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[ecrea] CfP Commitment in English Language Cinema

Fri Nov 14 11:34:59 GMT 2014




Commitment in English Language Cinema
SAES conference, Film studies workshop
June 4-6 Toulon, France

The figure of the committed filmmaker is a constant feature in the history of English-speaking cinema from Charles Chaplin and Oscar Micheaux to Ken Loach, Kathryn Bigelow and Oliver Stone. Are some genres (political thriller, social drama, war film, dystopia) or forms (documentary, naturalistic fiction) more appropriate to political commitment than others? Contributors may consider the case of the political thriller of the 1970s (All the President’s Men, Three Days of the Condor, Klute) and its avatars in the United States and elsewhere (The Pelican Brief, Hidden Agenda, Night Moves). Such examples suggest another crucial issue, which is the relationship between politically committed cinema and independent cinema. This has notably been one of the main concerns of African-American cinema from Melvyn Van Peebles, the L.A. Rebellion collective to Spike Lee.

The question of reception should also be addressed: is committed cinema necessarily a cinema of its time because it is too closely linked to a specific socio-political context? The question of the legibility of such films and of their interpretation (which is necessarily coded) cannot be separated from the question of censorship: political, social or environmental commitment is often motivated by a context where freedom of expression is limited. From this perspective, it could become relevant to consider the distinction between truly committed works (such as deepa Mehta’s “elements trilogy”) and more superficial ones, such as works of memory that do not presuppose any real risk taken by the filmmakers (the case of Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi springs to mind).

In the end, we may wonder about the potential contradiction between commitment and aesthetic achievement: can a filmmaker be an auteur while claiming to be politically committed? Is this even what such filmmakers have in mind? Isn’t there a contradiction, or at least some tension, between the process of signing a work—and thereby inviting a more aesthetic spectatorial position—and the practical end that commitment implies, as witnessed by the examples of British collectives of the 1930s (Kino) or 1970s and 1980s (Amber, Sankofa) and by American collectives of the 1930s (Film and Photo League), 1940s (Frontier) and 1960s (Newsreel)? Indeed, American, British and South African militant documentaries have often been collective works.

Of course, commitment is not just about directors. English-speaking actors and actresses have also broadcast their commitment to political, social and humanitarian causes, like Stephen Fry, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and George Clooney, or Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart before them, or even a whole company like Warner Bros. in the 1930s. Does such a form of commitment inform the construction of the star’s persona or of the company’s identity in a way that influences the way the films can be read? 300-word abstracts should be sent to Jean-François Baillon ((jfbaillon /at/ sfr.fr)), Isabelle Le Corff ((cils /at/ wanadoo.fr)) and David Roche ((mudrock /at/ neuf.fr)) by January 31, 2015.

Select bibliography

Barnouw, Erik. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film. Second Revised Edition. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993 [1973].

Bolter, Trudy, dir. Cinéma anglophone et politique. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007.

Comolli, Jean-Louis. Voir et Pouvoir. Paris: Verdier, 2004.

Dickinson, Margaret, ed. Rogue Reels. Oppositional Film in Britain, 1945-90. London: BFI Publishing, 1999.

Friedman, Lester, ed. Fires Were Started. British Cinema and Thatcherism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.

Hill, John, Ken Loach: The Politics of Film and Television. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Hogenkamp, Bert, Deadly Parallels: Film and the Left in Britain 1929-1939. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1986

Lamberti, Edward, dir., Behind the Scenes at the BBFC. Film Classification from the Silver Screen to the Digital Age, Londres, BFI / Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Leigh, Jacob, The Cinema of Ken Loach: art in the service of the people, Londres: Wallflower Press, 2002

Macpherson, Don, dir., Traditions of Independence. British Cinema in the Thirties. London: BFI Publishing, 1980.

McEnteer, James. Shooting the Truth: The Rise of American Political Documentaries. Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 2006.

Pilard, Philippe. Land and Freedom. Ken Loach. Paris: Nathan, 1997

Ramonet, Ignacio. Propagandes silencieuses : Masses, Télévision, cinéma. Paris: folio actuel, 2000.

Rancière, Jacques. Le Spectateur émancipé. Paris: La Fabrique, 2008.

---. Malaise dans l’esthétique. Paris: Galilée, 2004.

Rosenthal, Alan and John Corner, eds. New Challenges for Documentary. Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 2005 [1988].

Sand, Schlomo. Le Vingtième siècle à l’écran. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2002.

Saunders, Dave. Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties. London and New York: Wallflower Press, 2007.

Waugh, Thomas, ed. Show Us Life. Towards a History and Aesthetics of the Committed Documentary. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995.



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