Cinematography in Brutality in Stone

Alexander Kluge's film Brutality in Stone addresses the amnesia that seemed to exist in the new Germany following World War II. The film uses images of both the Nuremberg Rally Grounds, and a model of how the fuhrer envisioned his new Nazi capital of “Germania” to give the viewer a brief history of the Nazi party. Kluge uses these images of lifeless buildings to give the viewer the impression that while this is in the past there are still unresolved feelings. For instance when the film gets to a horrifying description of how killing the Jews became like clockwork. The voice over describes how they would burn the bodies of the dead at night so that the next train could arrive in the morning. While this is happening Kluge is showing the viewer these frames filled with tiny innumerable blocks on hundreds of different surfaces all over the Nuremberg Rally Grounds. This gives the viewer this understanding about how many people were killed and how faceless and uncountable they all became, and yet they are forgotten as nothing more than one of a hundred thousand blocks on an abandoned building.