La Commune

This past week I had the opportunity to watch Peter Watkins' revolutionary critique of media and rehashing of the Paris Commune, La Commune. This was one of the most emotionally inspiring, politically challenging, and intellectually stimulating films I've seen in my life. The running time of the film is 5 hours and 54 minutes. It uses the convention of "tv crews" on site at the Paris Commune, an event that took place in 1871 in response to the Franco-Prussian Wars. Using 2oo Parisian working class people, Watkins restages the commune and uses his film as a tool to engage these people in questions of revolution, historical reflection, and strategic thinking on contemporary globalization and class war. Issues ranging from immigration, the function of the mass media, the validity of violence in struggle, class and state repression, the trouble with nationalism, and women's rights are all foregrounded though the film. In many ways, this film is a perfect cinematic companion to Pierre Bourdieu's On Television, two lectures Bourdieu gave about the flaws of broadcast models based on ratings systems that fail to move forward smaller, more specialized intellectual, social, and cultural projects.