[rohrpost] So. 15.5. 18 Uhr: La Commune (Peter Watkins)
pirate cinema berlin
sebastian at rolux.org
Don Mai 12 18:00:47 CEST 2005
"Historiker, die die Geschichte vom Standpunkt göttlicher Allwissenheit aus
betrachten, können leicht beweisen, dass die Kommune objektiv zum Scheitern
verurteilt war und nicht erfolgreich verwirklicht werden konnte. Sie vergessen,
dass für die, die sie erlebt haben, die Verwirklichung bereits erreicht war."
(Guy Debord, Attila Kotányi, Raoul Vaneigem, "Thesen zur Pariser Kommune", März
1962, http://piratecinema.org/textz/guy_debord_theses_on_the_paris_commune.html)
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La Commune (de Paris, 1871)
ein Film von Peter Watkins
Frankreich, 1999, 5 Stunden 45 Minuten
französisch mit englischen Untertiteln
Sonntag, 15. Mai 2005, 18:00 Uhr
(der Film beginnt um 18:15 Uhr)
Pirate Cinema Berlin, Ziegelstrasse 20
S Oranienburger Strasse, U Oranienburger Tor
freier Eintritt
billige Getränke
DVD (oder 4 CDs) mitbringen
wegen Überlänge Sessel und Sofas
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Falls Ihnen bereits der folgende Text von Peter Watkins - der zwar begrifflich
nicht so streng wie die situationistische Theorie des Spektakels und rhetorisch
nicht so pointiert wie Godards Kritik des Fernsehens sein mag, letztlich aber in
deren Nachbarschaft angesiedelt ist - zu lang erscheint, dann wird Ihnen sein
Film wohl erst recht zu lang sein. Ansonsten freuen wir uns auf Ihren Besuch.
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The Paris Commune of 1871 - a brief historical background
March 1871: Adolphe Thiers, chief executive of the provisional national
government, is alarmed by the revolutionary activities of the Paris National
Guard, an armed militia of some 260 battalions organized by the previous
government to help defend Paris against the Prussians in the last days of the
disastrous Franco-Prussian War. The social situation in Paris is appalling, with
massive unemployment and people still suffering the after-effects of the
Prussian siege of Paris. Increasing socialism and militancy have been
accompanied by the formation of many 'red clubs', which were supported by many
of the National Guard battalions, especially those recruited from the working
class arrondissements (districts) in the capital.
On March 18, Thiers makes a foolhardy (some say deliberately provocative)
attempt to seize the cannon of the National Guard, and is foiled by the women of
Montmartre. The women appeal to the government soldiers, many of whom refuse to
fire on the people of Paris and reverse their muskets in a gesture of
solidarity. Within a few hours Paris is in a state of insurrection, and the
Mairies (town halls) of most arrondisements within the capital are in the hands
of the rebellious National Guard. During these feverish hours, an angry mob has
seized two government Generals, one of whom was involved in trying to capture
the cannon, briefly held them prisoner, then summarily executed them against the
wall of a garden in Montmartre. The firing squad included members of the
National Guard as well as disgruntled government troops.
Thiers and his government hurriedly decamp to Versailles to join the National
Assembly (with a majority of Monarchists from the recent elections). Henceforth
the government forces are known as the 'Versaillais', and the National Guard and
the Communards in general as the 'Fédérés' (in line with their vision of a
loose-knit federation of Communes throughout France). A Central Committee of the
National Guard occupies the abandoned Hôtel de Ville (the principal town hall
governing Paris) and announces preparations for new municipal elections. On
March 26, the left-wing gain enough votes to establish a socialist-oriented
'Commune' - which will last until May 28. On March 28, the Commune installs
itself at the Hôtel de Ville, and for the next two months does its best to run
the administration of Paris and to implement a programme of social reform, while
fending off a growing siege from the Versaillais, who advance closer and closer
in a singularly brutal war fought on the western edges of the capital.
The Communards try to introduce a series of radical social measures, e.g., to
separate the Church from the State and establish a lay education system, give
pensions to unmarried women, abolish night-work for bakers, introduce
professional education for women, etc. But the lack of time and sheer
disproportion in numbers (by May Thiers has rebuilt a standing army of 300,000)
forces the issue, and the Versaillais army enters Paris on May 21 through an
unguarded gate in the outer walls. Thus begins la semaine sanglante - 'the
bloody week'. In an orgy of reprisals, the French army, under the direction of
its most senior generals, kills between 20-30,000 men, women and children in a
series of bloody struggles for barricades right across Paris, before finally
eliminating the last blocks of Communard resistance in the working class 11th,
19th and 20th districts.
Why this film, at this time?
We are now moving through a very bleak period in human history - where the
conjunction of Post Modernist cynicism (eliminating humanistic and critical
thinking in the education system), sheer greed engendered by the consumer
society sweeping many people under its wing, human, economic and environmental
catastrophe in the form of globalization, massively increased suffering and
exploitation of the people of the so-called Third World, as well as the
mind-numbing conformity and standardization caused by the systematic
audiovisualization of the planet have synergistically created a world where
ethics, morality, human collectivity, and commitment (except to opportunism) are
considered "old fashioned." Where excess and economic exploitation have become
the norm - to be taught even to children. In such a world as this, what happened
in Paris in the spring of 1871 represented (and still represents) the idea of
commitment to a struggle for a better world, and of the need for some form of
collective social Utopia - which WE now need as desperately as dying people need
plasma. The notion of a film showing this commitment was thus born.
Production background
In February 1998 I met with Paul Saadoun of 13 Production, a documentary film
company based in Marseilles, and we agreed to produce a film on the Paris
Commune. During sixteen months of intensive research and pre-production, with
the exception of La Sept ARTE in France, all of the major global TV associations
which were approached, refused to participate in funding for the film. "I do not
like Peter Watkins' films," said the Commissioning Editor for the BBC in London.
Early in 1999, one of the major art centres in Paris - the Musée d'Orsay -
learned of our film, decided to organize an exhibition on the Paris Commune
(consisting of contemporary photographs, and the works of Corbet, a member of
the Commune), and allocated 300,000 francs to our film budget. It is interesting
in this context to note that cultural institutions, museums, and art galleries
are beginning to fill the vacuum left by the increasingly conservative MAVM
{mass audiovisual media}, which has all but ceased to produce serious works for
the mass market!
The filming of 'La Commune' took place in July 1999, in an abandoned factory in
Montreuil, on the eastern edge of Paris. The factory stands on the site of the
former film studios of French film pioneer Georges Méliès (1861-1938). Méliès,
who died in poverty, discovered and exploited many of the basic camera tricks
used in the cinema: stop motion, slow motion, dissolve, fade-out,
superimposition, and double exposure. From 1899 to 1912 he produced more than
400 films, the best of which combine illusion, comic burlesque, and pantomime -
treating themes of fantasy in a playful and absurd fashion. Méliès' films
include 'Cleopatra' and 'Christ Walking on the Waters' (1899), 'A Trip to the
Moon' (1902), and 'Voyage Across the Impossible' (1904). Given the nature of our
own film, it is interesting to note that Georges Méliès also filmed studio
reconstructions of news events - an early type of newsreel. The factory which
was built on the site of the Méliès studios recently became a performance venue
for the theatre group 'La Parole errante', which, under the administration of
Jean-Jacques Hocquard, is based around the work of dramatist, poet and director
Armand Gatti.
Working with Agathe Bluysen, one of our main researchers, and our casting crew -
principally my elder son Patrick, and Virginie Guibbaud - I enlisted over 220
people from Paris and the provinces to take part in the film; approximately 60%
of them had no prior acting experience. Among the cast were a number of people
from Picardy and other regions of France, with specific dialects and accents
(since many migrants from the provinces took an active role in the Commune).
Through the conservative press in Versailles, and newspapers like Le Figaro, we
also recruited people from the Paris area to join the project specifically
because of their conservative politics (to act in roles opposed to the Commune).
