We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2021
I am an artist and filmmaker. I think of my work as a process of drawing timelines between past and present that might help us imagine a future against the grain of reactionary ideology. For me the best place to start is with fragments: ideas cut short; abandoned victims of forces beyond their control; forces of culture, politics, and economics.
I find myself drawn back to a certain time in history, roughly from the 1920s through the 1940s. I believe we can learn from the work of artists and filmmakers who attempted to communicate with a mass audience in a way that was both critical of the status quo and optimistic in that they wanted to show that things can be other than they are. It was during the economic crisis of 2008 that I started to think that Brecht's writing might help us understand what was going on. And it seemed to me here in the United States that the best place to look to him for guidance was in Los Angeles. As I researched his work in Hollywood, I became intrigued by his sketches for films that he had not been able to realize. One in particular caught my attention, A Model Family. Only a few typed notes and some scrawled notebook entries remain. One reads as follows:
A MODEL FAMILY
ein bild der zerstörung: zertrümmertes wohnzimmer, brief eines anwalts über scheidung, zerfetzter frauenhut. überschrift: a model family home. man sucht die familie unter 80 familien aus. was alles nicht in betracht kommt….
am vorabend der ausstellungseröffnung ein krach, bez ein irrtum. mann
Brecht based his idea on an article in Life magazine from 1941, “A Model Family in a Model Home,” that describes how an Ohio farm family won a prize, a week in a model home at the state fair. The drawback was that the home was open to the public twelve hours a day. I felt that its themes, architecture as a representation of social and economic relations, surveillance, spectacle, and the commodification of family life resonated in our century.
Brecht's work in Hollywood has often been considered a failure. On the contrary, I would like to suggest that his ideas were merely lying in wait for us.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
