degree of affective participation and narrative
closure. If in the first and second group we can find mostly European directors, to the third group belong
films by quite a growing group of Hollywood filmmakers, such as: David Fincher with his Fight club
(1999), Martin Scorcese with Shutter Island (2010), both employ complicated narration, a blurring of
reality by way of flashbacks, dreams and hallucinations. Partly belonging to the second group, some
films by Lars von Trier can also be more of a hybrid type (Melancholia (2011), for example). The

  15  
implementation of any defamiliarisation in this group is done more in the spirit of Russian Formalism
than Brechtian style: to complicate a structure or to bring attention to the experience itself with the sole
purpose to prolong and to heighten it. A growing number of Hollywood film directors integrate non-
traditional elements in their films, and if mainstream Hollywood still produces films that belong to
classical realism, there are non produced, that can be called purely Brechtian.

The first and second type generally characterise postmodernism, and make up the biggest part of art-
cinema today with films, which, in order to be understood and appreciated require “a certain degree of
experience and intellect”.10

All types of movies differ in the amount of critical distance, and its estranging power and the level of
affective participation the author wants to implement.

Within this research four groups of estrangement techniques have been distinguished, two of which are
anti-illusionistic, and two others, in course of time, ceased to produce anti-illusionistic effect in post-
modern cinema:

1. anti-illusionistic techniques, which tend to create11 maximum distance and indirectly influence
affective participation though breaking the cinematic illusion (or suspense of disbelief) with the
help of external cinematic means

2. anti-illusionistic techniques, which tend to create a critical amount of distance and indirectly
influence affective participation though breaking the illusion of reality (or suspense of disbelief)
with the help of internal cinematic means

3. the techniques, which create some distance directly and influencing the audience’s affective
participation

4. the techniques, which create no distance and have no influence on affective participation (or can
even increase it); they can increase the awareness through impeding the perception

Although the techniques from the first and the second group mentioned to create the biggest amount
of distance, the final effect is produced in the combination with the context, i.e. with the interplay
with the material. On the one hand estrangement devices delay empathy, on the other hand a strong
context (for example, strong use of violence, sex, and any strongly affecting elements) limits the
estranging power of techniques, which vary from one context to another, and thus, the power of
estrangement devices is relative.

Films of the first type: contain at least two types of estranging techniques from group 1, 2 or 3
combined with socio-political theme.

Films of the second type: contain at least one technique from the group 1, 2, 3 or 4.

                                                                                                               
 Wikipedia,  on  Art  film  
10

11  this  is  relative,  and  has  to  be  considered  in  abstract  terms  

  16  
 Films of the third type: would normally have techniques from group 4.

ESTRANGEMENT TECHNIQUES

1. Breaking the 2. Breaking illusion of 3. Directly delaying 4. Impeding perception

cinematic illusion reality and dramatic affectional participation / encourage active
unity thinking
irrelevant separation of the farce, use of humour non-linear narration
sound/silence elements: sound, and irony (reverse structure,
acknowledging the picture, and content no dramatic unity analepse / prolepse)
presence of the camera breaking suspense revealing the end of the
genre mixing, or not
exposure of filmic respecting genre patterns or not movie in the beginning
equipment and lighting boundaries providing any suspense (replacing “what-
structures at all suspense”, with “how-
jump cuts animation / fictional / exaggerated or suspense” or "who-
time remaps non-real elements in grotesque actor’s play suspense")
purposefully bad realistic context subdued actor’s play
framing episodic linking of
(underplaying)
shaky hand-held special lighting / events
actors talk about
camera or swinging colour themselves in the 3d mixing dreams,
camera person visions, fantasies and
unconventional non-naturalistic décor over-stylized, “arty” reality (blurring the
changes of shot size look boundaries between
obtrusive camera breaking the narration deprioritization of objective diegetic
movements through insertion cause-and-effect, reality and character
"chapter" names or text suspension of laws of
visible editing (e.g. states)
shots held too long or motivation
monochrome images in lack of narrative unreliable narrator
cut too abruptly) the coloured film closure
mise-en-abyme (frame- presence of the
within-frame, film slow / fast motion narrator
within film) sound and picture
codes do not match -
tension between the
codes
overlong shots

