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    of this science (dialectical materialism). There is no question of improvingor duplicating the apparatuses of the bourgeoisie, but, o n the c ontrary, ofhastening their downfall by setting up in their place proletarian apparatuses.This work remires a sharp break from obfuscating discourses parading as---formal avant-garde or as Freudian Marxism-m u s our interventions in a specific practice (the cinema) and gradually inother artistic practices call for more aid more political analyses and inves-tigations in th e field of historical and dialectical materialism. Whilstavoiding eclecticism, work of this kind is2 and will continue t o be publishedNotes1. Tr. note: This is a pun w hich cannot be reproduced in English. In French, theword Smite means both 'straight line' and 'right'.2. . our a s u e n o 11-12):Tolitiques de la censure' (Politics of Censor-ship), 'Pratiques de diffusion' (Dissemination Practices), 'Les pratiques artistiquedans le marxisme-leninisme' (Artistic Practices m Marxism-Leninism), Du refletau procbs' (From R eflection to Process).

    on the subject of Coup pour coup *Leblanc-Cinithiqueince on box office takings, acceptance by Art et E s m f exhibitors who,umber of cinemas under their management grows, are increasinglyinto producer-d istribut~ rs,^ censor's certificate obtained withoutis. All this seems to confirm Jaques Duharnel's speech to th e Nationally, reproduc ed by various organs of the press, in which he said: " Thereilitical censorship in ~r a nc e " .~? pour coup is part of t he ideological class struggle towards the over-f the bourgeoisie by the proletariat and its allies. The film aims to: particular reflection of a reality evolving in th e factories at the pre-iment: the spontaneous struggle of men and women workers againstses, and their discovery of the necessity, if they are to assert their[ic demands (struggle against the reduction of real earnings, strugglethe demand for increased rates of production, struggles against worsen-king conditions, etc.), t o fight against the revisionist unions (whichnate working-class econom ic demands to a cringing application of theompact' policy the bourgeois state is striving to impose on the two sc-acial partners, bosses-working-class).could or should be demanded from the revolutionary viewpoint31 which takes as the object of reflection certain aspects of the mostd struggles, led by the working-class and what is more, by one of itsploited segments (women workers, who undergo a second level ofition within the family unit, a unit which bourgeois ideology seeks toce within th e working-class since it contributes to the reinforcementalist relations of produc tion; if a working-class couple obe y the call of)is ideology, the woman has the fu nction of contributin g through ser-k-upkeep of home , husband and children, the latter moreoverd by the dominant bourgeois ideological apparatus, the school-tooduction of the worker's labour power, without costing the bou r-I penny)?i simple documentary report on these struggles (though this wouldIvance on the films distributed in the Art et Essai circuit at the:),and not simply the reduplication of those struggles, but an activeIn, a reflection which makes room for a rise in working-class con-is$ and progress tow ards victory against the class enemy (theiment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in France).concept of the role of the revolutionary film-maker in France wouldimbatting the kind of declaration Karmitz makes in Ecran 72 (whichlated from Ecran 72, no 4 , April 1972,pp 4 14 , with permission.vernment-subsidised art-house circu it.

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    conveys something of Karmitz's erroneous conceptions of class struggles andthe place of cinema within th ose struggles); 'We have confidence in those w hostruggle; this is not a film which offers them a strategy or form of organisa-tion.' While we agree with Karmitz in thinking that th e question of revolution-ary content (what we at Cin6thique call the ideological struggle within thenon-specific cinematic codes) is a determining factor in the making of a revolu-tionary film, resolving the q uestion is certainly not a matter of investigatingthe power of the film-in-itself, in an abstract way (leaving out the analysis ofclass contradictions at the present mome nt and the reflection of these contra-dictions within the specific contradictions of a film made at th e same moment).Resolving this question means:1. determining the political line which must regulate the making ofa film seen as an active and specific reflection of the co ncrete situationanalysed by Marxist Leninist theory within its creative development;2. determining the specific transformations implied by puttin g thispolitical line to work in film practice. Resolving the question ofrevolutionary cont ent means first resolving the prob lems which everymilitant (whether filmmaker or not) faces in practice.

