Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti Brings Together Brecht, Cavalcanti, and Chaplin

Scene from “Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti,” a film adaptation of Brecht’s play directed by Alberto Cavalcanti

The encounter between Brazilian filmmaker Alberto Cavalcanti (1897–1982) and German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) resulted in one of the most important attempts to translate dialectical theater into cinema: the film Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti (Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti, 1960), based on the play of the same name. Filmed in Austria between 1955 and 1956, with a script personally revised by Brecht, the feature serves as both an aesthetic and political example, with class struggle at its core and the techniques of epic theater as its foundation.

All indications are that Brecht was heavily involved in the production, having selected the cast and also chosen Cavalcanti to direct. In 1955, he spent several days with Cavalcanti in East Berlin, revising the dialogues and guiding the dramaturgical structure. Unfortunately, he passed away shortly after filming concluded.

According to Gutemberg Medeiros, “by adapting the play for cinema, Cavalcanti performed a double gesture: on one hand, he remained faithful to the distancing techniques and class critique that characterize Brecht’s work; on the other, he embedded these tools into a cinematic language of his own, using editing, mise-en-scène, and narrative rhythm in ways that make the film a remarkable experiment—so much so that some critics have described it as ‘more Brechtian than Brecht.’”

Interestingly, the film’s critical reception also suggests that the Brechtian distancing effect was successful. In an article published in Folha de S.Paulo in 1998, critic Inácio Araújo noted that viewers found themselves unable to “believe in what’s happening” in Cavalcanti’s film, as the dialogues, sets, and performances lay bare the artificial nature of the staging. However, this “break in belief” is precisely the central goal of Brecht’s epic theater: to prevent passive identification and prompt the viewer to analyze the reality represented critically. By finding the work strange for not adhering to classical cinema codes, Araújo inadvertently confirms that Cavalcanti succeeded in translating the mechanisms of epic theatrical distancing into film. The discomfort caused by this theatricality, far from being a flaw, may be seen as proof that the Brechtian device remains active on screen.

The Fable of Bourgeois Oscillation

Written in 1940 and staged in 1949 by the Berliner Ensemble—Brecht’s theater company in East Germany—the play Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti centers on the figure of Puntila, a Finnish landowner who alternates between two opposing behaviors: when drunk, he is affable and humanistic; when sober, he reverts to being a ruthless boss. In short, he regains his class consciousness. His servant, Matti, witnesses and ironically comments on this recurring transformation.

German actor Curt Bois, who plays Puntila in the film, also starred in the Berliner Ensemble’s stage production in East Berlin. His performance carries the symbolic weight of continuity between stage and screen, between the socialist theater of East Germany and postwar European cinematic experimentation. Bois was already fluent in Brechtian acting, centered on alienation, critical gesture (gestus), and emotional distancing.

Puntila’s duality is not merely a personal quirk, but a metaphor for the ruling class itself—generous when convenient but always reverting to control. This is the dialectic Brecht explores: the boss’s benevolence, like bourgeois charity, is episodic, fickle, and ineffective in the face of the structural exploitation that upholds his status.

Matti, in contrast, embodies the lucid perspective of the worker who does not fall for illusions. Unlike proletarian characters who dream of upward mobility or recognition, Matti understands the limits of the relationship and, in the end, chooses to walk away. His departure is more political than emotional—it is a refusal to participate in the farce of reconciliation.

Chaplin and Brecht: A Critical Dialogue

It is impossible not to see, in the play’s premise, a direct extension of what Charlie Chaplin had already suggested in City Lights (1931). In the classic film, the Tramp becomes friends with a Millionaire who treats him kindly while drunk, but when sober, puts him back in his place. This tragicomic relationship between poor and rich, mediated by alcohol, already announces the central theme of Puntila: the structural impossibility of class reconciliation. Brecht takes this idea further, making it the core of his play’s plot. (I wrote about City Lights in [this link].)

A Film Between Fidelity and Rupture

For a long time, the reception of Cavalcanti’s film was ambivalent. Some critics accused it of softening Brecht’s politics by adopting a tone more aligned with European comedy. However, this reading has been revisited by more recent studies. Furthermore, Cavalcanti’s effort to apply Brechtian principles to cinema demonstrates a genuine attempt to preserve critical distancing in the new medium.

The editing, the use of songs by German composer Hanns Eisler (1898–1962), and the visual composition of the scenes all contribute to the desired effect. Eisler, a Marxist composer and longtime Brecht collaborator since the 1920s, created a deliberately dissonant and anti-sentimental score that acts as an ironic counterpoint to the action, reinforcing the epic nature of the project.

Class Struggle on Display

The relationship between Puntila and Matti is an allegory of class struggle. It is not a personal bond but a dramatized social structure. Puntila represents the ruling class, which, when convenient, becomes “human,” but whose “natural state” is domination. Matti, the proletarian, neither idealizes nor seeks approval from his boss. He simply understands the system.

This clarity of vision sets epic theater apart from bourgeois melodrama. Brecht does not want the audience to root for the boss to become good, but to understand why he is structurally incapable of being so. Matti does not seek an individual solution—he points to the need for collective transformation.

Mr. Puntila and His Man Matti is a rare film in cinema history: the product of a collaboration between two artists committed to the critical function of art, it represents a moment when epic theater found in cinema not merely a vehicle for adaptation, but a space for experimentation.

By radicalizing Chaplin’s fable, exposing the gears of domination, and maintaining a critical lens on class relations, Cavalcanti’s film honors Brecht and his artistic legacy in the postwar period.

Source:

MEDEIROS, Gutemberg. From Theater to Cinema: Alberto Cavalcanti and Bertolt Brecht in Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti. Revista USP, São Paulo, no. 106, pp. 107–116, Sep. 2015. Available at: https://www.revistas.usp.br/revusp/article/view/109122. Accessed: Jun 19, 2025.

The film is available on YouTube.