Le seul film intéressant sur les événements,
le seul vraiment fort que j'ai  vu (je ne les ai évidemment pas tous vus),
c'est celui sur la rentrée des usines WONDER,
tourné par des étudiants de l'IDHEC,
parce que c'est  un film terrifiant, qui fait mal.
C'est le seul qui soit un film vraiment  révolutionnaire.
Peut-être parce que c'est un moment
où la réalité se transfigure à tel point
qu'elle se met à condenser toute une situation politique en dix minutes
d'intensité dramatique folle.

C'est un film fascinant, mais on ne peut dire qu'il soit du tout mobilisateur,
ou alors par le réflexe d'horreur et de refus qu'il provoque.
Vraiment, je crois que le seul rôle du cinéma, c'est de déranger,
de contredire les idées toutes faites, toutes les idées toutes faites,
et plus encore les schémas mentaux qui préexistent à ces idées:
faire que le cinéma ne soit plus confortable.

J'aurais de plus en plus tendance à diviser les films en deux:
ceux qui sont confortables et ceux qui ne le sont pas;
les premiers sont tous abjects, les autres plus ou moins positifs.
Certains films que j'ai vus, sur Flins ou Saint-Nazaire, sont d'un confort désolant:
non seulement ils ne changent rien,
mais ils rendent le public qui les voit content de lui;
c'est les meetings de “l'Humanité.”

Jacques Rivette

Les Cahiers du Cinéma, no. 204, September, 1968

(via David Phelps, here)


La Reprise du travail aux usines Wonder (Jacques Villemont, 1968):

the possibility of intervening

"The occupations movement was the sudden return of the proletariat as a historical class, a proletariat now enlarged to include a majority of the salaried employees of modern society and still tending toward the real abolition of classes and of wage labor. The movement was a rediscovery of collective and individual history, an awakening to the possibility of intervening in history, an awareness of participating in an irreversible event."
 - The Beginning of an Era (Internationale Situationniste #12, September 1969)

Power, Moral Values, and the Developing Mind: Frederick Wiseman's High School, 1968)

My post on Frederick Wiseman's 1968 film High School is up at The Auteurs' Notebook. I'm really very proud of this piece, which ties together the Athens riots of 2008, Foucault's thoughts on the relationship between power and force, Wiseman's documentary stylistic choices, the changing denotation of the word 'tyranny' in ancient Greece, the psychology of moral development, and the student revolts and social changes of 1968.

Please do read it.


IN MEMORY OF ALEXANDROS GRIGOROPOULOS.

"She does her hair like Anna Karina, and she says 'No.'"

Anna in Wonderland by Joshua Clover, at Moving Image Source

an article that contains the entire 10-minute runtime of the film in question, The Return to Work at the Wonder Factory (1968)

Here's a portion of the central exchange:

Woman: We’re in worse shape now with what these agents have done. You gave in. You gave in.

CGT#1: All your friends, your fellow workers have decided to go back in. Go back in with them.

No. I’m not going back to get fucked again. I’m not going to work in there. I’m not walking back in that place. I’m not putting a foot back in that cell.

You go back in, you can see what a shithole it is. It’s disgusting, we’re all black from it. The pretty boss is in the office. It’s good for him…

Okay, it’s okay.

Oh, it’s okay? It’s finished for you now. You’ll wash your hands of it. No way—it’s just not true.

I insist that you read the piece, and watch the video.


Also, you should be keeping up with JC's (brilliant) pseudonymous blog jane dark's sugarhigh!

Kino Fist June 08

The new issue of Kino Fist is up online; IT has an index post.

My contribution: This Woman's Work: Chantal Ackerman’s philosophy of work in Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

May 17, 1968

May 17, 1968

Considering that a free cinema and television don’t exist in the current state;

Considering that a tiny minority of authors and technicians have access to the means of production and expression;

Considering that the cinema today has a capitol mission to fulfill and is gagged at all levels in the current system:

The directors, technicians, actors, producers, film and television critics determined to put an end to the present state of affairs, have decided to convoke the Estates General of Cinema.

We invite all of you to participate in these Estates general, whose date will be specified later.

– The Revolutionary Committee of Cinema-Television

published in Cahiers du Cinéma, August 1968; via

According to Shakespeare, men are involved in history in three ways

According to Shakespeare, men are involved in history in three ways: Some create history and are its victims. Others think they create history, and are its victims also. Others yet do not create history, but they too are its victims. The first are the Kings, the second are their assistants who carry out their orders, the third are the simple citizens of the kingdom.
- Un Film Comme Les Autres

a new politics is practical and necessary

"May '68 demonstrates as well that spontaneous action can erupt quickly and surprisingly, that it can provide alternatives to standard politics, and that a new politics is practical and necessary. The initial inability of established Left political parties and unions to support the students and workers suggests the irrelevancy of politics as usual and the need to go outside of ordinary political channels and institutions to spark significant contestation and change. The Events also suggest the primacy of social and cultural revolution, of the need to change individuals, social relations, and culture as a prelude to political and systemic transformation. The total nature of the rebellion reflects the totalizing domination of the system which must itself be transformed if significant change is to take place."
- May '68 in France: Dynamics and Consequences