Cinema in Dispute: Audiovisual Adventures of the Political Names ‘Worker’, ‘Factory’, ‘People’

Cinema In Dispute: Audiovisual Adventures of the Political Names ‘Worker’, ‘Factory’, ‘People’ Manuel Ramos Martínez Ph.D. Visual Cultures Goldsmiths College, University of London September 2013 1 I declare that all of the work presented in this thesis is my own. Manuel Ramos Martínez 2 Abstract Political names define the symbolic organisation of what is common and are therefore a potential site of contestation. It is with this field of possibility, and the role the moving image can play within it, that this dissertation is concerned. This thesis verifies that there is a transformative relation between the political name and the cinema. The cinema is an art with the capacity to intervene in the way we see and hear a name. On the other hand, a name operates politically from the moment it agitates a practice, in this case a certain cinema, into organising a better world. This research focuses on the audiovisual dynamism of the names ‘worker’, ‘factory’ and ‘people’ in contemporary cinemas. It is not the purpose of the argument to nostalgically maintain these old revolutionary names, rather to explore their efficacy as names-in-dispute, as names with which a present becomes something disputable. This thesis explores this dispute in the company of theorists and audiovisual artists committed to both emancipatory politics and experimentation. The philosophies of Jacques Rancière and Alain Badiou are of significance for this thesis since they break away from the semiotic model and its symptomatic readings in order to understand the name as a political gesture. Inspired by their affirmative politics, the analysis investigates cinematic practices troubled and stimulated by the names ‘worker’, ‘factory’, ‘people’: the work of Peter Watkins, Wang Bing, Harun Farocki, Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub. These are practices affected by their engagement with political names that generate audiovisual assemblages exceeding standard sociological representations. These practices do not adapt the names ‘worker’ or ‘people’ to modern times. These are inventive practices undoing simplistic dichotomies between the obsolete and the new and articulating images and sounds with which to resonate in the endless assemblage of the present. 3 Acknowledgements My deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor, Lynn Turner. The quality of her engagement with my project, her insight and support, have been invaluable during these long years of thinking, watching, listening and writing. Her respect for my ideas, even when at a tentative stage, and her exceptional sensitivity towards the theoretical and the poetical, and also the practical issues surrounding doctoral research, have not only helped me complete this academic project, but enjoy the process immensely. I also want to thank Nicole Wolf, my second supervisor, for her constant support and for helping me understand better the capacities of documentary cinema. I would like to acknowledge in general the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths for creating a stimulating intellectual ground in which to challenge one-self and think anew the intricate relation between art and politics. I would like to thank Irit Rogoff, Simon O'Sullivan, Gavin Butt, Jorella Andrews and Jean-Paul Martinon − all of whom have led generative seminars in which Ph.D. candidates could share and test their ideas. Special thanks go to Brendan Prendeville− his passion for the cinema of Robert Bresson triggered early on my curiosity for the mysteries of the moving image. I also want to thank my colleagues and students in the Introduction to Art History and Visual Cultures course. For many years now, teaching in this course has been a source of encouragement, allowing me to experience collectively the powers of art and thought. I also thank the Department of Visual Cultures for its financial support in the form of a bursary for the 2010-2011 academic year. I am also grateful to the Mutua Madrileña Foundation for their financial support via a Post-graduate Grant that helped me greatly in the first two years of this project. The film programmes I organised with the support of InC (Continental Philosophy Research Group, Goldsmiths) in 2011 (Factory Trouble) and in 2012 (Five Communes) have been a determining factor in the development of this thesis. These screenings and debates have helped me re-shape my concerns in the company of imaginative and committed thinkers and practitioners. I want to thank all the participants in these film sessions, with special thanks for the guest speakers: Kodwo Eshun (his passion is contagious), Adrian Rifkin, Ros Gray, Alexander García Düttman, Ken McMullen, Louis Henderson, Alberto Toscano, Mike Wayne, Astrid Schmetterling, Owen Hatherley. Three friends have read this thesis, making very important contributions to it. I owe a debt of gratitude to Sam McAuliffe for his editorial acumen, Ricardo Matos Cabo for his erudite readings, and Paolo Plotegher for his sharp insights. I would like to thank other colleagues and friends for their intellectual and affective support throughout the years: Alice Andrews, Paul Clinton, Jolan Bogdan, Sen-Yin Li, E/J González, Sibley Labandeira, Despoina Sevasti, Wendy Russell, Stella Boulougari, Aris Giatras, Russell Martin, Christopher King, Paloma Robles, Alfonso Everlet, Johanna Pérez, Sandra Casas, Mélanie Roero, Nikolaï Preuschoff, Pauline von Arx, Cecilia Díaz, Jimena y Miguel Fernández, Pablo y Gabriela Paredes. 