    Does this mean that Karmitz's error is a result of the 'modesty' of his preten-tions with regard to cinema? Not at all. The specific error is dictated by afalse political line, being developed a t the m omen t by La Cause du Peuple.It is principally characterised by its spontaneism and oppo rtunism. Todemonstrate b riefly: T he line elaborated by 'La Cause du Peuple' a t thepresent moment hooks the work of communist propaganda on to the spon-taneous mass movement. Now, that spontaneous mass movement is notrevolutionary in itself, although it is the effect of the develop ment of classantagonisms. If it is not d irected (and consequen tly transformed) byMarxist-Leninist theory, it will never 'spontaneously' culminate in th e over-throw of th e bourgeois dictatorship of the proletariat. The role ofrevolutionary intellectuals in the present period, whatever their specificpractice, does no t consist solely in allying themselves to the spon taneousmass movement. It also consists in raising their theo retical activity to thelevel of tha t movement. The development o f the spontaneous mass movementcalls for, demand s and is dialectically linked to the d evelopment o f revolution-ary theory. And o ut of the efforts made by the workers and intellectuals ofthe avant-garde in this direction will come the revolutionary organisation(party), rendered objectively necessary by the development of the internalcontradictions of French society.The economic class struggle against factory bosses (even though it takeson forms as violent as holding prisoners) is not yet th e political class struggle(even though it is inseparable from it) against the bourgeois sta te apparatus.It is useless to make an att ack on t he CGT, only to fall back int o an econo-mism of a new type. In the course of the film, the women workers learn thatthey can fight the bosses, earn the respect of the managerial staff (adminis-trative, supervisory), assert through violence th e satisfaction o f their econo mic

    demands (the state apparatus features in the form of a Dep uty wh o advisesthe imprisoned boss t o negotiate, since the strike by women wo rkers is pro-voking movements of solidarity in other factories). S ome shots ofdemonstrations are thus inserted in to the sequence of images. But nothingis said on the conditions that need t o operate in order to transform thisstrike (which focuses the lessons drawn from num erous strikes by womenworkers in the recent period) and this spontaneous mov ement in to a revo-lutionary movem ent (i.e., a movemen t which subo rdinates tactics-strugglesto be led within a definite, limited time period at all levels of the socialstructure-to a strategy of take-over of power by the proletariat and itsallies). The reflection presented by the film is resolutely passive and tag-along. The spon taneis t political line rises 'obviously' (i.e., dialectically ) inthe film practice which sets it in motion. In this fiction film without actors,what d ominates is the ideology of the 'experienced', the well-observed, thedetail stamped accurate. In other words the ideology of th e mirror, whichallows women workers t o contemplate themselves in a factory as real as theone in which they have struggled at some time. The dialectical materialistprocess of knowledge (the philoso phy of the p roletariat in struggle) is inradical opposition t o this ideology. It does not remain at the stage of percep-tions and representations . It links the co ncrete struggles against capital toknowledge of its internal mechanisms and this knowledge acts in return o nthe co ncrete struggles, charging them with a revolutionary co ntent. I t is notconfined to lining up a few stereotyp e representations of the repressive stateapparatus, it breaks down th e processes which determine its intervention andthe processes which allow it- to be combatted and overcome. It proposespolitical resolutions to the eco nomic contradictions within which the w orking-class is held.Only films of this kind (which put into op eration within their specificcontradictions a dialectical materialist progression in knowledge) can claim tocontribu te to revolutionary practice in a historical period characterised bythe absence of a Marxist-Lenninist party (and consequently by the impos- .sibili ty of making mass f il rn ~) .~he formal filmic transformations madenecessary by our concrete situation are considerable. But the formal trans-formations are not 'formalist'. They are in step with new , revolutionary,conten t to be set in motion. And it is clearly in order no t to set such acon tent in mo tion that Karmitz adop ts bourgeois film practice uncritically.

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    Guy Henpebelle-Ecran 72I consider Marin Karmitz to be one of the most important French f ilmmakersof the day . He is one of the few to have drawn coherent conclusions from thefailed rising of May 1968.While the majority of the reedy teno rs of ourcinema hurriedly closed their memories t o bad recollections, or at best,acquitted themselves of responsibility by scattering delicate 'allusions'through their films, as they did during the Algerian war, Marin Karmitz und er-took to place the seventh art at the service of popular struggles in a real way.

