Die Macht der Gefühle (1983)

In his characteristic form of image-and-sound collage, Kluge shows, in more than 20 short stories, the power and effects of emotions and how they are organized by reason. The most important example he offers of the world of emotions in a cold, rational environment—Frankfurt am Main, in Kluge’s case—is the art form of opera, which he calls a “power plant of emotions” and in which emotions are often shown in exaggerated form. But Kluge presents not only a possible utopia, namely the positive organization of emotions; he also calls into question their negative influence on human decisions. To awaken the viewer’s interest in this question of decision-making, Kluge seeks to sharpen the viewer’s reason by revealing the dialectics of human behavior governed by emotions. To do so, he uses documentary footage, short dramatic scenes, excerpts from old feature films, quotations from operas, commentary and intertitles. The individual episodes are mostly self-contained, although some are revisited later. Despite a lightness that is almost unusual for Kluge, his film is difficult to access because of its intellectual and playful variations, and it requires the viewer to be very willing to engage with the problem of emotions, which can have both productive and destructive effects.