The set in the disused factory was designed and constructed by Patrice Le Turcq
as a series of interconnecting rooms and spaces, designed to represent the
working class 11th district of Paris, a centre of revolutionary activity during
the Commune. The set was carefully designed to 'hover' between reality and
theatricality, with careful and loving detail applied for example to the texture
of the walls, but with the edges of the set always visible, and with the
'exteriors' - the Rue Popincourt and the central Place Voltaire - clearly seen
for what they are - artificial elements within an interior space.
Cinematographer Odd Geir Saether filmed 'Edvard Munch' in 1973. To implement my
plan in 'La Commune' for long, highly mobile uninterrupted takes, Saether and
chief lighting technician Clarisse Gatti covered the ceiling of the factory with
regularly spaced special neon lights, to give an even luminescence to the whole
area, and to prevent the use of traditional lights on the floor obstructing the
path of the hand-held camera. Jean-François Priester developed an equally
ingenious method for the highly mobile and flexible recording of the sound,
using two boom operators with radio-microphones and portable mixing system,
which moved around the labyrinthine set.
Filming 'La Commune' - before, during, and after
Elsewhere in this website {http://www.mnsi.net/~pwatkins/} I have written about
the need for the contemporary MAVM to work with alternative forms and processes,
to search for less hierarchical ways of communicating with the public. I would
like to briefly describe how we tried to achieve this in 'La Commune', with the
hope that the ideas will help to animate other alternative uses of film and TV,
in an attempt to challenge the Monoform structure and its accompanying problems.
Broadly speaking, our 'process' manifests in the extended way in which we
involved the cast in the preparation for, and then during the filming, and in
the way that some of the people continued the process after the filming was
completed. Our 'form' is visible in the long sequences and in the extended
length of the film which emerged during the editing. What is significant, and I
believe very important in 'La Commune', is that the boundaries between 'form'
and 'process' blur together, i.e., the form enables the process to take place -
but without the process the form in itself is meaningless.
Before the filming we asked the cast to do their own research on this event in
French history. The Paris Commune has always been severely marginalized by the
French education system, despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that it is a
key event in the history of the European working class, and when we first met,
most of the cast admitted that they knew little or nothing about the subject. It
was very important that the people become directly involved in our research on
the Paris Commune, thereby gaining an experiential process in analyzing those
aspects of the current French system which are failing in their responsibility
to provide citizens with a truly democratic and participatory process. The
French education system is definitely one aspect which is not functioning in
this regard; its marginalization of the Paris Commune is only one part of a
bigger problem - which includes an almost complete absence of critical media
education.
The cast research on the Paris Commune in the months prior to the filming
supplemented over a year of intensive investigation by our own research team
(led by Agathe Bluysen and Marie-José Godin, with Laurent Colantonio, Stéphanie
Lataste and Laure Cochener, and working with such eminent historians as Alain
Dalotel, Michel Cordillot, Marcel Cerf, Robert Tombs and Jacques Rougerie). Our
work necessitated a very broad and at the same time detailed sweep through
dozens of different aspects of the Paris Commune and of this historical period
in France - ranging from the personalities of the Commune and the Versaillais
government, debates in the Hôtel de Ville and in the National Assembly, the role
of women and of the Catholic Church and its education system, the problems of
sewerage, drinking water and lighting in Paris, military uniforms of the period,
music and songs of the period, etc. etc.
At a later stage, the research work involved the actors forming groups (e.g.,
those playing the Union des femmes; the bourgeoisie opposed to the Commune; the
soldiers of the National Guard; the officers and men of the Versaillais forces;
the elected members of the Commune, etc.) to discuss the background of the
people they were portraying, as well as to reflect on the links between the
events of the Commune and society today. In this way, we were asking the cast to
contribute directly to the manner of telling their own history - as opposed to
the usual hierarchical and simplistic process of TV and filmmaking. This is a
central part of the process of our film.
During the filming the cast were also engaged in a collective experience,
constantly discussing - between themselves, and with myself and members of the
team led by Agathe Bluysen - what they would say, how they might feel, and how
they would react to the events of the Commune which were about to be filmed.
Simultaneously, Marie-José Godin was preparing the young and older women who
played the girls in the Catholic school in the rue Oberkampf and their
supervising Sisters, and the two Catholic priests. The results of all of these
discussions were then placed - or emerged spontaneously - within the scenes
which were filmed in long, uninterrupted sequences, following the chronological
order of the events of the Commune. Most of the cast really liked this method of
filming, for they found that it offered much more continuity of experience than
the usual fragmented practice of filming short, disconnected scenes. Many of the
people felt this whole process to be exciting and stimulating, quite unlike the
preplanned and prescripted manner of making most films. This process also
enabled the cast to improvise, change their minds, relate to each other in
actual discussions during the filming, etc. Many found this filming method to be
dynamic and experiential, for it forced them to abandon pose and artifice, and
led to an immediate self-questioning on contemporary society - which they had to
confront on the spot.
There are also a number of scenes in the film in which the FORM was entirely
different again: when the camera is static (except for a few gentle moves left
or right), i.e., when it covers extensive discussions among various groupings of
Communards - during which time the cast speak with each other (with no
intervention by myself or the TV Communale) - recorded non-stop, sometimes for
up to 30 minutes (the only pause being to change the magazine in the camera).
These scenes occur for example when the women of the U.D.F. speak in the cafe,
first about organizing as if in 1871, and then about conditions for women today,
and when the National Guard heatedly discuss the pros and cons of centralizing
decision-making during a revolution.
In both the 'static' discussion scenes and in the mobile sequences, people are
rarely, if ever, framed in close-up as individuals - usually there are at least
two or three people in the frame at the same time. This, and the manner in which
people speak with each other, allows for a group dynamic which is very rare in
the media today.
After the filming of 'La Commune' (as a result of their intensely collective
experience), a number of the cast continued to meet regularly over the following
months, to socialize and to exchange ideas. Cast actor, painter and pedagogue
Jean Marc Gauthier developed the idea of forming a non-hierarchical association
called Le Rebond pour la Commune, to continue the work begun with the film - to
expand on its ideas and its critical debate vis-à-vis society.
In March of this year, Le Rebond organized a weekend of public talks in
Montreuil, with ca. 300 people attending presentations and discussions on the
role of women, the media, work, power, and other key themes. Woven through the
events of the weekend were debates on the Paris Commune - a direct link from the
present to the past. Le Rebond is undoubtedly the most important ongoing
development in the process of any film I have made, and shows that it is
entirely possible to create processes within the audiovisual media which can
move beyond the limitations of the rectangular frame.
Centralizing? Collective? - or both?
It has to be said, however, that working in this way - as well as being very
exhilarating - is also very difficult. The more conscious I was of the
liberating forces I was unleashing, the more conscious I was of the hierarchical
practices - and personal control - I was maintaining. I say 'more conscious' -
but this is not entirely true. It cannot be, because the training one undergoes
to be a filmmaker, and the exposure to the consistent methods of the MAVM
imprint so many hierarchical practices that it is difficult to consciously
identify and surmount them all. It is even more complicated when a lack of funds
forces one to produce a film in only thirteen days of actual filming (a
'standard' feature production takes anywhere from three to six months to film).
This inevitably causes the sort of pressure and panic which can knock asunder
the best of intentions. At the same time, I also deliberately wanted to retain
certain hierarchical practices (including being a director with over-all
control) in order to see whether a 'mix' of these, and more liberating processes
could result in something satisfying both forms of creativity - a lone and
ego-bound form, and an open and pluralistic form.