4 I want to thank the group of Portuguese cinephiles who have taught me so much about cine-culture and about how to live it intensely, specially André Dias and Susana Duarte. Finally, I want to thank my closest ones. I thank Paolo for his years of support, for his emotional and intellectual intelligence and for constantly stimulating my political commitments. I thank Christopher Hutchings for his unconditional support, faith and encouragement. Special thanks go to Concha Martínez Cortijo, her support during those long summers writing in Brihuega has been essential. To all the above individuals, and to friends and colleagues whose names I cannot list here and who have assisted me one way or another, I feel very much indebted. 5 List of Illustrations Figure 1. Vera Mukhina, Worker and Kolhoz Woman, 1937 Figure 2. Cy Twombly, Arcadia, 1958 Figure 3. Still from Workers, Peasants, dir. Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, France-Germany-Italy 2002 (opening frame) Figure 4. Still from Workers, Peasants, dir. Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, France-Germany-Italy 2002 (group of peasants) Figure 5. Still from Workers, Peasants, dir. Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, France-Germany-Italy 2002 (group of workers) Figure 6. Still from Workers Leaving the Factory, dir. Louis and Auguste Lumière, France-Germany-Italy 1895 Figure 7. Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, The Fourth State, 1901 Figure 8. Still from West of the Tracks, dir. Wang Bing, China 2003 Figure 9. Still from West of the Tracks, dir. Wang Bing, China 2003 Figure 10. Still from La Commune, dir. Armand Guerra, France 1914 Figure 11. Anonymous photograph of the Re-enactment of the Storming of the Winter Palace, 1920 Figure 12. Still from La Commune (Paris, 1871), dir. Peter Watkins, 2000 6 Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................... 9 Part One: Cinema Workers, Active Names in the Work of Huillet and Straub ........ 40 Chapter 1: Workers, Peasants, Actors (the acting process in the cinema of Huillet/Straub) .................................................................................................... 48 Section 1: The Ignorant Encounter .......................................................... 54 Section 2: Breathing Grammars ............................................................... 62 Section 3: A Discipline to Act.................................................................. 71 Chapter 2: Dateless Names (‘worker’, ‘peasant’ in the film Workers, Peasants). 82 Section 1: Narratives of Workers and Peasants ....................................... 86 Section 2: The Opening Scene: the Title, the Red Star, the Aria, the Birds, the Wind in the Trees ............................................................................... 93 Section 3: A Stubborn Common ............................................................ 103 Part Two: Factory Trouble, Post-Fordist Cinema and Industrial Dispute .............. 120 Chapter 3: Ghost Factory (on Harun Farocki's Workers Leaving the Factory) .. 131 Section 1: Revealed, the Cinema Has not Represented the Factory Because the Cinema is a Factory ......................................................................... 138 Section 2: Essayistic Pedagogies with the Image .................................... 154 Chapter 4: Rust Factory (on Wang Bing's West of the Tracks) .......................... 171 Section 1: A Socialist Factory? .............................................................. 177 7 Section 2: Politics of Rust ...................................................................... 189 Part Three: People Fever, the Popular Passions of the Militant Image.................... 220 Chapter 5: Dirty Television .............................................................................. 230 Section 1: People TV ............................................................................. 232 Section 2: Commune TV ....................................................................... 244 Chapter 6: Re-enacting People .......................................................................

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