History Lessons

A young man is driving through the streets of Rome. The year is 1972. The camera is inside the car. The driving is filmed in long takes. Along the way he talks with four people. The people he talks to are from ancient Rome. One is a banker and one a peasant. One is a jurist and one a writer. The subject is the career of Julius Caesar. Each of them tells it from where he stands. What they say shows how power ran on money. How a dictatorship was put in place is argued out. The story comes from an unfinished novel by Bertolt Brecht about Caesar’s business affairs. Shooting was done in the summer of 1972, in Rome, Frascati and on Elba. Gottfried Bold and Johann Unterpertinger appear in the eighty eight minute film, the work of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, a German and Italian production finished in 1972.