Certainly many of the cast recognized and felt some of the tensions between
these opposing ideals and practices. Most accepted the situation, but several
people found it very difficult. Specifically, a few of the cast felt the filming
of the long sequences to be inhibiting, even aggressive. Most of these sequences
followed the TV Communale team (Gérard Watkins and Aurèlia Petit) as they moved
with their microphones in time with the events of the Commune. Some of the cast
found the presence of the TVC microphones - sometimes thrust in their faces and
then withdrawn before they had enough time to formulate many sentences - a
limiting and frustrating experience. For them, this method of filming took away
from - rather than expanded - the possibilities for an open expression of the
ideas which had been developed during their group discussions. I understand this
criticism - it is directly related to the problems outlined elsewhere in this
website, i.e., to the practices of the Monoform.
Certainly there were aspects to the filming of the long sequences which
resembled the hit-and-rush tactics of contemporary TV. And I admit that due to
the pressures of the filming I paid less attention to the negative sides of this
process than I should have done. But even this is complicated! Looking back to
the filming of 'La Commune', I find it difficult to say how much my lack of
attention to the fragmenting aspects of the long sequences was due to the
pressure I was under, how much was due to habitual professional practice, and
how much to the fact that I deliberately permitted certain potential problems to
evolve because I wanted to explore the collective process to the full - even if
this meant overriding individual needs for space on certain occasions. This may
sound contradictory, and I would like to explain this idea a little further,
because despite its attendant problems, I believe that the process of the long
sequences in 'La Commune' opened up significant possibilities for future
audio-visual communication.
It is true that a camera arriving and departing quickly can be seen and
experienced as limiting, especially from the point of view of an individual
positioned along the route. It is quite different, however, from the point of
view of an audience or the group of actors as a whole, because we can see how
the individual statements and utterances within a long sequence can form a
collective whole. I believe this notion of collective expression to be extremely
important, while at the same time I realize the dangers of fragmentation
accompanying it.
For me - the tension, and I must admit, the pleasure in filming 'La Commune' in
this way, was in pushing and testing the possibilities of the cast - and myself
- to rise to the rare opportunity given in those few days to create a series of
spontaneous, and yet collective statements - ones coming from the depths of
personal experience, and helped by the collective process of preparation for the
filming.
I realize that a large cast, and the necessity for many people (who in more
traditional films would be relegated to the background as silent 'extras') to
speak, did frequently limit the length of time in which they could express
themselves as individuals. But I believe that this was balanced by scenes where
space was given to individual expression, and by the sheer length of the final
film. Since an overall objective of 'La Commune' was to present a collective
voice, I believe that the filming achieved this in a way which is highly unusual
in the MAVM today.
Another reason for such emphasis on long sequences, including during the
editing, was because the fragmentation caused by the camera arriving and
departing was not the only ensuing process - a study of these sequences shows
that Gérard and Aurèlia often approach a group, ask a question, and then retreat
while a discussion develops between the members of the group, who speak over and
across the TV interviewers; the technology is thus used only to facilitate
people communicating with each other. I find these moments very exciting - they
were often very spontaneous, and exemplify how 'La Commune', while ostensibly
implementing a Monoform technique, departs radically from it.
And yet, there are aspects of 'La Commune' - its conception, its filming
methods, the form it acquired during the editing - which have certain
centralizing features to them. The fact that I am trying to develop alternative
TV forms and processes does not alter the reality that in a number of ways I
remain anchored in traditionally hierarchical practices. One could say that this
is inevitable - that the creative process requires a single guiding force. At
the same time, one must keep in mind the drastic extent to which this has
happened in the mass audiovisual media, and the excessively hierarchical
producer-audience relationship which has developed as a result. I believe that
'La Commune' gives examples of both egocentric, and open, pluralistic forms. It
is the role of 'La Commune' to pose these issues for open discussion on a
community, workplace and classroom level - for they touch directly upon the
urgently needed debate regarding the media and the globalization process which
is the major theme of this website. If a reflexive debate involving the
practices carried out in our film aids this process - so much the better!
'The Universal Clock', and the length of 'La Commune'
'La Commune' was originally planned as a two hour production. But the method of
filming long sequences expanded the internal construction of the film to the
point where it became impossible to reduce it beyond a certain stage during the
editing, without destroying the very process which had developed in the filming.
In the end, 'La Commune' emerged as a film of five hours 45 minutes. For me,
this was a very difficult decision on certain levels; reaction to my other later
films ('The Journey' and 'The Freethinker') has shown that herein lies the road
to complete marginalization - partly by film critics, and totally by today's
MAVM. I was very conscious of this as I began to make decisions regarding the
length of 'La Commune'.
I have written about the problems of FORM and PROCESS, and the ways in which 'La
Commune' has tried to address these issues. Now we come to the question of
LENGTH in the MAVM - the way that time is used (or abused). The existing
tendency - ruthlessly enforced by TV executives, especially Commissioning
Editors - is to increasingly reduce and fragment the format and space available
to filmmakers and the audience. At the present time, filmmakers producing TV
dramas or documentaries are usually permitted a maximum of 52 minutes - in order
to allow commercials to fill up the remainder of the hour. There are indications
that this may be dropping to 47 minutes, and in some countries, e.g. Canada, a
maximum of 22 minutes is increasingly being applied to documentaries. I have
heard executives within the MAVM state that these time-spans are the result of
what they refer to as 'the universal clock'. This being the case, we can now see
how the MAVM use the Monoform as a metronome governing the rhythm and internal
structure of their global audiovisual 'clock'.
But the rationale for these internal lengths and structures is entirely
commercial, superficial and arbitrary: it has nothing to do with the material or
the people who appear in the films; nothing to do with the multiple complexity
of the audiovisual language; and nothing to do with the viewing public, who have
never been informed or involved in a debate regarding these practices. Regarding
the 'universal clock', one TV executive has said: "I work in the grammar of the
people".
We need to ask, 'Whose grammar?' Who taught this grammar? And who are 'the
people'?
It is amazing to hear these TV executives confidently stating their 'universal
truths' about the structure of TV, subsequently standardizing everything which
now appears on global TV, and suppressing all alternative work. And thereby
revealing their contempt of the audience...
It is amazing to hear TV executives stating, with complete confidence, their
'universal truths' about the structure of TV - standardizing everything which
now appears on global TV, and suppressing all alternative work. And thereby
revealing their contempt of the audience...
"Some people can make the universal clock sing at 47 minutes ... others can't.
It's perfectly possible to do the 100 Years War in 5, 10, 20 or 47 minutes ...
the depth of information value is not about duration, it's about the anticipated
expectation of the audience."
"Some filmmakers say this is my work and I want it to stay that way. That is
their right and we respect that right. Those are the films we don't buy and
those are the films we don't transmit."
What is so disgusting - on top of everything else - is the use by TV executives
of the word 'respect'! These people have absolutely zero respect - for
filmmakers or for the public. 'Respect' for work they marginalize, and for the
public on whose behalf they make their decisions, is contempt and ridicule of
the highest order.
This is absolute fascism at work, and anyone who still doubts the direct links
between the contemporary MAVM and globalization in all its worst aspects, should
carefully reflect on what is happening.
The MAVM dogma on length and form is not only GLOBALIST because of its
application, but also because it directly contributes to loss of history, to the
increase of hierarchical forces sweeping through society, and to a growing
passive acceptance of the global economy. Without time or space to reflect,
formulate questions, integrate memory and feelings into the daily experience of
receiving the mass media we are lost, and history becomes dead. Time and
sustained process are crucial for counteracting the frenetically fragmented and
abbreviated language form of the MAVM.
I hope that this website has elucidated the fact that desperate though the need
for length from a creative point of view, it is far more urgent on social,
human, political and environmental grounds. Which does not mean that all TV
films must be long! It means that filmmakers should be able to make their own
evaluations re the appropriate length and internal structure of a creative work
- whether it be 5 minutes, or 5 hours. It also means that if the hierarchy
running TV simply ignore filmmakers' decisions because they will marginalize
these films anyway, that the public demand the right to openly debate such
fascist limitations vis-a-vis the audiovisual process with all of its consequent
implications.
