LA COMMUNE (an attempt at a daytrip from Universal Time)

"We are now moving through a very bleak period in human history - where the conjunction of Post Modernist cynicism (eliminating humanistic and critical thinking in the education system), sheer greed engendered by the consumer society sweeping many people under its wing, human, economic and environmental catastrophe in the form of globalization, massively increased suffering and exploitation of the people of the so-called Third World, as well as the mind-numbing conformity and standardization caused by the systematic audiovisualization of the planet have synergistically created a world where ethics, morality, human collectivity, and commitment (except to opportunism) are considered “old fashioned.” Where excess and economic exploitation have become the norm - to be taught even to children. In such a world as this, what happened in Paris in the spring of 1871 represented (and still represents) the idea of commitment to a struggle for a better world, and of the need for some form of collective social Utopia - which WE now need as desperately as dying people need plasma. The notion of a film showing this commitment was thus born." --Peter Watkins

LA COMMUNE, (Watkins, 2000, 345mins, DVD) is one of Peter Watkins most assertive measures against Monoform,* methods of media production and distribution. It is an event, a collaboration, and a beseeching -- a warm, crafty endurance that produces questions like weeds throughout its nearly six hour run time.

Length is only the most discussed abbererant feature of LA COMMUNE, and perhaps the least interesting. Watkins employed techniques in casting, research, shooting, and editing that address form and delivery in radical ways, many of which surface in his other work, but are taken to a deliberately lengthy extent here.

“If Hollywood’s colonization of world cinema markets is an integral component of the media apparatus, as the film explicitly argues in the later sections (by means of the black title screens that narrate a bulk of the action), then making a film in deliberate defiance of the standards which embody the Hollywood ethic is a step toward reappropriating cinema. Every aspect of the filmmaking serves this end: the overwhelming use of non-professional actors; the director’s deference to the actors for much of the script; the offhand shift in temporal perspectives; the constant breaking of the “fourth wall”; the exclusion of all on-screen violence; the unusual amount of reading the viewer is forced to do. None of these techniques are new in themselves, but rarely have they been fused in one film, on the scale of La Commune.” --Jacob Collins, Evergreen Review

For this day-long screening, we will divide the film into two parts, with a 30 minute break in between. The screening will begin at 11:30am. Following the film, there will be a light meal and conversation at the 16 Beaver space.

Admission is free. Please if possible bring food, tea, juice, coffee to share during the break, or something to contribute to the dinner/conversation, which will consist mainly of salad, cheese, bread, and wine.

Rachael Rakes and Red Channels are preparing a reader to be distributed on the day of the event.

Here is a list of preparatory material:
On the film:
http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/commune.htm
http://www.rebond.org/english.htm
http://www.critikat.com/L-Association-Rebond-pour-La.html
http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/film-peter-watkins-la-commune.html
On Commune history:
http://www.unbossed.com/index.php?itemid=2496
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/Pariscommune.htm
http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/index.htm
http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/kropotkin/pcommune.html
http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/bakunin/paris.html
http://www.bloom0101.org/toafriend.html

16 Beaver: http://www.16beavergroup.org/

*The MONOFORM is the internal language-form (editing, narrative structure, etc.) used by TV and the commercial cinema to present their messages. It is the densely packed and rapidly edited barrage of images and sounds, the 'seamless' yet fragmented modular structure which we all know so well. This language-form appeared early on in the cinema, with the work of pioneers such as D.W.Griffith, and others who developed techniques of rapid editing, montage, parallel action, cutting between long shots/close shots, etc. Now it also includes dense layers of music, voice and sound effects, abrupt cutting for shock effect, emotion-arousing music saturating every scene, rhythmic dialogue patterns, and endlessly moving cameras. http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/hollywood.htm

DVDs of LA COMMUNE are available from Icarus Films athttp://homevideo.icarusfilms.com/new2002/la.shtml

Many thanks to Jonathan Miller at Icarus for permission to hold this community screening.