CINÉMA MILITANT Political Filmmaking & May 1968 Paul Douglas Grant Cinéma Militant Cinéma Militant Political Filmmaking and May 1968 Paul Douglas Grant WALLFLOWER PRESS LONDON & NEW YORK A Wallflower Press Book Wallflower Press is an imprint of Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex cup.columbia.edu Copyright © 2016 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Wallflower Press® is a registered trademark of Columbia University Press A complete CIP record is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 978-0-231-17666-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-17667-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-231-85101-5 (e-book) Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cover design by Elsa Mathern Contents Acknowledgments vii List of Abbreviations viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Wildcat Strikes and Wildcat Cinema in May ’68: ARC 7 1.1 What is cinéma militant? 7 1.2 Interrogating the absence 11 1.3 Production eclipsed by theory 13 1.4 Reception in English: Sylvia Harvey’s May ’68 and Film Culture 16 1.5 History in France 19 1.6 The cinema of May 1968 27 Chapter 2 Jean-Pierre Thorn: “No investigation, no right to speak” 35 2.1 Jean-Pierre Thorn and Oser lutter, oser vaincre 35 2.2 The strike at Flins, as told by Jean-Pierre Thorn/Ligne rouge 36 2.3 Ligne rouge 44 2.4 Cinéma Libre 54 2.5 Les établis 58 2.6 La grève des ouvriers de Margoline 61 2.7 Le dos au mur 65 2.8 Georgette Vacher 74 Chapter 3 Cinélutte: “Tout ce qui bouge est rouge” 77 3.1 Cinélutte beginnings 77 3.2 Jusqu’au bout 89 3.3 Petites têtes, grandes surfaces – anatomie d’un supermarché 93 3.4 Bonne chance la France 98 3.5 À pas lentes 110 v Chapter 4 Les groupes Medvedkine: Before and After Chris Marker 119 4.1 The adventure of Les groupes Medvedkine 119 4.2 Medvedkin and the Cine-Train 119 4.3 CCPPO 123 4.4 Two productions by the CCPPO 126 4.5 Le groupe Medvedkine Besançon 131 4.6 Le groupe Medvedkine Sochaux 143 Chapter 5 Of Theory and Peasants: Groupe Cinéthique 151 5.1 Groupe Cinéthique 151 5.2 Le Front Paysan 162 5.3 Les Handicapés méchants and Bon pied bon oeil et toute sa tête 165 Conclusion 173 Notes 177 Filmography 203 Bibliography 211 Index 217 vi Acknowledgments his book could not have been completed without the assistance of the following film- makers, scholars, artists and workers, who were all very generous with their time: Jean- TPierre Thorn, Nicole Brenez, Jacques Kèbadian, Michel Andrieu, Jean-Denis Bonan, Roger Journot, Sebastian Layerle, Richard Copans, Robert Linhart, Nicole Linhart, Leslie Kaplan, Alain Nahum, Guy-Patrick Sainderichin, Jean-Paul Fargier, Gérard Leblanc, Pierre Buraglio, Guy Chapouillé and Front Paysan, Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, Tanguy Perron, Serge Le Péron, Monique Martineau, the people at Ciné-Archives, Forum des images, the Cinémathèque Française, ISKRA, Les Films d’ici, Centre Culturel Populaire de Palente-les Orchamps, Ethan Spigland, the late Paul Ryan, Robert Stam, Dana Polan, Manthia Diawara, David Oubiña, the late Bob Sklar, Richard Porton, Martin Johnson, Dominic Gavin, Jihoon Kim, Priyadarshini Shanker, Greg Zinman, Rebecca Miller and finally my colleagues at the University of San Carlos School of Architecture, Fine Arts and Design for their patience during the writing of this project, especially Misha Anissimov, Joseph Espina, Araceli Culibra and my co-chair in the SAFAD Research Committee, Kimberly Gultia. Special thanks go to Nicolas Dubost, who shared not only his incredible experience as an établi at Renault-Flins, but also his season tickets to PSG. And to Yann Le Masson; truly one of the highlights of this project was getting the chance to meet this incredible militant on his barge in Avignon along with his committed companion Catie, before he passed away in January 2012. Lastly, none of this would have been possible without the support of my family, Maryann Douglas, Andrew and Roberta Grant, Pascale Wettstein, and Malcolm and Sidney Grant. À Pascale, Malou et Sid vii List of Abbreviations ACO Action catholique ouvrière JCR Jeunesse communiste révolutionnaire AFO Association familiale ouvrière LCR Ligue communiste révolutionnaire AOF Afrique Occidentale Française MCF-ML Mouvement communiste français ARC Atelier de recherche cinématographique marxiste–léniniste ATTAC Association pour la taxation des MEDEF Mouvement des enterprises de France transactions financières et pour l’action ML Marxist–Leninist citoyenne MLAC Le mouvement pour la liberté de CCPPO Centre culturel populaire de Palente- l’avortement et de la contraception les-Orchamps MLF Le mouvement de la libération des CERFI Centre d’études de recherches et de femmes formation institutionnelles MLP Mouvement de libération du people CFDT Confédération française démocratique OCI L’Organisation communiste internationale du travail OCT Organisation communiste des travailleurs CNPF Conseil national du patronat française PAIGC Partido Africano da Independência