Introducing La Sept ARTE and the marginalization of 'La Commune' in France
For those who are not familiar with La Sept ARTE, I should first explain that it
is a Franco-German TV consortium, composed of elements of the old Channel 7
(Sept) in France, and the 13 principal regional stations of the ARD network in
Germany. ARTE has production offices in Paris, and a huge headquarters
bureaucracy in Strasbourg. Almost singularly in today's world of TV, La Sept
ARTE has a reputation for funding more serious documentary films, and often
presents "theme evenings" devoted to a particular subject. Consequently, it has
become the principal - perhaps the only - source of funds for documentary films
in Europe. In the course of its development, ARTE has acquired immense power,
and has become a highly centralized arbiter of programme standards and formats.
Although ARTE sometimes funds and broadcasts films which would receive little
support elsewhere, the environment accompanying such gains is in itself
extremely conventional. Most of ARTE's programmes, including documentaries, use
the Monoform, and in this respect alone one can say that ARTE's output is
generally rigid and standardized.
The marginalization begins
The signals were not obvious to me at the outset. Several executives who later
reacted very negatively to 'La Commune' appeared to support the film very
strongly in the beginning. Especially painful for me, on a human as well as a
professional level, was the savage contrast between ARTE's initial praise for
the originality of the project, and their actions after the film was completed.
Having made lavish public statements endorsing the film, and totally supporting
'La Commune' to the editing stage, La Sept ARTE abruptly changed tack past that
point. Immediately after seeing the edited film, the Commissioning Editor
praised it highly and said that he had no intention of showing a shorter cinema
version, that he would only broadcast the original long version which he had
just watched - to as broad a viewing public as possible. An hour or so later,
however, ARTE began trying to interfere, and it became clear that the positive
comments were simply rhetoric masking a fear of what the film had achieved.
Sneering comments were made about some of the cast, and the film was castigated
as being "incomplete". It soon became obvious that it was not the length of the
film per se, but its special form, which ARTE found problematic. During the next
weeks, I followed directives from the Commissioning Editor to remove certain
scenes, but when it became clear that this was not enough, that I was expected
to eliminate more and more - to the point where the essential process of the
film would have been compromised - the producer Paul Saadoun, and I informed
ARTE that the editing was completed.
ARTE responded by announcing that they would now only show the shorter cinema
version of the film - because the long version was still "incomplete". We agreed
to this proposal, but only if they informed the public of their reasons for not
showing the original version, as we had requested. Then ARTE changed their mind
again, decided to screen the original version after all - and proceeded to ban
it to the outer edges of their programme schedule, announcing that it would be
shown from 22:00 to 04:00 on May 26. This obviously meant that approximately
two-thirds of the film would be screened while the public was asleep. We asked
ARTE to either show the film earlier, or in two parts over consecutive evenings.
They refused. The Director of Programming in Strasbourg, who apparently did not
even wish to see it, dismissed 'La Commune' with the statement that "this film
is not for prime-time!". In so doing, ARTE deliberately prevented 'La Commune'
from reaching more than ca. fifty people throughout France ("mostly
night-watchmen", as one paper commented), and in one stroke not only
marginalized the film as effectively as if outlawing it, but also perpetuated
the long-standing marginalization of the historical 1871 Paris Commune by the
French media and education system.
It was clear that ARTE's nocturnal programming of 'La Commune' was a) an act of
revenge because I had refused to submit to bullying during the editing; b) an
example to other filmmakers who might attempt to break free of the system; c)
the result of commercial and reactionary forces within La Sept ARTE not liking
the film. ARTE's behaviour was thus extremely dishonest, for they pretended that
the reason for not showing 'La Commune' amounted to the film being "incomplete",
needing "a tighter structure" - an artistic failure. As the Commissioning Editor
patronisingly told me, "there are certain rules of editing", which one must
follow "to help" the audience. And dismissed me with - "You do understand, don't
you, that you have failed in what you set out to achieve?".
What can we learn from this episode?
Following the history of my films as outlined in this website, you will have
seen how TV repeatedly described my work as being 'sub-standard' in order to
cast it aside. Using a rationale very similar to that ascribed by the BBC when
it banned 'The War Game' (publicly calling it a failed TV experiment), the
vice-president of La Sept ARTE wrote to tell me that they could not show 'La
Commune' at a better time (e.g., when the audience was awake) due to "its nature
and its length". I asked to know what aspect of "its nature" justified showing
the film while the audience was asleep? And never received an answer.
The lessons to be learned from this? First of all, - if you are a filmmaker - to
never trust TV organizations which claim to be 'progressive', or which offer
possibilities for producing or screening alternative films. For their inflated
reputation rests largely upon the fact that they occasionally show something
'different' - while what is 'different' invariably lies within controlled and
acceptable 'standards' which challenge neither the language form nor the
dominant European mercantile order. ARTE's banning of 'La Commune' demonstrates
very precisely the limits of their acceptance, and of their position within the
global TV power structure. As soon as ARTE felt that 'La Commune' challenged
this power structure, they began to marginalize this major European TV
production, which only 24 hours earlier they had publicly praised. And having
made this decision, ARTE did everything possible to prevent the film from being
seen by the French public - including cancelling a contractual agreement to
distribute video cassettes of the film. There lies power for you.
In retrospect, the signals appeared in large letters on the wall, and I should
have taken heed. While I was still preparing for the film, I had lunch with
several senior ARTE people, including the Commissioning Editor in charge of
co-producing 'La Commune'. Everyone seemed very nervous. The Commissioning
Editor left at the end of the meal, and almost immediately one of his colleagues
turned to me and said, "You do realize, don't you, that we get highly involved
in the editing process here? That we will expect to go through your film at
least 8-10 times?" Since I had assumed up to that moment that I was considered a
reasonably experienced and responsible filmmaker, and since it had always been
inferred that I would show my film once or twice to ARTE in the final editing
stages, and since I had been repeatedly assured that ARTE would never interfere
in my work, I was somewhat dismayed by this declaration. I in turn therefore
said, "I hope you understand that I have no intention of showing my film to you
that many times during the editing. Once or twice, certainly, but more than that
should not be necessary!" The executive suddenly looked very embarrassed, and
abruptly changed tone, saying, "Yes, yes, of course, you're quite right!". This
executive had clearly inadvertently revealed the process of excessive editorial
control and interference for which ARTE is apparently legendary ... as I was to
discover some months later.
The second lesson to be learned - if one recognizes that ARTE's tactic of citing
"artistic failure" as a reason for marginalizing 'La Commune' is common practice
throughout global television - is that we need to identify and strongly denounce
this tactic every time it is practised by the MAVM. La Sept ARTE has every right
to express its opinion of any film it co-produces, and the director is obliged
to listen seriously to that opinion; but ARTE does not have to right to impose
its own vision onto a film, for that is something else altogether. ARTE does not
have the right to use its Commissioning Editors to enforce the code of the
Monoform, nor do those Editors have the right to force their own egos, and their
own visions, onto any film. That is completely outside their professional
mandate, which is - or should be - to help artists fulfill their own vision.
Furthermore, I think that one could assert that TV organizations should be
obliged to honour their commitment to a film, and to broadcast it in good faith
instead of publicly bad-mouthing it, or declaring it an artistic failure before
it has even been screened! While a number of critics in France dislike 'La
Commune', others have written very positively about the film. The few people who
were able to see it have mainly reacted positively, and there have been
favourable reactions from abroad. It is not ARTE's function to side with
negative opinions even before the film has been shown. Prejudice, power and
control are busy at work throughout this sad episode, and if there is a further
lesson to be learned from ARTE's marginalization of 'La Commune', it is that
this repressive mechanism can have a devastating impact on the French
documentary film industry, and on the integrity of the French press.
Silence towards the marginalizing of 'La Commune'
In 1965, when the BBC banned 'The War Game', there was a huge public outcry in
Britain, mainly because the press leapt into action and drew attention to the
scandal. Although a number of British journalists did not like 'The War Game',
and/or thought that the film should not be shown on TV, they did write about the
banning of it. There was no way that the BBC were going to be allowed to
prohibit a major film without raising some very serious questions.
