MONTAGE FILM AS CULTURAL CRITICISM By

ii The films and theoretical writings of Alexander Kluge have been receiving greater attention from the North American German Studies community in the 1980's. This thesis is designed to give the reader a general introduction to the intellectual context of his writing and film-making, as well as provide an analysis of the relationship between the structure and content of one of his more recent films, "Der Ang riff der Gegenwart auf die Obrige Zeit", and his theories about the structure and content of the individual and collective societal consciousness. The first part of the thesis deals with Kluge's association with the lnstitut tor Sozialforschung, more commonly known as the Frankfurt School, and their particular brand of marxist social and cultural theory. The work of the Frankfurt School's most noted scholar, Theodor W. Adorno, is used as a reference work with which Alexander Kluge's early theoretical writings ar