The 1st group: These estranging techniques remind spectators of the fact that they are watching an
audio-visual construction: strategies of fracture, interruption, discontinuity or drawing attention to the
formal materials and processes of media construction; literally, revealing to the spectator both the tools
of production (camera, microphone, lights, projectors, etc.), as well as the physical objects of audio-
visual communication (for instance, a strip of film), which is why the means are called external. They
are aimed primarily at disrupting the cinematic illusion, and have an indirect effect on affective
participation. In this way, we are alerted to the role of the director, and to the artifice upon which all
film production is predicated. Functions of the effects of this group are: subversion of the illusion and
anti-illusionistic strategies (the demystification of reality). These elements are central to both

  17  
modernism and postmodernism, and work well with art as enchantment, while calling attention to their
own factitiousness as constructs. For example, in conventional cinematography, smoothly tracked
camera movements, and an invisible style of cutting, indicate order within the diegesis; whereas jerky
hand-held camera movements indicate raw, unadulterated, on-the-spot filmmaking, disrupting
continuity and making the spectator aware of its means.

The 2nd group: a group of estrangement techniques mainly based on narration, dramaturgy and
photography, which are also aimed at demystifying the illusion, but with the help of internal means. The
use of anything that avoids showing the use of the apparatus (that is why the means are called internal),
and which also has an indirect delay of affective participation. Effects here work in a more subtle way
than the effects of the first group. For example, fictional elements in the realistic context (M. Gondry,
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind), special use of light and colour (Peter Greenaway A cook a thief
his wife and her lover), or slow motion (Lars von Trier, Antichrist).

Breaking the illusion of reality works here on two levels: on the one hand, there is the creation of
distance by breaking the continuity - either of space, time or place, or dramaturgical unity - and on
another hand, to create distance by breaking with logic, credibility, or even the suspense of disbelief.

Normally, breaking suspense of disbelief is the last thing directors want to do, as it holds even the most
unbelievable circumstances together. In some cases, though, like in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, breaking
the suspended critical judgment can be a relief to the public, because the reality created in this film is so
unbearable and horrific that a talking fox can, for example, provide some respite, or even provoke a
laugh (although it shows that the protagonist is almost as disturbed as his wife). Or the improbability of
a man with a hole in his leg and a heavy stone attached, can crawl around without bleeding to death,
gives the public just enough air to breathe until the end. The audio-visuals are very disturbing, but with
just a few V-techniques, von Trier makes spectators balance on the border between losing distance
entirely, and still preserving some, which helps them to concentrate on the complexity of the message
being communicated.

Antichrist, as with Dead Man by Jim Jarmusch, is characterised by the lack of dramatic unity: the first
film begins as a poetic drama and turns into a horror film, while the second film appears more as a
Western with some very unusual elements: the antagonist turns out to be a cannibal. Genre mixing and
dramatic disunity are some of the estrangement techniques used by film directors to create something to
challenge the audience’s expectations. As discussed earlier, such audio-visual treats may remain under-
appreciated if the audience is not prepared or acquainted with such films.

The 3rd group: techniques in this group do not have an impact on the cinematic illusion, i.e. they are not
necessarily anti-illusionistic, and they have a direct influence on affective participation. The estranging
power of these techniques is similar to the effects in the previous group. A lot of them are connected to
the actor’s performance – over-playing or underplaying in the performance, or dramaturgy - for
example, the overacting in Fassbinder’s Satan’s Brew, or the under-acting in Erich Rohmer films, or the

  18  
lack of narrative closure in L`Eclisse (M. Antonioni) and in The tree of Life (T.Malick). The excessively
long shots with little action or words as found in L`Eclisse (M. Antonioni), as well as in Tarkovski’s
films, are also a technique that, on the one hand, estranges the viewer, and on the other hand, creates an
emotional distance between the characters.

