Bourgeois Fantasies: Losers who didn't get to write history
"Biography behind the films misses the point"
Hello,
I’ve graduated from the Royal College of Art’s Writing programme recently. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing a selection of excerpts from my thesis, if only to let it have a glimpse of the world.
I wrote about two films, Chris Marker’s Cuba Si! and Agnes Varda’s Salut les Cubains. The films are about Cuba, yet they are not made by Cubans. Each plays with the visual language of politically-engaged documentary, the video essay and, at times, poetry.
They are examples of many things: the optimism felt by artists, writers and filmmakers about socialism through the 20th century; they are tremendously influential examples of avant-garde cinema; each is a turning point in the life and career of its maker.
Shaped by the artistic and political context of their time, they are also historical documents in their own right. By watching each film we encounter a not-too-distant past, we experience a perspective that contributed to contemporary ideas of politics and filmmaking through its influence, but one that may also have much more to give.
I hope you enjoy.
Chris
Photograph by Agnes Varda, from Varda-Cuba by Éditions Du Centre Pompidou, 2015, scanned at The British Library.
But perhaps beginning with the biography behind the film misses the point. There is a step before we get to the background, and that step is the reason why we would be attracted to such films in the first place. To return to these films now is to encounter a time when artists through the 20th century were moved by the optimism and the promise of socialism. Within these films there is an answer to the question of what it might mean to be a politically engaged artist, and an example of experimental filmmaking practice that is a culmination of what came before and precedes what will follow it.
They are odd turning points within the timeline of Chris Marker and Agnes Varda’s lives, sitting awkwardly in between better known films. At times they've been cited to bolster the revolutionary bona fide of each artist, and at other times they have been downplayed or pushed to the side, perhaps to place an emphasis on their status as great filmmakers rather than activists. In a way, this is also the story of politics of politically-engaged art through the 20th century – dramatic stories of artists taking the right side on various conflicts, wars and disputes. Such affinities affirm our hopes for the progressive nature of the arts. Yet, there is something uncomfortable or uneasy about these alternative traditions, particularly now as they have largely faded into the background. The idea that the artist might have a mission or a function is a heavy burden, one which gets in the way of notions of creativity and in individual freedom. That is the side that won the Cold War. When we look back to these past examples, we are looking at the losers who didn't get to write history.
It takes time to learn how to look at these films. To learn how they want you to look and to think. A thrilling observation we can glean from this is that our attention and aesthetic sensibility is something that has been shaped – and can be cultivated in a new direction in the future. Terms that might define this alternative tradition include critique and didacticism. It involves a notion of the artist or someone who has a message. The important thing, of course, is that there is a medium and an audience to receive it, and a cause for all this energy to be channelled towards. The arts become a kind of vehicle for the masses, or we might say the masses are a vehicle for the arts. As I spent time with these films, I could feel something change, and after repeated viewing, I still feel like there is a lot more to learn, further time is required to fit them into the groove of my attention span and expectations.