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With a length of 570 minutes, divided into three parts, Alexander Kluge's Nachrichten aus der ideologischen Antike — Marx/Eisenstein/Das Kapital (News from Ideological Antiquity — Marx/Eisenstein/Capital, 2008) (hereafter MEC), is stylistically one of the most heterogeneous and complex films ever made, where "film" is understood widely, including also other forms of moving image, such as video. It is also one of the most complex political works on account of the subjects discussed, such as class relations, and its form, which emphasises discursive activity, making us aware that the reality which unfolds in front of us when we watch a film is never natural, but mediated. As a complex and heterogeneous film, MEC lends itself to a comparison with Histoire(s) du Cinéma (1988–1998) by Jean-Luc Godard; as a complex and heterogeneous political work, to Marx's Das Kapital, which can be described, to use Gérard Genette's terminology, as its principal hypotext, which the hypertext transforms, modifies, elaborates or extends (Stam 2000: 65–66).

DOI: 10.1057/9781137378613_12

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