In 2000, La Sept ARTE has deliberately prevented the majority of the French
public from seeing 'La Commune'. Yet with the exception of several lines in
small print in a few newspapers, the French press are silent regarding this form
of censorship - even though a certain proportion wrote about the film after the
screening (as the next section will show). But not about its censorship! In the
weeks prior to the broadcasting, I distributed a press statement and letter
describing what ARTE had done, to 45 journalists representing all of the leading
(including some of the most radical) French newspapers. Only L'Humanité replied.
Otherwise - silence.
It was as if the marginalization by French TV of a major film about one of the
most seminal events in French history never happened. And the consequences are
inevitable; already we have noticed that there is no discussion regarding ARTE's
behaviour during the public debates in France which have accompanied the
showings of 'La Commune'. The public simply don't know about it - because no
French journalist had the courage to set this event into any cultural (or
political) perspective.
A French film journalist recently told me that the well-known radical newspaper
for which he writes requested that he remove a paragraph from his article about
'La Commune', in which - with considerable prescience - he had queried how far
ARTE would go in their support of 'La Commune' (this was before ARTE had banned
it). When I asked this journalist why the censoring, he said that he presumed it
was because his paper - like others in France - maintains a sort of complicity
with La Sept ARTE. In this case ARTE provides the newspaper with air-time for TV
debate programmes. And therefore it did not want to upset ARTE by appearing to
criticize it!
An article which indirectly touches upon the suppression of 'La Commune'
appeared under the heading 'French Political Class Smothers Yet Another
Scandal', in a recent edition of the International Herald Tribune. The IHT
article, which outlines how the scandal surrounding Chirac's accepting illegal
campaign funds has been smothered by the French political class, goes on to say
that "collusion across ideological labels" has become a way of life in French
politics; it then comments more broadly on France's "culture of complicity - the
notion that the establishment (politics, segments of the media, the judiciary,
and the economy) functions through a series of self-protective, tacit
understandings, and without the sharply defined checks and balances of other
advanced democracies."
I would not agree with the implication that other so-called 'democracies' are
any healthier, but I do agree (from my own recent experience in France) that the
IHT article touches upon a very real and dangerous aspect of the current French
climate - one which in this case has made it easier to suppress 'La Commune' in
total silence.
Clearly in France, as in all Western countries, there is much confusion and
unease about the future, about the degree to which the middle-class should
continue to support the consumer society, and about the extent to which
individuals should remain complicitous in an increasingly corrupt system. Or the
degree to which they should oppose the dominant order; and the nature of the
personal / professional price paid by those who speak out. A silent and
acquiescent press does not help people resolve these questions - it makes things
worse, for it solidifies a social climate of fear and withdrawal.
Collusion in the French MAVM
Partly as a result of the aforementioned problems, there is now a very marked
collusion in the mass audiovisual media in France. I have witnessed first-hand
the state of dependency to which TV executives can reduce 'independent' TV
producers and filmmakers. The entire French audiovisual world - especially the
cinema - is trapped in this dilemma: of the last 150 full-length films financed
in France, only 10 were produced without funding from TV. One can well imagine
the power that this gives TV executives - and the way in which they can, and do
abuse this personal power.
It is clear that few, if any, French producers dare to challenge ARTE, for fear
of losing funding for their projects. If 'La Commune' is any example, it is also
clear that ARTE is responsible - along with the other major TV channels in
France - for an unprecedented standardization of format, film language, and
probably theme. In a healthy professional climate, producers and filmmakers
would challenge this problem. This is visibly not happening in France (or
elsewhere).
Undoubtedly there are a number of independent French documentary filmmakers
producing interesting and highly original work. But the aforementioned
journalist told me that the situation is especially depressing for older
filmmakers, who are now fully aware of the price they have to pay - not only in
terms of the integrity of their projects, but also of their own self-respect -
if they wish to get funding for their films.
This collusion, this climate of fear and complicity continues to spread. It is
part of a global pattern. But it would take only 20 or 30 leading filmmakers and
producers in France to stand up to La Sept ARTE and the other TV channels, to
persistently denounce them, and to threaten a boycott against this repressive
apparatus (including the corrupt TV fests where Commissioning Editors hold
hierarchical sway) - and for similar action to be taken by media workers in
other countries - for the entire rotten mechanism to collapse.
Where does this leave us?
Regarding the general situation - I would like to add a few final remarks about
the MAVM. There seems to be no point in discussing the world of mainstream film
production and distribution any further, because this is now hopelessly
compromised, almost entirely in the hands of mega-corporations, multiplexes,
huge costume epics, soap-opera melodramas, violence, digitized space-age
nonsense, European, Scandinavian and Asian clones of the American model, etc.
Alternative, serious works which do manage to squeak through are akin to a
religious miracle, and in the end are usually only seen at festivals and the few
remaining art-house cinemas.
But TV is something else altogether! Although it is hard to imagine or remember,
television was originally conceived with the idea of serving the public in many
ways other than by simply pumping out endless consumerism, and mindless
so-called 'entertainment'. It is specifically THIS medium - the people who
control it - who have blocked the development of filmmakers such as myself, and
many other, younger and older pioneers who have (or had) the capacity to bring
change and reform to television's programming formats, to its ways of relating
to audiences, to its very processes of 'communication'.
My description of what happened to 'La Commune' in France shows the route we
have traveled since the promise of TV in the 1960s - and how far the medium has
collapsed. Imagination, talent, diverse formats, conviction and creative
searching - let alone the voice of the public, or democratic processes - are all
anathema to the world of TV today. The medium has become a thoroughly
mean-spirited profession, ruthlessly resisting all dialogue for change,
completely devoid of respect, and allied without reservation to the development
of globalization in its most centralizing and brutal forms.
Our society, in this new millennium, will desperately need filmmakers, TV
producers, and media-workers in general who are willing to resist, perhaps for
the first time in their lives, the nightmarish hierarchy and centralization of
media power. And to take up the anti-globalization struggle. It should be clear
now that the world is in an intolerably dangerous situation, with a hopelessly
inefficient, totally exploitative, morally corrupt free-market ideology sweeping
aside everything before it - even, apparently, the education system. The mass
audiovisual media are not only supporting, they are driving this catastrophe -
and clearly need to be challenged by many people both within and outside the
profession.
But even more, we need an active and critically conscious public, who will
forcefully debate, and finally resist media corruption. Who will seek
alternative forms of creative, more open and collective processes to replace the
synthetic and divisive experience of the existing audiovisual media. For this to
happen, we also need critical (media) teachers, who will equally resist and
expose what is happening within the education systems which are allying
themselves with the onslaught of consumerism.
Response in France to 'La Commune'
Thus far (this is written in 2000), reactions in France to 'La Commune' have -
needless to say - been very mixed. And since the film has not been shown to a
wide audience, it is impossible to comment broadly on how the public have
responded to this film. It has only been screened at several film festivals in
France which supported the film, and at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, during its
exhibition on the Paris Commune, which ran from March to June 2000. The
audiences have been either relatively small and generally very positive to the
film, with most people staying to the end, or they have been much larger and
with more mixed reactions, in which case usually about one third of the viewers
leave part way through the screening. Some people find the length of the film
quite insupportable, and do not like the style of filming; they react negatively
to the improvisation, to what is perceived as undue repetition in what people
say, to the lack of formal dialogue, traditional narrative structure, etc.
Others find the length and the form - including the possibility to engage in a
long and complex audiovisual experience, the chance to connect with PEOPLE in a
strong and sustained process - an unusual and welcome alternative to the
problems in the MAVM experience which I have analyzed up to this point.