da CoBrA Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam Guiné e Cabo Verde postwar art collective PCF Parti communiste français CPDF Coopérative de production et de PCI Parti communiste internationaliste distribution du film PCR(ml) Parti communiste révolutionnaire CRP Les cinéastes révolutionnaires prolétariens marxiste–léniniste CRS Compagnies républicaines de sécurité PLOCC Palente-Les-Orchamps Centre DEUG Diplôme d’études universitaires Culturel générales PSU Parti socialiste unifié FGERI Fédération des groupes d’études et de SDS Students for a Democratic Society recherches institutionelles SFIO Section française de l’internationale FLN Front de libération nationale ouvrière FRELIMO Frente de Libertação de SLON Société pour le lancement des oeuvres Moçambique nouvelles GONG Groupe d’organisation nationale de la SRF Société des réalisateurs de films Guadeloupe UEC Union des étudiants communistes GP La gauche prolétarienne UJCML Union des jeunesses communistes IDHEC L’Institut des hautes études marxistes–léninistes cinématographiques UNCAL Union nationale des comités d’action ISKRA Image, son, kinescope et réalisations lycéens audiovisuelles UPCB L’Unité de production cinéma Bretagne viii Introduction1 n the 74th issue of the French film journal Écran, Guy Hennebelle opened his column, “La vie est à nous”, with “As you read this the Third Assembly ofCinéma Militant (excuse I me: ‘multimedia of social and political intervention’ [l’audiovisuel d’intervention sociale et politique]) has already taken place […] What is the future of this cinema we call militant? Is it destined to disappear or will it renew itself?”2 The issue of Écran marked the tenth anniversary of the political upheaval in France during May 1968, and thus this somewhat mournful reflection was not entirely misplaced; in fact, the text pointed to a number of issues that had to some extent plagued this “cinéma dit militant” from its inception. For instance, did this filmmaking tradition have any future outside the immediate political context of May? Was the term cinéma militant the most appropriate description of this cultural practice? And how could this cinema reach a wider audience while still remaining faithful to the political context that gave rise to it? Yet these questions were posed from within the milieu, addressing those filmmakers, theo- rists and militants of many stripes who had been wrestling with these issues in their film prac- tice for at least a decade. However, for those not on familiar terms with cinéma militant, it was perhaps premature to begin mourning its possible death. It would seem, rather, that in order to articulate cinéma militant’s history, its aims, its aesthetic strategies and its potentials, it would be necessary to open the floor to some preliminary questions, particularly the question as to what exactly constituted this cinematic practice. Were there aesthetic similarities, political affini- ties, and organisational and production strategies which all aligned to give a discrete picture of cinéma militant? These are the questions that this book attempts to address, those nascent questions at the heart of a practice that remained strangely outside the purview of historians of cinema and radical politics alike. Pascale Casanova remarked that Paris had long been “La République mondiale des lettres”, but throughout the late 1960s and 1970s it was equally the capital of the “République mondiale du cinéma révolutionnaire”. This book examines the French tradition of cinéma militant, which flourished during the immediate aftermath of the events of May 1968, producing a wide range of film work from underrepresented populations that included such varied groups as entry-level factory workers (ouvriers spécialisés, or OS), highly theoretical Marxist–Leninist collectives, and even the militant special needs community. Counteracting the dearth of attention paid to these 1 militant film practices, which grew out of concrete historical circumstances, this book explores the diverse, culturally conditioned currents of militant aesthetics and theory that these practices absorbed and produced. With the waning of Les trente glorieuses3 and the political events that occurred in France during May and June of 1968, French cinema participated in a political transformation that has traditionally been narrated along a specific and seemingly immutable axis. The common narra- tive, as it is formulated in Anglophone film studies, articulates the unfolding of the events in relation to cinema as beginning with the Langlois affair. André Malraux, the minister of cultural affairs under President Charles de Gaulle in 1968, wanted to remove Henri Langlois, who was among the founders of the Cinémathèque Française, as the director of the cinémathèque. The reasons given were largely about Langlois’s careless handling of the archival material, and his political intransigency with regard to running the cinémathèque, and in February 1968 he was asked to step down.