La commune (Paris, 1871)

This is a pretty exhilarating idea.

Take a period in history where its all about collective points of view. In other words, select a time where the movies chosen by groups clash. Its better if it a time before movies and in a place that believes they know something about movies.

Introduce it as a movie, with interviews first with actors and then with characters. Then, action (with characters glancing at the camera), but wait.

Soon we see that inside the movie, we will see reporting by a TeeVee news crew. This is displayed in two forms within the film.. We see the news broadcast and the Parisans watching it.

They are of course biased in favor of the royalist government. So just as the rabble revolt against the government, we have an alternative TeeVee crew enlisted, who also go around interviewing the crowd as well, all obviously amateur actors, not starving, not sick, toothless and in pain.

We are introduced to characters who introduce themselves as fictional characters. We see the two TeeVee reporters take on the character of the events we see, and get blamed for the whole thing, history writing itself. It is the only example I know of this particular type of fold, where our notion of history as retrospective watching is folded into on-screen watchers.

But at so many hours, its a long slog because there is some conflating of French history with French film history, and its just not as profound as they suppose.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Once again, the National Gallery of Art film program has brought us another film we are unlikely to see at any other theater. This is an uneven but ultimately fascinating look at a relatively unknown period in French history, the 1871 Communard revolution in Paris right after the Franco-Prussian War. The filmmaker uses non-professional actors who were also allowed to be co-producers and to write their own lines to some extent. It is shot in black and white and on Beta Digital tape. The film technique reminds me of an old TV program from the 1950s' called "You Are There" in which today's media looks back on history and even interviews the participants in the historical drama.

The film is very slow going which gives the viewer a total feeling of both being there right in the action on a day to day basis while looking down on it from afar. We live the everyday life of the people in Paris during this short period of 2 1/2 months. At some points, the actors stop the action and comment on their involvement in the making of the very film they are in. Also, they and the filmmaker comment on globalization and peoples' rights in today's world. History is brought forth into our present time and we see that all events in human history are more alike than they are different.

This film is not for the average movie-goer. It is for a small audience of patient students of history and politics. It fascinated me but also tried that patience quite often. I would recommend not attempting to view this film without being well rested. It is in two parts of three hours each. Frankly, the filmmaker could have cut this down and still had a powerful history lesson for all of us.

I don't think this is Peter Watkins's "best" film, exactly. It lacks the discipline and precision of "Edward Munch." But this is the purest example of the potential of Watkins's practice. Few films I've ever seen have felt as alive as a collaboration between a director and a group of performers. The non-actors, denizens of a working-class neighborhood of Paris, lived together and collaborated with Watkins as a legit, studio-based commune during their re-enactment of the events of Paris, 1871. In the film's second half, the reenactment subtly starts to occasionally give way to conversations between the performers during the course of the production. The past starts to seem truly "re-enacted," as the "present" seems to become part of a work of historical story-telling. In the final scenes, the actors seem to go into a kind of trance of fury as they sing revolutionary songs while awaiting to defend the city from Versailles' soldiers. Many turn to the camera and say that they would pick up guns to fight for a new commune in the present. As a viewer, I believed them.

This film also goes farther in its critique of media than Watkins' earlier films. All of Watkins's films feature a contemporary documentary camera crew interviewing historical figures in a way that is quite confrontationally unnatural. In the previous films, the (seemingly) Watkins-led camera crews were portrayed as the allies of "the people." Here, the larger canvas allows for a more nuanced critique of even "people's media." Two media outlets vie for the hegemony of the viewer: Versailles News and Commune TV. Even Commune TV, the "ragtag, independent" news outlet is presented as always veering towards the most relatively conservative seats of power. The Commune reporters consistently defend the (I think rather inappropriately maligned) "professional" Commune leadership from the masses. (As much as I admire Watkins, he is undeniably an ultra-leftist.) I wonder, however, if this more complex take on the media is not tied to the more complex layerings of "realities" in this work that I discussed in my first paragraph. For, unlike, in the earlier films, here the "progressive" media outlet (Commune TV) is not the "highest" reality, and therefor is not directly attached to Watkins himself. It is only part of the historical fiction that Watkins implements to show his performers embrace the political heritage of the Commune. In the scenes where the performers discuss their experiences of the production with each other, Watkins name is only ever mentioned with reverence. The filmmaker deepens his critique of media, but not of his place within it as a "radical saint."

Peter Watkins' nearly 6-hour long docudrama, "La Commune (Paris, 1871), is a surprisingly passionate and fast-moving lesson in history. It is also a brilliant demonstration of how history is shaped, and re-shaped, by the tellers of the tale.

Using the "You Are There" approach of earlier radio and TV days, Watkins has a male and female news team from "Commune TV" wandering through the poorest district of Paris inviting people to express their grievances against the state to the camera.

While the people bitterly suffer because of the government's inept defeat at the hands of the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War, their anger inspires solidarity for them throughout Paris, and although they briefly rise up and seize power, they are brutally put down in the end.

Ironically, during the course of their uprising, a TV monitor in the background features happy-talk "Versailles TV" news anchors, who continually vilify the Communards and rationalize the government's brutal acts of suppression.

"La Commune (Paris, 1871)" is a must-see for students of history, and a must-see for students of the media.

I must admit, the first thing that caught my attention in the programme of Arsenal Movie Theatre was the length of the film - 345 min. I was intrigued and looked it up on the internet, starting with imdb, and became even more intrigued. So I saw the movie yesterday.

And I didn't regret it at all. (Although I had to struggle through German subtitles for the shorter German version of 300 min. The announced full one with English subtitles was stuck somewhere in Paris.)

It is probably one of the most unusual movies I've ever seen. It is even not really a movie, at least in the standard understanding of it (let alone the length of the thing). It is obviously a mind game, but a mind game so fine and intellectual, as well as passionate, thrilling and challenging, that it somehow makes you feel deeply involved in it emotionally, not forgetting for a single moment that it is a game and the whole idea is completely absurd.

Indeed, what can be more absurd than watching "breaking news" about Paris Commune of 1871, like we were all watching tv on 9.11 or when the war in Iraq was about to begin. "Versailles TV", "Commune TV". Journalists asking "What do you feel now? What hopes do you have now for the future of The Commune?". But all staged, actors sometimes telling the camera about the roles they are playing. Or discussing whether The Commune could have had future, or Russian revolution was successful despite Kronstadt uprising.

The shocking thing is that it feels real. Even though you perfectly understand that it can't. He's using the media and our perception of the media (which makes us question to what an extent can our senses be manipulated) as a frame for all the events happening and in a way alters our perception of history and of history happening now.

I'm still digesting the movie, it raises a lot of question and makes you think a lot. But I'm happy to know that Arsenal is planning Peter Watkins's retrospective. So Berliners will have a unique chance to see his other works. Which I'm looking forward to.