The 4th group: are the effects that are not connected with self-reflexivity, and are not necessarily anti-
illusionistic (similar to the techniques in the 3d group), they simply impede the process of
understanding, and engage the audience in intellectual reflection without precluding affective
participation. Films that employ these effects do not have arcane multiple codes. This set of effects
promotes active interpretation. Depending on the message of a film, the estranging devices can
sometimes create the opposite of distance – they trick the spectator into a deeper empathy. Such
techniques Brecht called ‘old’, stating that “their social aims are entirely different from our own”
(Brecht, 1964:192).

Gaspar Noé in his Irreversible uses the swinging camera, which although breaks the visual continuity,
but does not create distance and brings us into the subjective world of the character, whose mind is
clouded by rage and the desire for revenge for the rape of his girlfriend, i.e. the spectator, in spite of
visual disruptions gets involved even deeper.

In the film, Dancer in the Dark, Lars von Trier used imaginary dancing and singing scenes that happen
in the blind woman’s imagination. The scenes as such do not break the illusion of the presented reality,
but give depth to the representation and narration: present day spectators surf very easily between the
dimensions of dream and reality. Another, even more interesting, use of fantasies, dreams and reality we
can find in Fellini’s 8 1/2.

The function of the estrangement techniques of this group is to complicate and prolong the narration and
perception, and encourage interpretation.

The Effectiveness of the V-effect

In my research, I have identified the following factors that influence the effectiveness of the
estrangement effect, which depend both on the work of art and the audience.

Influence on the work of art:

1. Qualitative factor: When the problematics of the movie are deep, and the material provided is
critical and mentally stimulating, then the use of defamiliarization will stimulate reasoning. In
other words. V-effect works best with material that, by definition, touches upon very
controversial and deep issues that are better understood though critical approach.
2. Quantitative factor: too much estrangement effect or too little. Even when a film director uses
a lot of different estranging devices, due to natural tendency for empathy in individuals, there is
little chance that a movie would suffer from a big critical distance (under-distance is typical).

  19  
 Nevertheless, over-distance, created on the part of the filmmaker, is also possible. Bullough
(1912) agues that distance then becomes critical when empathy is maintained and distance does
not disappear.
3. Repetitive factor: when certain estrangement devices have been used many times, or have
become widespread, they naturally tend to lose their distancing power. Some techniques that
were used over 50 years ago, became so familiar that we do not recognise them as “strange”
anymore. Some of them travel into mainstream cinematography, and become accessible to a
bigger audience, and are rendered, as a consequence, ‘normal’. This factor applies only to a
certain group of visual effects or camera movements (time remaps, jump cut).
4. Synergetic factor: a unique fusion of V-effects with the subject-matter.

Influence on the audience:

1. The level of awareness or ‘distancing’ power of an individual: how much distance a person is
capable of maintaining; loss of distance is a typical failure on the side of the viewer, and the
reason why some works of art remain unappreciated.
2. Expectations of a spectator or what the audience is prepared to see (this can be expectations in
general, as well as expectations in a particular time and place. If the public is not acquainted or
is not ready to see new aesthetics, there is a big chance a play or a movie will remain
unappreciated. Brecht wrote about his V-effect and its use in his dialectical theatre “[…] Such
innovations also demand a new attitude on the part of the audience”.
3. Educational / intellectual level of a spectator / cultural background / age.
4. Type of the personality in general / inhibitions / preconceptions.

These factors influence the effectiveness of estrangement techniques and help to establish an aesthetic
distance. They should be taken into account when working with a non-traditional dramaturgical form.

Conclusions:

- The more interesting and controversial the material presented in the film is, the deeper it is
woven in the context and action, and the better the estrangement technique then works to allow
some space within which to reflect upon the coded information during the viewing.
- Critical distance is a subjective factor: it both depends on the work of art and the viewer;
- When the author decides that his movie would adhere more to the traditional dramaturgy with
strong affective elements, then the more risks can be taken in the use of estrangement effects.
- Taken in a neutral context, the biggest amount is distance can be achieved through disruption of
suspense of disbelief; normally the estranging power is contextual and depends on the
material/context.
- The estranging power of some techniques change over time.
- Depending on which V-effect techniques are used and how they are combined, the result can be
the opposite of critical distance.