The following are extracts from letters after the ARTE screening, and sent to
ARTE - two from viewers in France and one from Germany :
"I was completely astounded by the documentary of Peter Watkins 'La Commune' ...
it is really what I have been waiting for from the television. The film, which
contained everything, emotion, a sense of struggle, poetry, psychodrama, a
critical look at the world and the media, beauty and audacity, is truly
masterly. Bravo to the genius of the director, and to you, who had the courage
to produce this masterpiece and to show it in its entirety. It was so beautiful
that I still have tears in my eyes." (Nantes)
"I was knocked out by this film on the Paris Commune, and I want to firmly tell
you this. Oh how the "television", when it wants to be, can be exciting!
Congratulations to everyone! It is our History, and if I cried from my heart and
in thanks for our ancestors, I am not ashamed! Bravo, there is nothing else to
say! and thank you again. A pensioner from 1940." (Merignac)
"... As an actress in the theatre, I was fascinated and very impressed! You have
found a genuinely artistic process to bring an important historical event
forward to our time ... I thought that I already knew the history of the
Commune, because on another occasion I had seen 'Les Jours de la Commune' by
Bertolt Brecht in the 'Berliner Ensemble' theatre, but the film gave me a
clearer view! This is because we can follow the thread through the revolutionary
moments of 1789, 1848, 1871, 1918, 1968 and 1989. This last date was for many
also the end of hope. In effect, it was the epoch where dreams and ideologies
ended, a period poor in passion. But despite everything, it is necessary to do
what one can to keep alive! And for this, I thank very much the cineastes, and
all the actors and actresses! They have my respect for their political and
social engagement and for what they said! ... It is necessary that this [film]
reaches all the countries in the world! ... " (Berlin)
Critics in France
The following extracts are from reviews which appeared in French TV journals,
daily newspapers, periodicals and film magazines, after either a screening at
the Musée d'Orsay, or the nocturnal broadcast on ARTE.
In several cases I have added [my own notes or comments]. The translation of the
articles is my own, and I accept full responsibility for any errors or
distortions which might appear (- hopefully not!). There is one unavoidable bias
in these reviews: they nearly all emanate from Paris, since I have very limited
access to reviews from the provincial press.
As noted earlier, though there are a number of publications which write
positively about the film, there is almost no mention of it being censored by
ARTE.
From French TV journals and programme guides:
'... a failed work ... this interminable verbal diarrhea ... far from subverting
television, this happening of five hours forty-five minutes bogs itself down,
with its painful introductory scenes, its long messy filming takes ...'
(Télérama)
'The intention was good. The achievement was less ... The simplistic,
semi-improvised dialogue and the minimalist direction sometimes give the whole
thing the air of a theatre of forbidding patronage ... as far removed from the
popular anger of the 1870s as that existing at the end of this century ... The
ogre in this fable [the role of TV] which some want to make responsible for all
our misfortunes, explains neither the crushing of the Commune nor the miseries
of today.' (TéléObs)
[The high profile of the media in 'La Commune' is due to the active and
interventionist role played by the press on all sides during and after the
events of March-May 1871, including the efficacy with which the French
establishment was able to justify the crushing of the revolution, and to
reassert a conservative regime in France. And the media can hardly be said to
have no responsibility in what is happening today either - including the
escalation of a consumer society and the development of globalization.]
'An amazing reconstruction' (Télé Sept Jours)
'A fictional newsreel' of great intensity, which attempts to prove that history
is constantly repeating itself. An original and militant work ...' (Télé Star)
'A programme that cannot be categorized, from which emerges a vigorous critique
of the media' (Télé Cable Satellite)
From leading French daily newspapers:
'The film is punctuated by long black screens followed by captions, which ...
develop the theories close to the Marxist vulgate. This ideological straitjacket
imposed by the editing and the post-production brings forth the vanity of the
enterprise. To hear them speak, one very quickly has the impression that the
volunteers recruited by Peter Watkins are already converted [to Marxism]' (Le
Monde)
[This review especially angered the cast, who wrote in protest to Le Monde. Not
because they had any particular problem with being considered Marxist, but
because nearly all of them aren't - and this review implies that one has to be a
Marxist in order to have a social (or any critical) view of contemporary
society. For the record, the name of Marx is actually used only once throughout
the entire film.]
'Watkins does not reconstruct la Commune except to speak of our submission to
the 'permanent mercantilism' of the televisual media; of our defused anger. And
after three and a half hours, in a meeting in the local quarter, the actresses
throw away their masks, suddenly evoking the combat of the 'sans-papiers'
[immigrants without resident papers who risk being ejected from France], the
condition of women put to sleep by comfort ... The film becomes a furious ode to
direct democracy: Watkins makes sure that the actors take power in the film, as
did their personages in Paris. They denounce the media as organs of Versailles.
Screen title: "What the media is afraid of is to see the little man in the small
screen replaced by a multitude of people - the public". Alas, Watkins, too late!
The public, the "people", we see only this, today. Everywhere and at all times
... assimilated by our all-digesting gaze. All the same, a Communard actress
finishes before she dies, by crying out directly [to the TV Communale filming
her], "Whether this is film or reality, all you do is watch us, but you don't
give a damn! It's this that I want to kill!" It's 3:30 AM, and we, the last of
the television viewers, are roused by this cry; at this instant, the
Versaillais, they are us.' (Libération)
'With an accelerated sense of realization, history is written directly, under
our eyes ... If we meet historical personalities, we also discover the people of
Paris of 1871: workers, artisans, dressmakers, cleaners, who have just spent an
impossible winter besieged by the Prussians. They are hungry, they want work.
They have a bitter memory of the 1848 barricades. They dream of a lay school
system, of nurseries, of the right to work, they speak of equality and liberty.
There is nothing more difficult than to film utopia, the hope for a better
world. The actors interrogate each other, look into the camera and via this
medium interrogate the spectator: ideas of revolution and power are discussed.
These questions were raised during the Commune as they are today ... It is in
the locale of Armand Gatti ... that the filming took place, and this is more
than simple symbolism. The actors in the film take over the 'wandering speech'
(parole errante) so dear to Gatti and Watkins ...' (L'Humanité)
From French periodicals and monthly papers :
'Since his first films, Peter Watkins has committed himself to a cinema which
one can call - in the manner of an impure cinephile - "interactive". In the
sense that all his works are constructed around a going and returning, links,
shifts between reality and fiction, theatre and cinema, participation and
distance ... Watkins has never stopped playing with the confusion of genres,
mixing the different levels of reality and representation which he manipulates
with a didactic aim, so much that his approach aims at the public conscience.
Cinema of interaction, of return onto itself; interrogating his own practice
even during the course of his films ... With an obsessional target, the modern
media - television above all - of which the work of Watkins does nothing but
castigate its damaging effects, without any pretence at nuance ... In a sparse
and minimalist theatrical decor ... Watkins creates a singular device with an
express intention, symptomatic of his method of filming. Camera on shoulder, he
[photographer Odd Geir Saether] threads his way through the crowd in a series of
long and magnificent plans-séquences, in splendid lightly desaturated black and
white. He simultaneously follows several events (local meetings, reunions of the
National Guard ...), finally to make the spectator understand how each
interacts, one on the other. To increase what he calls "the challenge of
cinematographic simultaneity", Watkins multiplies the movements of the camera.
