Chapter 18
KuhleWampeand “Those Who Don’tLikeIt”
Brecht:Both Tretyakov andIagreed–in oppositiontothe bourgeois aestheticof“entering
into the spirit of things”–that works of art should be designed as models,analogous to
those used in science.Ihope I’ll beable to discuss these ideas with other Soviet colleagues
when wegettoMoscow.
Eisenstein[Looks up]: Youreallybelievethat stuff?Itsounds likeachemistry lesson.
Chemistry without the magic.
Brecht[Lights his cigar butt]: Whenyouget achancetosee our experiment,KuhleWampe,
you’ll–
Eisenstein[Brusquely]: I’ve alreadyseen it.And that’sexactlywhat’swrong with it.Man
merkt dieAbsicht.Lars Kleberg,“TheAquarians”The pointed exchangebetweenBertoltBrecht and SergeiEisenstein onatrain
somewherebetween Berlin and Moscow never took place.¹However,their argu-
ment concernsareal point of contention inWeimar-eradebates on proletarian
culture, namelythe tension between artistic practices that define aesthetic expe-
rience as disinterested pleasure and the politically committed art that calls for
more didactical, interventionist modes.The object of contention, Kuhle
Wampe, oder Wemgehört dieWelt?(1932,KuhleWampe, orWhoOwns the
World?), continued the formal experiments startedbyJung, Seiwert,and Heart-
field (see chapters 10,11, and17)inthe quintessentialmodern massmedium of
film. Often identified with Brecht and his theory of epic theater,this classic of
leftist filmmaking drawsonaspects of what SergeiTretyakov (1892–1937), the in-
fluential Soviet writer and translator,calls operativity and will consequentlybe
read as an example of operative filmmaking.Against thegendered divides that
continued to dominate communist imaginaries,KuhleWampemobilizedavery
different model of proletarian identifications. The filmmakers did so by using
ayoung woman to announce the workers’desire to changethe world because
they,inher words,“don’tlike it.”In the process, the filmmakers redefined the
Lars Kleberg,“TheAquarians,”inStarfall:ATriptych,trans. Anselm Hollo (Evanston, IL:
Northwestern University Press, 1988),4. Eisenstein refersto the Goethe quote“Man merkt die
Absicht,und man istverstimmt.”Brecht and Dudow did indeedgo toMoscow for the May
1932 premiereofKuhleWampe,but it is doubtfulthat Eisensteinwould have been ableto
watch the film beforehand.