  20  
Conclusion

Brechtian theory and method had a strong influence on the nature of aesthetics, and shaped modern and
postmodern theatre and cinema. One such influence was in the development of the concept of the V-
effect, which had the consequence of providing myriad possibilities for directors to deliver new forms of
cinematic representation. Present-day audiences are much more demanding than they were 50 years ago,
and contemporary directors, who employ and combine traditional and non-traditional dramaturgical
approaches, produce more interesting films than the ones who strictly adhere to the rules of one form or
another. In other words, traditional and non-traditional approaches not only co-exist, but also
compliment each other. Brechtian aesthetics were born within the socio-political context, and post-
Brechtian aesthetics went beyond it, becoming a guiding aesthetic principle for avant-garde filmmaking
in the early part of the 21st century onwards, and a distinct feature of many art films.

Non-traditional dramaturgy is, in essence, based on estranging techniques, which distancing power
varies in different context. The effectiveness of the estranging devices also depends on such external
factors as the audience’s experiences and expectations. In the course of time, and the evolvement of the
cinema, some estrangement devices have lost their estranging power, gave rise to new techniques,
which lend more space for the author to create unique combinations and integrate them into the
material.

Identification, empathy and critical distance are not mutually exclusive, and critical distance is
compatible with maintaining empathy (Bullough, 1912). Ambiguity of Brechtian aesthetics is
constituted in the fact that empathy has two components (emotional and cognitive), and when a psychic
distance between emotions and experience is created, we are able to get a better (more objective)
perspective. The affective participation of the audience in the play is important in the first place to a
degree as to establish the connection through perspective-taking. Strong emotions are crucial in
Aristotelian catharsis, but can stand on the way to critical judgment due to their subconscious nature.

Critical distance, created with the help of V-effects, delays emphatic involvement and provides space
both for reflection; due to a different nature of the dramaturgy that take a use of defamiliarization
techniques, there a need to educate the audience on the nature of such aesthetics in order to increase the
level of appreciation among the public.

De-automatisation is not only important when perceiving the representational cinema; for thousands
years Buddhism used a method of meditation to bring in psychic distance and awareness to our
everyday experiences in order to be able to see our own automatic reaction-patterns objectively. Brecht,
as well as a Russian formalist, Shklovski, also wrote that the V-effect is “a procedure in everyday life”
(1964:143). This seems to be a very interesting area for further research.

  21  
V-effect is a method used to draw attention to symbolic qualities, and to the process of perception itself,
in order to recognise the meaning behind the representation; it is a way of achieving psychic distance,
and de-atomise perception from   the cognitive bias of everyday life, and that constitutes a first step in
aesthetic education. According to Brecht, V-techniques are important because they “allow the theatre to
make use in its representations of the new social scientific method known as dialectical materialism. In
order to unearth society’s laws of motion this method treats social situations as processes, and traces out
all their inconsistencies. It regards nothing as existing except in so far as it changes, in other words is in
disharmony with itself. This also goes for those human feelings, opinions and attitudes through which at
any time the form of men’s life together finds expression” (1964:193).

  22  
List of film directors and movies mentioned in the essay

Alexandre Kluge
Andrey Tarkovski Nostalgia 1983
Andrey Tarkovski Sacrifice 1986
Andrey Tarkovski Mirror 1975
Christopher Nolan Inception 2010
Eric Rohmer
Federico Fellini Eight and a half (8 1/2) 1963
Gaspar Noé Irreversible 2002
Ingmar Bergman The Seventh Seal 1957
Jean-Luc Godard Breathless 1960
Jean-Luc Godard Tout va bien 1972
Jean-Marie Straub / D. Huillet
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s and Marc Delicatessen
Caro’s 1991
Jim Jarmush Stranger than Paradise 1984
Jim Jarmush Dead Man 1995
Jim Jarmush Mystery Train 1989
Jim Jarmush Coffee and Cigarettes 2003
Lars von Trier Dogville 2003
Lars von Trier Manderlay 2005
Lars von Trier Antichrist 2009
Lars von Trier Dancer in the Dark 2000
Lars von Trier Melancholia 2011
Lars von Trier The boss of it all 2006
Lars von Trier Europa 1991
M.Caro/J-P. Jeunet Delicatessen 1991
Marguerite Duras India Song 1975
Michelangelo Antonioni L’Eclisse 1960
Peter Greenaway A cook a thief his wife and her lover 1989
Rainer Werner Fassbinder Lola 1981
Rainer Werner Fassbinder Satan`s brew 1976
Stanley Kubrick Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love the Bomb 1965
Stanley Kubrick A Clockwork orange 1971
Terrence Malick The Tree of Life 2011
Terry Guilliam Brazil 1985
Michel Gondry Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind 2004
David Fincher Fight club 1999