He films the protagonists of one scene, making us listen to the sounds of the
preceding scene. He brings forth an impression of great disorder, of intense
activity, a liberation of energies and statements which surge forward from all
sides ... This frenzy of statements and utterances is channeled by the
journalists who play a central role in this film ... More than the result on the
screen of these 5 hours 45 minutes of harangues - difficult to follow after an
hour, so much so that the artificiality and excessive theatricality of the
actors becomes irritating and tiresome - the finest demonstration of the
militant élan resides in its extensions, beyond the filming. ... an association,
Rebond, designed to deepen the collective dynamic, the group identity. Regularly
meeting in discussion forums, the actors agree in this way to continue the
struggle; ... Jean-Marc Gauthier explains, "to invent another system of social
relationships in the process of creation". Sign, once again, of an experience
out of the ordinary, a UFO in the audiovisual landscape, a work apart, beautiful
and aggravating, dynamiting the mechanisms of habitual creation ...' (Les
Inrockuptibles)
'REBIRTH OF A POLITICAL CINEMA ...The challenge of 'La Commune' is first of all
to film ideas, to represent thought, showing the mechanism by which ideas
materialize, how ideas become acts. As a consequence [we have] a film on the
idea of the Commune, on this idea which is always living, where we see the Paris
uprising not as a failure but as the beginning of a reflection, the beginning of
a conception of solidarity and commitment. With a number of parallels with our
epoch: racism, the position and role of women, the inequality of wealth,
globalization, censorship, the bankruptcy of the school system ... You should
not go to see this film to meet the well-known figures [of the Commune], such as
Louise Michel, Jules Vallès and the others, this is not the subject. This
project, driven by a care for historical exactitude, is protean, and therefore
far more ambitious. It is the voice of the people (parole populaire), the birth
of this voice, and democracy at the dawn of the 21st century. It is the
difficult working out of a discourse and of a collective approach, because 'La
Commune' is also not a panegyric to the first proletarian revolutionary power:
gropings, mistakes, individual differences and conflicts are not avoided. It is,
further still, the desire not to produce a film which is a one-way-street, but
to push back the traditional borders between the public and the media, even if,
vigilant, the director admits that he is "conscious of not having avoided all
the traps." (Le Monde Diplomatique)
From two prominent French cinema magazines :
'THE LIBERATED AND NAÏVE COMMUNE OF WATKINS ... Even if it is extremely
artificial, revealing without inhibitions the conditions of filming, following
the dictates of the left-wing cinema, the universe which Watkins creates
achieves a troubling reality, because the filmmaker does not organize, instead
he plunges in and manages as best he can. The spectator is left with the
impression that the Commune too, in effect, must have happened like this, in
disorder and continual improvisation ... what is troublesome is not the
artificiality of the proceedings, which is in the logic of what Watkins is
doing, but his extreme naïvety. To confront two channels of TV reduces this
medium to an objective discourse, whereas we well know today that if TV
manipulates the world in which it exists, it is not by its explicit statements,
but by the norms which it implicitly circulates. [You don't say!! What on earth
do you think this entire film is about? - PW] Happily, this dull and flat
analysis of the use of images, astonishing for an experienced documentarist,
does not too greatly spoil the pleasure which one takes in following the
tribulations of a living world.' (Les Cahiers du Cinema)
'The Commune has only rarely been a subject for the cinema...' [- begins the
magazine Positif, and then lists the films made on the Commune, starting with
Armand Guerra's 'La Commune' of 1914, the Soviet film 'The New Babylon' of 1929,
and several films made in France. The article continues -] 'The Commune has been
put back into the cupboards of History for twenty years. One could even say a
black hole. Until Peter Watkins. A filmmaker who works with history must often
struggle, or unravel what others have said (in film) before him, in order to
open a path to new approach and debate. For the man of 'Culloden', it is a path,
or more exactly terra incognita, devoid of imposing figures, which has opened
before him. Since 'Culloden', the British filmmaker has proved himself. He does
not pose the question vis-à-vis "the truthfulness" of a reconstruction of
history (a term in fashion three or four years ago). One of the first phrases of
his film, stated by an actress who is going to interpret the role of a TV
journalist in insurrectional Paris, is addressed to the audience: "I ask you to
imagine that it is 17 March, 1871". The two first pillars of Watkins' approach
have thus been stated: imagination (theatricality) and anachronism. We are first
shown the empty set, the perfunctory dressings in an abandoned factory ... the
filmic device is laid out, no-one is fooled ... The anachronism is first of all
the presence, as in 'Culloden', of the TV - here of two, TV Nationale ... and TV
Communale, whose two débutante reporters take their microphones and cameras to
the discussions and to the barricades. ... Then there are the sequences where
contemporary life (ours, that of the spectators) is introduced (more as
counter-point than as an analogy) into the 1871 discourse: for example the
occupation of the Sainte-Ambroise Church by the 'sans-papiers' of Montreuil [On
March 18 , 1996, 350 'clandestine' immigrants from a hostel in Montreuil
occupied the Sainte-Ambroise Church in Paris, to protest the long refusal by the
authorities to regulate their stay in France.], or the negative effects of
globalization. Finally, in the last part of the film, women members of the cast
debate their status in the film, and what the experience (or the ordeal)
represented for them. We are no longer in an anachronism, we are in the heart of
Watkins' method. In the beginning, this resides in solid information, divided
between, and discussed by, the cast. The roles shared could be those of
historical "personalities" (... Thiers, Varlin, Jourde ...), but are mostly
those of unknown people, National Guards or the citizens of Paris, allied or not
to the Commune. During the course of the filming, they ally themselves with the
person whose identity they have borrowed. It is never a question of
"reconstructing" the events which haunt the memory of the Commune; we never see
the burning of the Tuileries Palace or the Hôtel de Ville, we do not see the
shooting of the hostages. This information is given to us via television, and is
even the subject of a debate comparing the trustworthiness of the TV news with
that of the press. History is shown being staged, rather than made into
narrative, with the sense that history passes via text, the confrontation of
various discourses.
This sense also comes through an incredible work of cinema. Peter Watkins wanted
and obtained from his Norwegian photographer (his collaborator on 'Edvard
Munch') a filming method which was based on using particularly long takes
(plans-séquences). The creative principle which is put to work relies on the
coming together of the work by the actors and that of the camera; at the same
time it is both very free, and precise. The actors are called upon twice. Each
of them bends to the position of the personage they are interpreting. Then all
together, they become ... a collective body responding to events. In the first
hour ... the collective body is lumbering. In the final hour, that is to say,
five hours or later for the spectator, when time for the Commune is the
terrifying massacres of la semaine sanglante, the collective body (associated
with the camera which also has learned to perfect its mobility within this body)
reaches an expression of tragedy and emotion close to sublime.' (Positif)
'La Commune' and its application
I sincerely hope that associations, community groups, secondary schools and
universities in France and elsewhere will show 'La Commune', and use it as a
point of analysis and resistance. And I hope that the open form of 'La Commune',
and especially the process of discussion and community activity which can
accompany the film screening, will help to forge the kind of collectivity, and
frontal resistance to globalization and its satellite mass media which is now
needed. Le Rebond is there to help and to encourage this process within France.
In conclusion, I would like to include three letters written by members of the
cast of 'La Commune'. The first is from Maylis Bouffartique, of Le Rebond.
Maylis, a theatre actress, lives in Paris, and has accompanied 'La Commune' to
various screenings and discussions.
"It is certain, Peter, that your film, your project, is a part of my personal
evolution. I live daily with it, with the questions it raises, with the
proposals that come with it. I am moved a little more each time I see "this
thing" which is 'La Commune de Paris 1871' of Peter Watkins. Certainly, there
are statements in the film which irritate me and with which I do not agree. But
what carries me along is all the process around this film, we are confronted by
another way of proceeding forward, another way of creating, with an event [the
1871 Paris Commune] which in itself has this force to create happenings. This
film, and I think this is one of its main impacts, leads to a reflection around
a new way to distribute and show a film so that it is seen as often as possible
and in the best conditions. It is not a product of consumption which can be
purchased in the supermarkets and the stores, no, it is a work, a jewel, too
precious to be appreciated at the level of those who retail flashy, glittering
junk jewelery. Indeed, its form and its contents oppose the industry of image.
It is necessary to accompany this film, to show it as an event (one to two
days), to recommend debates on the subject of the media, and to use this
occasion to discuss the problem of ARTE. Le Rebond can certainly participate
actively in the distribution and accompaniment of the film in this way. We can
counteract the classic distribution, and not abandon this film as an
unconsumable consumer object, thereby to a living death, simply because it is
unusual and outside the scheming and cynical 'Monoform'. I have the impression
that the function of this film can be compared to that of live theatre. It can
tour villages, schools, universities, everywhere. This demands methods, an
apprenticeship around a new organization, because a showing of 'La Commune'
calls for volunteers, amateurs who engage themselves because this film and its
process are important to them, and they are conscious that if they do not move,
they will not see this film. Naturally, these spectators, the potential viewing
public, make themselves 'actors' in order to see this film and create
discussions around it. In doing this, they even defend the film.
