Kluge, Alexander 1932-

views updated

Kluge, Alexander 1932-

PERSONAL:

Born February 14, 1932, in Halberstadt, Germany; son of Ernst Kluge (a physician). Education: Educated in Germany; received J.D., 1956.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Munich, Germany. Office—Kairos Film, Friedrichstrasse 17, 80801 Munich, Germany. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Attorney in Germany, 1958—; writer and filmmaker. Producer of independent television programs. Honorary professor at Frankfort on the Main University; director, Ulm Institute of Film Arts.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Italy's Isola d'Elba Literary Prize, 1967; Fontane Prize, City of Berlin, 1979; Literary Prize, City of Bremen, 1979; Heinrich von Kleist Prize, 1985; Culture Prize, City of Munich, 1986; Lessing Prizes, 1990 and 2002; Adolf Grimme Award, 1992; Heinrich Böll Prize for Literature, City of Cologne, 1993; Hanns-Joachim-Friedrich Prize for TV journalism, 2001; Literaturpreis der Freien Hansestadt, Bremen, 2001; Georg Büchner Prize, 2003.

WRITINGS:

(With Hellmut Becker) Kulturpolitik und Ausgabenkontrolee: Zur Theorie und Praxis der Rechnungsprüfung, V. Klostermann (Frankfurt, Germany), 1961.

Lebensläufe (short stories), Henry Goverts Verlag, 1962, translation by Leila Vennewitz published as Attendance List for a Funeral, McGraw (New York, NY), 1966, also published in English as Case Histories.

Schlachtbeschreibung, Walter Verlag (Olten, Germany), 1964, translation by Leila Vennewitz published as Battle, McGraw (New York, NY), 1967.

Der Untergang der Sechsten Armee (Schlachtbeschreibung), R. Piper (Munich, Germany), 1969.

(With Oskar Negt) Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung: Zur Organisationsanalyse von bürgerlicher und proletarischer Öffentlichkeit, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt, Germany), 1972, English translation published as Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere, University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis, MN), 1993.

(With Michael Dost and Florian Hopf) Filmwirtschaft in der BRD und in Europa: Götterdämmerung in Raten, Hanser (Munich, Germany), 1973.

Lernprozesse mit tödlichem Ausgang, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt, Germany), 1973.

Lebensläufe: Anwesenheitsliste für eine Beerdigung, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt, Germany), 1974.

Gelegenheitsarbeit einer Sklavin: Zur relistischen Methode, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt, Germany), 1975.

Neue Geschichten: Hefte 1-18: "Unheimlichkeit der Zeit," Suhrkamp (Frankfurt, Germany), 1977.

Die Universitatäs-Selbstverwaltung, Arno Press (New York, NY), 1977.

Die Patriotin: Texte, Bilder 1-6, Zweitausendeins (Frankfurt, Germany), 1979.

(With Klaus Eder) Ulmer Dramaturgien: Reibungsverluste: Stichwort, Bestandsaufnahme, Hanser (Munich, Germany), 1980.

(Coauthor) Bestandsaufnahme, Utopie Film: Zwanzig Jahre neuer deutscher Film/Mitte 1983, Zweitausendeins (Frankfurt, Germany), 1983.

Die Macht der Gefühle, Zweitausendeins (Frankfurt, Germany), 1984.

Der Angriff der Gegenwart auf de übrige Zeit, Syndikat (Frankfurt, Germany), 1985.

Theodor Fontane, Heinrich von Kleist und Anna Wilde: Zur Grammatik der Zeit, K. Wagenbach (Berlin, Germany), 1987.

Case Histories, translated by Leila Vennewitz, Holmes & Meier (New York, NY), 1988.

(With Oskar Negt) Massvrehältnisse des Politischen: 15 Vorschläge zum Unterscheidungsvermögen, S. Fischer (Frankfurt, Germany), 1992.

(With Valentin Falin) Interview mit dem Jahrhundert, Rotbuch (Hamburg, Germany), 1995.

(With Heiner Müller) Ich schulde der Welt einen Toten: Gesspräe, Rotbuch Verlag (Hamburg, Germany), 1995.

(With Heiner Müller) Ich bin ein Landvermesser: Gespräche, neue Folge, Rotbuch (Hamburg, Germany), 1996.

Learning Processes with a Deadly Outcome (translated by Christopher Pavsek), Duke University Press (Durham, NC), 1996.

(With August Everding) Der Mann der 1000 Opern: Gespräche und Bilder, Rotbuch (Hamburg, Germany), 1998.

Chronik der Gefuhle, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt, Germany), 2000.

Verbrechen: Gespräche mit Dr. Ulrike Springer, Prof. Dr. Joachim Kersten und Manfred Pichota, Vorwerk 8 (Berlin, Germany), 2000.

(With Oskar Negt) Der Unterschätzte Mensch: Gemeinsame Philosophie in zwei Bänden, Zweitausendeins (Frankfurt, Germany), 2001.

(With others) Die Jahre der Oper 1996 bix 2001, die Oper des Jahres 1998, 1999, 2000, Kühlen (Mönchengladbach, Germany), 2001.