  23  
References

1. Aristotle, L J. Potts. On the Art of Fiction: An English Translation of Aristotle’s Poetics.

Cambridge: University Press, 1968. Print.

2. Ben, Chaim D. Distance in the Theatre: The Aesthetics of Audience Response. Ann Arbor,
Mich: UMI Research Press, 1984. Print.

3. Bordwell, David. Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison, Wis: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
Print.

4. Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Ed. and trans. John
Willett. 1991th ed. British edition. London: Methuen, 1964. Print.

5. Brownstein, Oscar L, and Darlene M. Daubert. Analytical Sourcebook of Concepts in Dramatic

Theory. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1981. Print.

6. Bullough, Edward. ‘Psychical Distance’ as a Factor in Art and as an Aesthetic Principle. Vol.
5. Issue 2. Appeared in (1912): British Journal of Psychology, 1912. 87-117. Web.
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1912.tb00057.x/abstract>

7. Hans R. Jauss Levels of Identification of Hero and Audience, New Literary History, Vol. 5, No.
2. (1974), 283-317, 1974

8. Hyldig, Keld. Brand on the Stage: Identification and Critical Distance. Ibsen Studies. 10.2
(2010): 92-110. Web. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15021866.2010.538500>

9. Jameson, Fredric. Brecht and Method. London and New York: Verso, 1998. Print.

10. Kirby, Alan. The Death of Postmodernism And Beyond. Philosophy now. N.p., 2006. Web.
<http://www.philosophynow.org/issue58/The_Death_of_Postmodernism_And_Beyond>

11. Schiller, Friedrich and Wolfgang, Goethe. On Epic and Dramatic Poetry, tr. by Lanz E. Schiller
Institute. Web. <http://www.schillerinstitute.org/transl/schil_epic_dram.html

12. Shklovski, Viktor. Art as Device. (Iskusstvo kak priem, 1916), article; translation 1925, Journal
CONTEXT, Iss. 10, Web.
<http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?fa=customcontent&GCOI=15647100186030&extrasfile
=A126196B-B0D0-B086-B67ADEAB48FECDB0.html>

13. Thomson, Peter, and Glendyr Sacks. The Cambridge Companion to Brecht. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2006. Web.
<http://cco.cambridge.org/uid=3711/book?id=ccol0521857090_CCOL0521857090>

14. White, John J. Bertolt Brecht’s Dramatic Theory. 2010th ed. NY: Camden House, 2004. 84-
131. Print.

15. Wright, Elizabeth. Postmodern Brecht: A Re-Presentation. London: Routledge, 1989. Print.

  24  
 Attachment 1: Combining alternative and traditional dramaturgies

1 2 3 4 5

Narrative style / syuzhet / Visual style / Montage and Content in terms Communi-
dramaturgy / genre photography camera of explicit display cating or
movements of violence / sex, withholding
etc fabula
information

often linear narrative mode classical realism classical, non- limited use of High level
omniscient narration visible cut, visual provoking material
Traditional

low degree of stylistic self continuity

consciousness, strong
strict genre adhesion
sense of closure

often non-linear narrative mode Stylised look, or breaking of visual Free use of Low level
restricted narration* pseudo- continuity, hand- provoking material
Non-traditional

high degree of stylistic self- documentary held camera, not

consciousness style much attention is
loose genre adhesion (or mixed paid to the rules of
genres (no dramatic unity) montage
open endings
breaking suspense of disbelief

