Monday, October 15, 2007
Brought to You by René Vautier
5 principes de base pour un cinéma engagé
1. Tâche de rapporter de vraies images plutôt de raconter des histoires fausses.
2. Il ne faut pas laisser les gouvernments écrire seuls l’histoire, il faut que les peuples y travaillent.
3. Écrire l’histoire en images. Tout de suite.
4. Créer un dialogue d’images en temps de guerre.
5. Face à la désinformation officielle, pratiquer et diffuser la contre-information.
From an appendix, "Définition et principes pour le cinéma d'intervention sociale, par René Vautier, Cancale, 2003" in Nicole Brenez, Cinémas d'avant-garde, Paris: Cahiers du cinéma - SCÉRÉN-CNDP, 2006
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5 comments:
Wouldn't CNN fit this profile? At least they would believe they comply with every point.
These principles are too vague and too general not to be perverted. YouTube, Michael Moore, all sorts of anti-conspiracy wackos could appropriate this "manifesto".
It seems to describe basic "journalism" rather than an actual "politically engaged cinema". Well I would expect principles a little more insightful than this...
True enough, it's not very deep. But CNN would actually be the bearer of "histoires fausses" and "désinformation officielle"--they are not compliant, in Vautier's view (and mine), with these imperatives. And even basic journalism is to be politically engaged if the way global political reality fights against it, suppresses it, distorts it.
I know. But if it's a matter of subjective interpretation (CNN probably believe they are an actual counter power fighting for the truth, even FoxNews advertize about their "fair and balance"!) the principles have loopholes. They need to be more specific, otherwise it's a language that can be used by every side who claim the higher ground.
When we want to fight propaganda, we have to make sure our own rhetoric cannot be quoted by the opposants, and our own words taken against us...
Those words have already been used against "us"--power tries its best to claim Truth, often without earning a shred of it. Obviously Vautier's imperatives lack depth; they're not much as a manifesto--they're just words, mantras even, for filmmakers, I think; interesting coming from a filmmaker who has fascinated me for a long time (largely by reputation and secondhand accounts alone; I've only been able to see one of his works).
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