Zoe Beloff has made a short film titled, Model Family in a Model Home, which illustrates Berthold Brecht’s research notes for a proposed Hollywood film that highlighted the theatrical nature of the roles played by middle class American families as portrayed in Life Magazine. Brecht lived in LA from 1941 to 1947 before returning to Europe.
Whoa. That was painful. Aesthetics has long been a issue for me with Lefties. Most of the time, insufferable. This clip fits in. Brecht, along with Kurt Weill, are exceptions. Gang of Four did a great job updating the style, and it’s hard to disparage Ken Loach’s dedication. Overall, the pickings are slim.
Interesting crossover with recent Netflix viewings. The HUAC hearings appear in Trumbo, of course. I have to say the film serves up a worthy representation of a shrewd character in yet another moment of American fevered delusion. The film reveals another repetitive compulsion in the American experience, the fight over the ideological direction of the Supreme Court.
In terms of “model” housing and families, The Florida Project gets a lot right, especially the Brechtian aesthetics that this clip’s creators couldn’t even produce if they were given an illustrated how-to primer. With wonderful love-hate characters residing in Orlando, the real life Dismaland, Disneyworld is seen for what it is, a zombie within a zombie. Old Bert would be delighted.