Omniscient or restricted narration in the first column means: the extent to which the narration lays
claim to a range and depth of fabula information and self-consciousness is the degree to which the
narration acknowledges its address to the spectator12. Moving from top to bottom will bring us to the
sphere of art cinema and the world of different estrangement effects, and moving upwards – to the
conventional aesthetics. The level of communicativeness in the fifth column means the extent to which
the narration withholds or communicates fabula information. The cross relations, i.e. combining
elements from the top and bottom row, provide us with a choice of numerous combinations and
estrangement techniques to use.

                                                                                                               
12  according to D. Bordwell, Narration in the Fiction Film
 

  25  
Attachment 2 (on two pages): list of estrangement techniques
according to the area of production

In the table below I summed up most popular estranging techniques used in cinema today according to
the area of cinematic production, i.e. dramaturgy (actors), narration (story and plot), photography,
montage, with some examples of movies where these techniques they have been used.

V-effect example

Syuzhet / deprioritization of cause-and-effect,

Fassbinder Satan’s brew
suspension of laws of motivation
content /
non-linear narration (reverse structure,
narration style Andrey Tarkovski Mirror
analepse / prolepse)
revealing the end of the movie in the
beginning (replacing “what-suspense”,
Gaspar Noé Irreversible
with “how-suspense” or "who-
suspense")
Michelangelo Antonioni L`èclisse, Jim
episodic linking of events
Jarmusch Down by Law
mixing dreams, visions, fantasies and
reality (blurring the boundaries between
objective diegetic reality and character Federico Fellini 8 ½, Terrence Malick
states) The Tree of Life
presence of the narrator Lars von Trier Manderlay
breaking the narration through insertion
Lars von Trier Dogville, Antichrist
"chapter" names or text
unreliable narrator David Fincher Fight club
Jim Jarmush Mystery train, T.Malick
lack of narrative closure
Tree of Life

Dramaturgy genre mixing / not respecting gendre Lars von Trier Dancer in the Dark,
boundaries Antichrist
irrelevant sound/silence Jim Jarmush Stranger than Paradise
acknowledging the presence of the
Godard Tout va bien
camera
exposure of filmic equipment and
Lars von Trier The Boss of it All
lighting structures
separation of the elements: sound,
picture, and content M. Duras India song
sound and picture codes do not match -
Stanleey Kubrick A clockwork Orange
tension between the codes

animation / fictional / non-real elements

Ingmar Bergman The Seventh Seal
  26  
 in realistic context
farce, use of humour and irony Stanley Kubrick Dr. Strangelove or...
no dramatic unity T. Malick The tree of Life
breaking suspense patterns Jim Jarmush Mystery train

exaggerated actor’s play (overacting) Fassbinder Satan’s brew

subdued actors play (underacting)
no suspense
actors talk about themselves in the 3d
person
overlong shots
insertion of dancing and singing scenes
Eric Rohmer films
T. Malick The tree of Life
Lars von Trier Dogville
Andrey Tarkovski films
Lars von Trier Dancer in the Dark

Photography non-naturalistic décor M.Caro/J.Jeunet Delicatessen

P. Greenaway A cook, a thief, his wife

special lighting
and her lover
over-stylised, “arty” look Terry Gilliam Brazil
monochrome images in the coloured
Lars von Trier Antichrist, Europa
film

Montage / jump cuts Godard Breathless

camera time remaps David Fincher Fight club

movement purposefully bad framing Lars von Trier The Boss of it All
shaky hand-held camera or swinging Lars von Trier Melanholia, Gaspar Noé
camera Irreversible
unconventional changes of shot size
obtrusive camera movements David Fincher Fight club
visible editing (e.g. shots held too long
or cut too abruptly)
mise-en-abyme (frame-within-frame,
film within film)
slow / fast motion Lars von Trier Antichrist
predominant use of the ‘tablaux shot’
(LS)

  27