Speaking of this, I have encountered people who had never seen this film, nor
heard of it, who, after a very heavy day of work, had switched on their TV
before going to bed, and who fell - completely by accident - onto 'La Commune';
their reactions were always like an hallucination, and they generally watched
the film as far as their fatigue permitted, which means never after four hours
of film [during the ARTE screening, this means until two in the morning]. The
people who did this usually always made efforts to find out where they could see
this film in better conditions. Those who saw the whole film told me, without
exception, that when they finally switched off the TV, they only wanted one
thing, which was to speak with others, to telephone, to go outside and wake
people up! These are fairly positive reactions, I think. Naturally I asked these
people ... to write to ARTE to put this question: why was this film not shown at
a better time? Did they? These people were so enthusiastic after seeing this
film, that they were above all preoccupied by "this thing", by what it said, by
what it denounced, by what it showed, that their first question was to the
actors, to know how it all took place? And to know what happens now?
I think that we are in a society which insidiously suffocates things, which is
expert in smoothing over outstanding facts, in rendering completely insipid
something with immense flavour. We live in a completely cynical indifference,
and this is the principal aim and strategy of the media. We accumulate things,
possessions, that's the French spirit. We say 'yes', the anger which leads to a
constructive 'no' is now out of place, now we practise a self-centred,
artificial anger, provocative, decadent, which leads in turn to a facile freeing
of guilt, of self-satisfaction, egocentrism and finally, a murderous apathy.
Also, the silence around the marginalization of this film is nothing else than
proof of a scandalous cowardice by the so-called intellectuals who specialize in
a beautiful discourse about nothing. Sometimes I really want to send a letter to
these gentlemen, the artists, the so-called "subversives" (who are nonetheless
constantly honoured and in the eye of the media), and ask them what do they
think of the actual situation in the media, why the marginalization of 'La
Commune' by ARTE, what are their profound and human preoccupations, do they
actually have any? For you are right, ARTE passes for a progressive television.
But I say, with my small conscience, my small lucidity and my even smaller
culture, that ARTE represents Europe, a well-ordered Europe, really clean, full
of hope, full of extraordinary artists to whom we teach what is beautiful, with
a trademark, we are faced with a school which teaches us how to think correctly,
to be responsible as Westerners, as much as Whites, for the thinking of others.
This channel [ARTE] speaks in the name of the people, but rare are the moments
when the people speak on this channel; of this channel, yes, there are the
letters from the viewers; but it is grotesque how they "slum it" and look down
in a sneering way on the 'beastly, uncivilized' behaviour of the public. Their
documentary films are clean and full of self-satisfaction, politically correct,
and set in motion nothing, rather they lull people with their small doses of
Monoform information. I am wary of seeing an aesthetic touch that reeks of the
decadent atmosphere that France and Germany has already lived through."
The second letter is in the form of a statement by Marcel Cerf, who is
Vice-President of the Association 'Les Amis de la Commune de Paris 1871', and
who also acted in the film.
"Amongst the films produced in the year 2000, there is one which, because of its
stunning message and the originality of its style, breaks radically with the
stereotypical productions of the globalist ideology. This work which disturbs
and shakes up the dictates of the audience ratings, is 'La Commune' by the
indomitable rebel, Peter Watkins. Under his firm but sensitive direction, the
actors (for the most part non-professional) externalize their true personality
and become the men and women of 1871 with their energetic enthousiasm and their
immense hope in ideal of a democratic and social republic.
It is not by chance that Peter Watkins situates the action of his film in
Popincourt, the XIth district (arrondissement) of Paris, the most populated of
the capital, where the revolutionary fervour is especially intense, where they
have just burnt the guillotine, and where a direct democracy functions at the
heart of the district sub-committee, the Proletarian Club (Club des
Prolétaires), the opposition force necessary for the expression of the will of
the people.
You can feel the vibration as these people in revolt organize themselves and
proclaim, "No more oppression, slavery or dicatorship of any sort; but a
sovereign nation, citizens free to govern themselves as they wish!".
The women are not forgotten, several sequences witness the importance of their
participation in the revolution. They know how to combine their political
activities with the economic and social demands. They demand respect and
dignity, and an improvement in their extremely difficult working conditions. As
one of their proud militants expresses, "I would like to have the time to
think". The Second Empire with its arrogant Capitalism did not give them this
possibility.
A pleasant anachronism (the introduction of Television into the scenario),
permits the film to critique the disinformation of the media, and their
mind-numbing effect on the public.
Peter Watkins, with his talent and his pugnacity, exalts the struggle of the
exploited, but he is careful not to fall into hagiography; if the work of the
Commune is, rightly so, celebrated, its errors and its weaknesses are not
hidden.
A constant to and fro between the social struggles of the past and those of the
present brings out perfectly the modernity of La Commune. Thanks to this film,
we take an active part in this too brief period of a government by the people
and for the people. In effect, it is not a 'digestive spectacle' which we are
shown, but a work which obliges us to reflect, and to engage in a struggle - one
which concerns all citizens conscious of the future of Humanity."(Marcel Cerf)
Finally, extracts from a letter by Jean-Yves Staropoli, an actor in 'La
Commune'. Jean-Yves is an activist who has accompanied the film to several
screenings and debates.
"... 'La Commune' was a step for me. There was a before and after 'La Commune'.
It made me grow. It provoked a radicaltransformation in my intellectual
revolution! For me... this meeting with you and all our friends has awakened a
realpolitical conscience in me, an opening in my way to express myself, and a
militant engagement, nationally and internationally, against a power-structure
which maintains and controls people in a state of unawareness, and against the
mass media, principal vector of lethargy-inducing information such as the
Monoform.
... I think that our film is such a condensing of statements, utterances,
beliefs, information and disinformation, and of a length which is not normal,
that it is difficult for the TV viewer to identify it in its globality without
some form of accompaniment. The environment of Associations in France (le milieu
associatif) can serve this purpose, and also allow us to broaden the
distribution of our film, and become a complement to our websites as a process
for the viewer.
I think that our media, and French intellectuals, prefer to marginalize 'La
Commune' and its presence, rather than to confront Peter Watkins and the theme
of this social revolution of 129 years ago ... Today I have really become aware
of the role of the mass media, and it is clear that any form of opposition media
is really absent from the struggle. It is therefore really necessary to
emancipate oneself from this censoring audiovisual system, and to work together
to imagine the creation of a new form of critical, informative television."
Le Rebond pour La Commune
An Association for the promotion and distribution of 'La Commune' formed in
March 2000. In a collective statement written in 2000, Le Rebond wrote the
following regarding their aims and intentions :
"Seeing the difficulties which a film of such scope encounters : the insidious
censoring by ARTE on TV and their refusal to distribute the film on video, the
marginalizing of the work, the refusal of French film distributers to release
the film, the silence in the media... This asks questions of our capacity to
prolong and develop the process of resistance and participation. This is why our
Association also sets itself the objective of developing communal experience by
the creation of places and spaces where discussions which propose thought,
reflection, and organization against the abuse of power by the dominant mass
media can take place. To initiate, propose and organize collective projects and
debates around the questions which « La Commune (Paris 1871) » raises for us. To
create free speech, with or without the institutions ... A 'wide-angle' vision
rather than 'tele-objective'."
{http://www.mnsi.net/~pwatkins/commune.htm}
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Fortsetzung: Sonntag, 22. Mai, 20:00 Uhr: Les enfants du paradis (Marcel Carné);
Sonntag, 29. Mai, 21:00 Uhr: In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (Guy Debord)
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