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"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.
&nb