Rewatching Godard’s Movie La Chionise with Brecht’s Aesthetic

Abstract

Bertolt Brecht, who produces literary works such as theater plays, stories, and poems, attempts to dismantle the Aristotelian approach to art with his theory of Epic Theatre. Brecht, who is against traditional theater and cinema, follow scientific theater. Brecht's only film in which he participated as a screenwriter with his own team and was involved in the production process is Kuhle Wampe (1932) as he couldn't reach an agreement with producers on the script. Brecht's aesthetic theory has influenced filmmakers like Godard and Angelopoulos. Godard, one of the most important auteur directors who continuously shapes his own cinematic language through new aesthetic formal experiments in cinema, has been influenced by Brecht. Opposing classical narrative cinema, Godard never uses the Aristotelian concept of identification in any of his films; instead, he follows in the footsteps of Bertolt Brecht, the pioneer of contemporary theater. Although the endings of his first films, A bout de Souffle (1960) and Vivre Sa Vie (1962), are in line with the classical narrative structure, the overall structure of the films carries traces of Brechtian aesthetics. The main purpose of this content analysis study is to reveal the influence of Brechtian aesthetics on Godard's film La Chinoise (1967).