History not a chain of events to be told chronologically
no: cause->effect->cause->effect
society is not neccesarily moving forward but sometimes regressing
History is an accumulation of the shuffle of people: interests push into different directions
-> subjective point of view for the filmmaker
the “angle” of the camera changes what you portray/see
Benjamins Thesis VII
In history books you always get the view of people that were “better off”
WWII: winners tell the story as they are more powerful
-their stories are carried with them: cultural treasures
-historical materialsm accepts that they are stolen
-cultural treasures not only efforts of great minds but also workers
-there is no document of barbarism (there is at least two perspectives)
-passed on through fights, struggles, etc
-historical materialism wants to see the flipside
-see the things that aren’t presented to us obviously
->notion of rubble: what remains after deconstruction
Thesis IX
“angel of history”:
While we see history as a chain of events the angel sees catastrophy (rubble after rubble)
-wind blows angel into the future with back turned to it
Antropologists film in Africa:
after presenting the work to the population they are only interested in the chickens in the background
-villagers see something that wasn’t intended to be seen
-people with different backgrounds percieve things differently
The Pianist:
Pov of character is more narrow
pan-> POV of entity that raises up above everyone else “Angel of History”‘s POV
Spaces: street (death): officers shooting people; inside buildings: survival
Chung Kuo China
narrative reality against the grain of ideology
in village: no one has been trained to not look at camera
at work: no one looks apart from children
-> constructed image
film is saying what government wants it to say -> but government can’t completely control
something that falls out of the official image is rubble