Material evidence, or: our hoarsened voice

-

"In this country, nobody ends up in jail unless they're guilty."

--Fury, Fritz Lang, 1936.

A great political film would not give us statistics, but figures instead. In Fury there are figures: how many people have been lynched per week for such and such a length of time. In Trop tôt, trop tard we included figures: a third of the population of such and such village is unable to survive...

--Jean-Marie Straub, in conversation with François Albera & Danièle Huillet, Sickle and Hammer, Cannons, Cannons, Dynamite!, 2001, published in the 2004 Straub-Huillet Viennale & Filmmuseum retrospective catalogue, p.43.

And yet we knew:

Even the hatred of squalor

Distorts one’s features.

Even anger against injustice

Makes the voice grow hoarse. We

Who wished to lay the foundation for gentleness

Could not ourselves be gentle.

But you, when at last the time comes

That man can aid his fellow man,

Should think upon us

With leniency.

--Bertolt Brecht, An die Nachgeborenen / To Those Who Follow in Our Wake, 1939.