Berdeckte Ermittlung: Ein Gespraäch mit Christian Schulte und Rainer Stollmann, Merve (Berlin, Germany), 2001.

Die Kunst, Unterschiede zu machen, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt, Germany), 2003.

Die Lücke, die der Teufel lässt: Im Umfeld des neuen Jahrhunderts, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt, Germany), 2003, abridged translation by Martin Chalmers and Michael Hulse published as The Devil's Blind Spot: Tales from the New Century, New Directions (New York, NY), 2004.

Tür an Tür mit einem anderen Leben: 350 Neue Geschichten, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt, Germany), 2006.

Co-director or director of films, including Brutality in Stone, 1960, and Krieg und Frieden (War and Peace), 1982. Also author of screenplays Abschied von Gestern (title means "Yesterday Girl"), and Artisten in der Zurkuskuppel: Ratlos (title means "Artists under the Big Top: Perplexed"), both 1967.

SIDELIGHTS:

Alexander Kluge is a German filmmaker, novelist, television and radio producer, and political theorist who is considered by some to be one of the world's greatest intellectuals. Born in 1932, he lived through an Allied bombing raid on his hometown in 1945. The next year, he moved with his mother to Berlin, where he studied music, history, and law. Kluge in fact became a practicing lawyer, though he subsequently became better-known for his artistic activities.

Kluge became interested in film in the late 1950s and co-directed his first film, with Peter Schamoni, in 1960. Brutality in Stone, as it was called, grew from the notion that architectural ruins stand as witnesses to the past. One of the most significant aspects of this film was that it confronted the horror of Germany's Nazi past, which most German films during the 1950s completely ignored. The film's premier in 1961 led to Kluge's involvement in a new movement in German cinema, one that sought to reach a new intellectual concept of filmmaking, free of the constraints of economics. It was the origin of what eventually became known as New German Cinema.

An important theory affecting Kluge's work is the notion that the person viewing the film should take a very active role, rather than simply observing. With this in mind, Kluge works to create new types of films that offer the audience more active ways of experiencing them. The use of montage, unique cuts from one scene to the next, and many discordant elements allow the reader to make his or her own connections, rather than being forced to follow a conventional, linear storyline. Kluge's 1982 film Krieg und Frieden (War and Peace) is cited by Andrew Bowie in Cultural Critique as "perhaps the profoundest and funniest anti-nuclear film there is."

Since 1986, Kluge has turned his attention to work in television. He has made many cultural and interview programs for German broadcasting stations, and like his films, they often feature fragments of images and sound that can be connected by viewers in various interpretations. Kluge was drawn to work in television because of the collaborative nature of work in that medium, but his involvement in television might be seen as somewhat ironic, since he is critical of the influence of the media. Bowie commented: "One basic impulse of Kluge's work is essentially Brechtian: he wishes to make people astonished at that which has come to be regarded as normal."

As a writer, Kluge is known for bringing a new perspective to the protest novel, stripping away the usual moralizing and pleas for change, and working instead in a more documentary style. His book Die Lücke, die der Teufel lässt: Im Umfeld des neuen Jahrhunderts, published in 2003 and translated in an abridged form the next year as The Devil's Blind Spot: Tales from the New Century, is "a work that intentionally defies categorization," noted a Kirkus Reviews writer. In this collection of 173 essays and anecdotes, the author invites his readers to make connections between unexpected points. He also "offers commentary on love, war, the Devil and the cosmos, from the stars to the oceans, using myth, fables, the historical record and invented dialogues." Discussing the same book in Review of Contemporary Fiction, Irving Malin stated: "It is chilling, contemplative, fierce, beautiful. It is, simply, unforgettable."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October, 1991, p. 1130.

Best Sellers, September 15, 1967, review of Battle, p. 235.

Book World, September 17, 1967, review of Battle, p. 5.

Cultural Critique, autumn, 1986, Andrew Bowie, "Alexander Kluge: An Introduction," pp. 111-118.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2004, review of The Devil's Blind Spot: Tales from the New Century, p. 884.

New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies, December 1, 1990, Helke Sander and Regina Cornwell, "You Can't Always Get What You Want: The Films of Alexander Kluge," Eric Rentschler, "Remembering Not to Forget: A Retrospective Reading of Kluge's Brutality in Stone," Timothy Corrigan, "The Commerce of Auteurism: A Voice without Authority," Gertrud Koch, "Alexander Kluge's Phantom of the Opera," and Heide Schlüpmann, "Femininity as Productive Force: Kluge and Critical Theory"; spring/summer, 2000, Peter C. Lutze, "Alexander Kluge's ‘Cultural Window’ in Private Television."

New York Times Book Review, November 20, 1966, review of Attendance List for a Funeral, p. 4.

October, autumn, 1988, Andreas Huyssen, "An Analytic Storyteller in the Course of Time," pp. 116-128.

Review of Contemporary Fiction, spring, 2005, Irving Malin, review of The Devil's Blind Spot, p. 147.

Saturday Review, October 8, 1966, review of Attendance List for a Funeral, p. 106; September 30, 1967, review of Battle, p. 43.