An Unresolvable Dramaturgy

Abstract

This paper proposes that a rich and nuanced understanding of the kinds of ruptures art might be capable of can be achieved through an analysis of Dennis Del Favero's video work Todtnauberg. This work is concerned with the meeting between the Jewish poet and Holocaust survivor Paul Celan and the German philosopher Martin Heidegger in the Todtnauberg Forest in 1967. Del Favero takes this actual historical event and carefully imagines what might have transpired between the two figures. Through beautifully rendered scenes we see and hear Celan's longing and his repeated appeals to Heidegger to explain (or apologise for) his allegiance with the Nazi regime. As Todtnauberg unfolds its dramaturgy of rupture positions us to reflect upon the concepts of responsiveness and judgment as they pertain to Celan and Heidegger but also to reflect, more broadly, on the significance of the act of responding to the call of the other. This, I argue, is the work's gift to us.