Date: 25 October 2008 | Season: London Film Festival 2008 | Tags: London Film Festival
GUY DEBORD
Saturday 25 October 2008, at 4pm
London BFI Southbank NFT3
‘The cinema, too, has to be destroyed.’ (Guy Debord)
An extremely rare opportunity to see new 35mm prints of films by French writer and theorist Guy Debord, best known for The Society of the Spectacle. Debord was a central figure of the Situationist International (SI), a nihilistic band of agitators whose harsh critiques of capitalist society, inspired by Marxism and Dada, were conveyed through publications, visual art and collective actions. Articulated primarily in the French language, Situationism was relatively ineffective in Britain and America in its time, and though numerous translations are now available, Debord’s radical films remain unseen. Far ahead of its time, his technique of ‘détournement’ assimilates still and moving image-scraps from features, newsreels, printed matter, advertisements and other detritus to satisfy the viewer’s ‘pathetic need’ for cinematic illusion. Propelled by a spoken, monotonous discourse, the images do not so much illustrate the text as underpin it, often maintaining a metaphorical relationship that may not at first be apparent. The two films showing here effectively bookend Debord’s involvement with the Situationists, whose politically subversive practice aspired to provoke a revolution of everyday life.
Guy Debord, Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps, France, 1959, 18 min
In the dingy bars of St-Germain-des-Prés, Debord and his associates formed a bohemian underground for whom ‘oblivion was their ruling passion.’ This anti-documentary captures the SI close to its moment of inception, following their separation from the Lettristes two years prior.
Guy Debord, In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, France, 1978, 105 min
‘I will make no concessions to the public in this film. I believe there are several good reasons for this decision, and I am going to state them.’ And state them he does. Debord’s final film is a denunciation of cinema and society at large, an unremitting diatribe against consumption. The SI is equated to a military operation (charge of the light brigade, no less) as its members are presented alongside images of the D-Day landings, Andreas Baader, Zorro, a comic strip Prince Valliant and quotes from Shakespeare, Ecclesiastes and Omar Khayyám. Debord takes no prisoners in this testament to his anarchistic vision.
Screening in the presence of Alice Debord.
PROGRAMME NOTES
GUY DEBORD
Saturday 25 October 2008, at 4pm
London BFI Southbank NFT3
SUR LE PASSAGE DE QUELQUES PERSONNES À TRAVERS UNE ASSEZ COURTE UNITÉ DE TEMPS
Guy Debord, France, 1959, 35mm, b/w, sound, 18 min
You have rightly noticed the difference in the text-image relation between the first and second parts of Passage. Detourned phrases can be found throughout the film, but the majority are in the first part. My plan was as follows: The film begins like a typical, technically ordinary documentary. Gradually it becomes less clear and more disappointing, which might at first seem to be the result of a pretentious ‘ideological’ interpretation of an otherwise clear subject, because the text appears increasingly inadequate and pompously inflated in relation to the images (the tone of Lefebvre = Marx-Goldman-Huizinga!). The question then arises: What is the subject of this film? – which I think represents an irritating and upsetting break with the habitual spectacle. With the appearance of the first blank screen, the film begins to contradict itself in every way – and thus becomes more clear as its creator takes sides against it. It is both a rather explicitly anti-art-film about the unaccomplished work of this era and an ultimately realistic description of a way of life deprived of coherence and significance. The form corresponds to the content. It does not describe this or that particular activity (merchant marine, oil exploration, some historic monument to admire – or even to demolish, as in Franju’s magnificent Hôtel des invalides), but the very core of present-day activity in general, which is empty. It is a portrayal of the absence of ‘real life.’ This slow movement of exposure and negation is what I was trying to embody in Passage. But very summarily and arbitrarily, I must admit. Despite the prevalent fixation on the economic obstacles, the main problem is actually that short films are quite unsuitable for truly experimental cinema. Their very brevity tends to encourage a moderate, neatly edited form of expression. But it does seem interesting to détourn the fixed form of the traditional documentary, and this tends to tie us to the inviolable 20-minute limit. (Guy Debord, Letter to André Frankin, 1960)
IN GIRUM IMUS NOCTE ET CONSUMIMUR IGNI
Guy Debord, France, 1978, 35mm, b/w, sound, 105 min
‘I will make no concessions to the public in this film,’ says Guy Debord at the beginning of his 1978 film, and he stays true to his word. The palindromically-titled In girum (roughly translated as ‘we spin around the night consumed by fire’) is not so much a difficult film as an act of pure negation from the founder of the Situationist International. Like all of Debord’s films, In girum stands apart from cinema, not to mention the modern world as it has evolved into its present state. Images from magazines, comics, and popular films are turned inside out (a process defined by Debord as détournement) to illustrate what he sees as the complete vacuity of mediatized society, of which we the viewers are unknowing participants. To those who complain that they do not understand his purpose or his historical allusions, Debord suggests that they ‘blame their own sterility and lack of education rather than my methods; they have wasted their time at college, bargain shopping for worn-out fragments of second-hand knowledge.’ In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni is an act of condemnation, but it is also an affirmation – of our ability to build on the best rather than the worst in mankind, to create a true Utopia rather than a paltry counterfeit. Without exaggeration, this is one of the most provocative experiences you’ll ever have at the movies. (Kent Jones, Film Society of Lincoln Centre)
Back to top