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    In so doing he marked a break with a whole current o f utopianism and'culturalism', which saw in May 1968 simply a'will to change life withoutreally overthrowing the stru cture of F rench capitalist society. The observa-tion o f their failure moreover o ften leads the followers of this line, mysticalprophets of the hip py tribes, to the escapist excesses of the beats, denouncingthe famous consumer society on the basis of an erroneous concept, and .extolling, as does Diourka Medvecsky in Paul and Jean Rouch in Petit 2 petit,a return t o origins and th e golden age, through a withdrawal t o bucolic life ora voyage to some faraway elsewhere.By allying himself with the real life of Franch people, Marin Karmitzalso accomplishes a leap forward as far as French cinema is concerned, in thesense that he goes beyon d the stage of humanist d enunciations and the vaguelyprogressive. Such it seems to me is the basic requirement of a revolutionarycinema today, in this coun try in particular and in Western Euro pe in general.It is no longer enough to appeal to the emo tions of a well-intentioned audienceagainst the misdeeds of an unjust society. We have to go f urther , to show theway towards the ov erthrow of capitalism by describing in concrete terms thepopular struggles going on from day t o day on all fronts, and by placing themwithin the framework o f a strategy and method.For Marin Karmitz th at meth od is obviously M arxist-Leninist. In thisrespect it is useful to recall something of his personal evolution. To m e it .seems significant and even in many cases exemplary. Marin Karmitz comesfrom a bourgeois milieu and began by shooting shorts which toda y he rejects.Nuit noire, Calcutta, made in collabo ration with Marguerite Duras, makes aninteresting comparison with the last of these films, Jaune Ie soleil; the pathMarin Karmitz traced in order to escape the anguished but self-congratulatoryproblematic of an intelligtsi continually resifting its own fantasies is clearlyobservable. In h is first long film, Sept jours ailleurs, after dwelling at lengthon the existential anguish of a bourgeois artist, the film mak er can only offeran infantile revolt, expressed in gunshots, against the supposed cause of tha talienation-the object (telep hone , television, various machines). The sameerroneous perspective is shared by R en6 Allio inPeter and Paul.Then came Camarades.This film which set out to describe the prole-tarianisation and awakening of consciousness of the y oung offspring of apetit-bourgeois tradesman, marked a notable stage in the evolution of bothKarmitz and the French cinema in the search for new paths. Of course onbo th the political and the formal level the film was still marked by theideology of t he traditional left film, especially its first part (as I said inCineha 71, no 3) . But it constituted an imp ortant advance, particularly inthe second part.

    In the interview published in no 3 of this journal, th e film collective ofCoup pour cou p stressed the aesthetic faults and political deficiencies ofCamarades.The point needs making that Coup pour co up owes much to thecriticism and self-criticism provoked by the preceding film. Unlike many film-makers, Marin Karmitz did not retreat in to the offended dignity of th eauteur, but accepted the challenging of his work.

    Filmed in conditions unprecedented for Fren ch cinema, this third longfilm has primarily the advantage of setting its action in the h eart of theworking-class. Not a very comm on phenom enon. S econd , it makes theheroines women, a sex which th e Paris cinema has often relegated to th e levelof titillating and useless toy. Thi rd, the film tells the story of a strike, a hardstrike without any fancy trimmings. Fourth, it constitutes a call to revoltagainst exploitation by the bosses. Fifth, it takes violent issues with the fail-ure and betrayal of the union leadership.The canvas is rich! It is possible in a sense to 'unders tand' the reactionof the em ployers' federation for th e Paris region (see Le Monde, February24), which denounced in alarm 'this film of incitement to misdemeanours,to taking the law int o your ow n hands, occupying factories, and locking upthe owners, a crime punishable by A rticle 341 of the penal code' and qualifiesCoup pour cou p as a 'particularly aggravating piece of provocation',To digress slightly: The 'revolutionary films' so praised by t woaesthetically ultra-left journals, with titles like Othon, Lutte en Italic, Ventd 'est, Mediterrande, Le joueur de quilles , and other produces of the laboratory,have never aroused so much ir e among those gentlemen and that is no t sur-prising. The 'cinema revolu tion7,which to this day has only producedworthless and boring films and which does not even have the merit of pr o-posing new forms, does not distress the French employers' federation.1 It is adifferent thing where the tru e revolutionary cinema is concerned. It is timeto put an end to the telquellian illusion according t o which intellectuals havethe special task of pro moting a 'proletarian line' o n the 'language front'against the 'bourgeois line', while the workers have as their objective thetake-over of power in the factories. Behind the screen of this log~ina, ywithout risk lurks the badly repaired corpse of a new art for art's sake. Thisdoes not m ean that a revolution in th e forms of expression is not necessary,but it can only arise in a progressive way through patient work effected incollaboration with the people for whom one claims to be fighting. This is thecase for Coup pour cou p. This is the only way o f resolving the eternal anddifficult problem of th e relation between the artistic and the political avantgardes.The form of Coup pour coup is much more consistent and much moreelaborated than that of Camarades. I think that, this time, the double snag ofpopulism and workerism has been avoided o verall, as has the pitfall of social-

    , ist realism in the Soviet version of the late thirties. The f ilmma kers, takingtheir inspiration in a believable way from the Yenan Proposition, declaredthat they wanted to combine realism on the level of descriptio-n with a certainromanticism in perspectives. The result, although it may n ot initiate a newart as yet , seems to me remarkable in its power and accuracy. The dissolutionof the individual hero in to the collectivity will be no ted.The film will no doub t be reproached for resorting to spectacularisation.I should say first that th e term here has nothing to do w ith what is practisedin the films of the 'Z series' (as defined in no 3 of this journal). S econd , what-ever may be said of i t, the cinema will always be a sp ectacle. 'Deconstruction'

