Glossen

Films by Alexander Kluge that relate to some of the themes in his book History and Obstinacy, which has recently been published in English

These  short films below provide openings to various parts of his recently published book in English History and Obstinacy. Notes reference specific chapters or sections of the book.

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Man’s Essential Powers
— See Chapter 1: The Origins of Labor Capacity in Separation (The Permanence of Primitive Accumulation), especially “Different Forms of Property” (pp. 79-97) and “Man’s Essential Powers” (p. 88).
— See Commentary 8: The Loss of Reality/The Loss of History: “The Landscape of Industry is the Opened Book of Human Psychology” (pp. 242-46)

 

 

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The Obstinate Child
— See “The Obstinate Child” and “A Comparison Between Antigone And ‘The Obstinate Child’” (pp. 292-93 and 293-94)
— See “Antirealism of Feeling”(pp. 414-15)

 

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“Der Gesamtarbeiter” vor Verdun [youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgpQCnUwJ6M”]

 

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Lament of the unwanted product
— See “Production, Primary and Secondary” (pp. 406-07)

 

 

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One person is the mirror of another
— See “The Brain as a Social Organ” (pp. 192-93)
— See Chapter 7: Love Politics: The Obstinacy of Intimacy (pp. 341-84)

 

 

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The Concierges of Paris
—See “The Concierges of Paris” (pp. 428-29)

 

 

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The song of the crane Milchsack IV
— See Chapter 3: Elements of a Political Economy of Labor Power, especially: “The Contradiction between Living and ‘Dead Labor’” (pp. 128-30)

 

 

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We are the inhabitants of the Cosmos
— See Commentary 3: “On the Concept of the Real” (pp. 156-61)
— See also “21,999 B.C.” (pp. 438-39)

 

 

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The death that had to laugh
— No particular hint. The fairy-tale touches some significant keywords of the book like cooperation, practical sense, antirealism of feelings, and the comic as a form of direct protest.

 

 

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The forced institution of Exchange & I’ve never seen two dogs exchange a bone
— See Commentary 12: The Ancient Naval Hero as Metaphor of the Enlightenment: German Brooding Counter-Images;
— “Obstinacy,” especially “The Violent Learning Process of Commodity Exchange on The Mediterranean Sea” (pp. 273-74)

 

 
 

 

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Money makes things mobile
— See “The Differentiation of Strong and Weak Social Forces and of Hermetic and Associative Forces” (pp. 140-43) [youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-SCf9MIwyY”]

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Light veins
—See “A Return to ‘Cultivating Independently’” (p. 405) See also “Capitalism within us” (pp. 419-20)

 

 

 

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How much blood and horror
— See Commentary 2: “The Contemporaneity of Mental History” (pp. 154-55)