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    (as distinct from Brechtian 'distanciation') rarely opens up an ything mo re thanbored om. M oreover, I would defy an yone t o mobilise a significant mass ofpeople or even arouse their interest on t he basis of a film as admirable andintelligent (in spite of a certain confusion) as Oser lutter, oser vaincre (a docu-mentary account of a strike at Flins by the Maoist 'Ligne rouge'). It is muchtoo austere.What remains to be considered is the delicate point in Coup pour coup-its virulent anti-trade un ionism. While I am absolutely convinced that the ,image of the officials (whether CGT r CFTD , it is not mad e clear) given bythe film is true t o reality, I nevertheless believe that there is a confusion t herebetween the trade union leadership an d trade unions as a whole and tha t thefilm tips into spon taneism. Why 'squash' the character of the sho p steward(not t o be confused w ith the general secretary, in a tailored suit), wh o is onstrike and seems discreetly to direct it? Of course, faced with the omnipresenceof revisionism which preaches collaboration o f th e classes, it is no t easy t oconstruct a true revolutionary strategy, but t he evidence conde mns spon-taneism ou t of hand.But to be justified in regretting this error, it is necessary first t odenounce t he opportun ist policy which gave it birth. Lenin in fact said thatleftism was simply punishment fo r the sins of opportunism . He wrote: 'In afew advanced countries m odern imperialism has created a situatio n of ex-ceptional privilege which has fostered th e growth o f leaders of the treacherousopportunist, social-chauvinist t ype, the lab our aristocracy, defending theinterests of their own social stratum. The victory of the revolutionary prole-tariat is impossible unless we fight this evil, denounce it and make it witheraway, unless we thro w o ut th e op portun ist, social-traitor leaders.'This is why it seems to me the mistake of Coup pour cou p remainsminor in th e light of its qualities. Looking at this very remarkable 'incitementto revolt' an d t o the 'uplifting of life' as Maurice Clavel would say, brings t omind Dom inique Grange's poignant song, Les nouveanx partisans, which ex-to ls th e sharp-shooters of th e class war' and abuses 'the galley-slaves of theworking-class and the official flunkeys who stick to p ontoon.'

    A man died at th e age of 23 because he wanted t o unmask them . Hewas called Pierre Overney.NotesGerard Leblanc1. The brothers R ochman will be familiar names. New owners of t he '3 Elyshes',they are, with a G erman television network, co-producers of Coup pour cou p.2. The same period saw the creation of a 'committee for measures against politicalcensorship', which aims to set Duhamel's statement in to contradiction w ith hispractice. The committee intended to present the film censorship board with someforty 'militant' films (shot before and after May 6 8 ) en bloc, the majority ofwhich had no t been given a certificate on completion.Such a step does not seem to me to be of a kind t o bother t he minister for cultureor the censorship board. It would undoubted ly have been useful, before takingsuch a step to carry ou t a concrete analysis of the ph enomenon of film censor-ship in France (what 1 say here is based o n work in progress begun in Cinethique

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    no s 11-12 and continued in CinSthique no 13). At the level of empirical observa-tion, we note that Coup pour coup obtained its censor's certificate witho utdifficulty. And this is a film no less politically 'advanced' than t he majority o ffilms the committee plans to present t o the board. Moreover, its careful presen-tation makes it perfectly acceptable in the Art e t Essai circuit-All well and good. But getting a certificate would allow some forty films to beexhibited in th e non-commercial circuit witho ut risk of being seized. Thequestion then posed is that of the political work possible using these films as astarting point. To my knowledge this basic question has not been raised.A revolutionary viewpoint is a viewpoint which strives to resolve contradictionsfrom the viewpoint of the secondary, and at the mom ent dominated , aspect ofthe principal contradiction, in which th e bourgeoisie at th e mome nt constitutesthe principal aspect. The secondary aspect in question is th e proletariat.In Ecran 72no 3, Guy Hennebelle identifies with th e Chinese and Albanianaudience s and accuses us of 'ultra-leftism' for defending films-i.e., the filmsof the Dziga Vertov Group-which those audiences would 'reject'. We adviseHennebelle to begin with a political analysis of the con tradictions of Frenchsociety before throwing ou t such statements. At the same time we might submita new problem for his wise consideration: Cin/thique also distribute Chinese films(including The Red Detachment of W omen).We hope he'll be there. For thosewho are interested in Cinethique's positions on t he Dziga Vertov films we refer tothe magazine VH 101no 6 .Although the general line of this tex t seems correct to us, the complexity of theproblems broached, which are fundamental in nature, would require much longertreatment. T he space accorded to us in this journal makes it impossible. Obviouslywe are ready to produce t he discussion if such a debate were to interest th ereaders and editors of Ecran 72.Guy HemebelleNot th e Communist Party of France, as Jean D elmas emphasised in Jeune Cinema52.

    translated by Diana Matias