Abstract
What is the commitment of left-leaning artists and intellectuals in a context where the legitimacy of politics and party activism is being called into question? The analysis of the case of the French directors who have made films dealing with social issues in the 1990s–2000s shows the complexity of the boundaries between art and politics and of the possible modes of commitment through their works and/or their name. Some directors who have made one or several films dealing with the working classes in France in this period have been associated with the label “social cinema” by the critic, as well as social scientists or “anti-globalization” activists. Despite the differences in their social and professional backgrounds, they all have in common the rejection of this label, opposing “social cinema” to artistic recognition and carefully distinguishing their artwork from commitment. In order to stabilize their careers and meet professional success, they often have to move from working class issues to more valued topics and from a realistic aesthetic to a more distinguished one. They mostly commit their names for the defence of the “independence of cinema” and for humanitarian causes, rather for more overtly political or partisan issues. More generally, this case study illustrates the forms and repertoires of commitment open to artists and intellectuals in the 1990s–2000s, showing how they try to use their professional skills and resources (including their notoriety) in the service of certain causes without jeopardizing their artistic autonomy, by distancing themselves both from partisan politics and from “commercial cinema.”
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Notes
Guilloux (2000, p. 105).
The “social films” embody anticapitalist criticism that can be linked to “social criticism” (denouncing exploitation of workers, increasing poverty, and the exclusion of the working classes) as defined by L. Boltanski and È. Chiapello (1999) who oppose “social criticism” and “artistic criticism,” the latter being defined as denunciation of oppression (by contrast with “exploitation”). On the “social criticism,” Cf. also M. Walzer (1996).
Without going into detail, it should be stressed that in the field of cinematographic criticism, this category has a positive meaning for its defenders who are politically committed, whereas it has a pejorative meaning for those in favor of art for art’s sake (Mariette 2008a, Chap. 2, pp. 131–238).
This work is taken from my doctoral thesis in sociology focusing on the “social film” category in France in the 1990s–2000s, and on the social trajectory of “social films,” from their production to their reception (Mariette 2008a).
In order to build an indicative list of films and directors labeled as “social,” I explored the lists of films established individually by critics, researchers, and activists in 15 newspapers, magazines, and journal articles published between 1997 and 2001 and in which the authors use the category of “social film” bringing together several films under this label. This corpus is made up of 75 films by 56 directors (which were released in cinemas between 1991 and 2000, among which some were labeled “social” retrospectively). If we only take into account the films and directors mentioned by at least two authors, there are 36 films by 30 directors. Furthermore, I examined other sources, such as the lists of films labeled “social” in the “Fiches cinéma” of the Annuels de cinéma, which present all French and foreign films distributed annually in French cinemas.
Directors, actors, but also and mostly technicians. On the difficulty of interviewing and researching on public personalities of the cinematographic world, cf. A. Mariette (2006a, pp. 203–204).
This school makes it easier to build a professional network on the one hand and to make short films on the other. Since the 1990s, these first short films have been essential for the newcomers to enter the cinematographic world.
Following the same logic, the directors whose names sound North African are perceived as coming from the working classes.
L. Masson quoted by N. Herpe & O. Kohn (1996, comments recorded in Paris, November 23, 1995).
A. Collovald and É. Neveu note that writers of “neo-crime fiction” from extreme left movements during the May 1968 uprising remain faithful to their original political identity. But once they are well known they tend to turn into “critical intellectuals,” trying to keep away from politics in their literary works and to separate their political commitment from their writing (Collovald 2006).
Declaration repeated in several articles.
Thus, since his relative access to public recognition in 1997, one can observe a shift in the social characteristics of the characters staged by the director: with the exception of The Walker of the Mars’ field (Le Promeneur du champ de Mars) (2005), R. Guédiguian’s films have always dealt with the working classes, but in a more indirect way.
On the films which have an average budget (les films du milieu), cf. Le Club des 13 (2008).
J.-F. Richet quoted by C. Masson (1998 , comments recorded by)
Unlike the USA, in France, the “suburbs” refer to the places where lower class (especially those foreign born and minority groups) live, mostly in public housing, and the “inner city” refers to better neighborhoods, more bourgeois.
N. Herzberg (1997).
The expression “double punishment” in France denounces the fact that a person of foreign nationality who is legally sentenced to imprisonment after a crime can be banned from French territory and deported after having completing his “first sentence.”
B. Tavernier quoted by F. Garbarz (1998, comments recorded in Paris, January 8, 1998).
His documentary on the Algerian war, The war without name (La guerre sans nom) (1992) which was based on the accounts given by former conscripts from Grenoble, was cowritten with Patrick Rotman.
The Palme d’Or had never been awarded to a documentary since 1956 Le Monde du silence by L. Malle and J.-Y. Cousteau.
Cf. also the paper given October 4, 2007 at Nanterre University during the International Marx congress.
These agreements planned to cancel the French debt to the USA in exchange for the opening of the French market to American products.
The text was published 2 days afterwards (February 26, 2007) in the “Opinion” section of Le Monde on page 19, under the headline “Economic violence and French cinema.” This speech was not the first for the film director: during the night of the “7 d’Or” in 1997 when she received an award for her TV film Age of Possibles (L’âge des possibles) (also released in cinemas), P. Ferran denounced the “lists of authorized and unauthorized directors” for the following French TV channels: TF1, France 2, and France 3.
Age of Possibles (1995) was P. Ferran’s first feature film. She was a former student from the IDHEC. This film was linked to “social films” because it portrayed young people confronted with social insecurity (but nevertheless members of milieus with a strong cultural capital, the main characters being artists and/or Ph.D. students). The adaptation of the novel by D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928), her second feature film, depicts the affair between a young upper-class wife and a gamekeeper. The story deals with the relations between different social classes, but at the beginning of the century.
P. Ferran quoted by D. Péron (2007).
Le Club des 13 (2008).
We have to go back to the 1930s to find an example of a collectively produced film for a political party, in this case for the French Communist Party. Produced thanks to public funding, La vie est à nous was collectively made for the political campaign of the French Communist Party (in February–March 1936). The film was banned by the government of the Popular Front. Cf. É. Breton (2000, p. 24).
Indeed the États Généraux du Cinéma Français, founded in May 1968, paradoxically resulted in the creation of the Film Directors’ Academy (Société des Réalisateurs de Films or SRF) in June 1968 (Darré 2000).
The petition was signed by over 350 people from the French cinematographic world (Lefort and Péron 2007b).
Cf. for example B. Bantman (2007).
After the Call, published in Le Monde on March 19, 1997, a press conference was organized on the 13; on February 18, P. Ferran and A. Desplechin published an “Open letter to French congressmen” in the same newspaper; a demonstration was organized on February 22. The directors’ group (which was not officially organized) was disbanded at the end of the demonstration and asked to pursue the fight using their own means.
In 2007, an article similar to the one which was published in Le Monde on March 19, 1997, appeared in Libération. Five of the first petitioners to sign Let Them Grow Up Here! (like Robert Guédiguian and Laurent Cantet) were invited to give their opinion (Lefort and Péron 2007a).
P. Ferran (1997) replied to her 6 days later, also in the press.
Concerning the mobilization of writers in May 68, B. Gobille notes that “at first, the insecurity about the irreversibility of the coup in the midst of these revolutionary circumstances epitomized by the founding of the Writers’ Association, forced these ‘radical’ detractors to be part of it after all, in spite of the risk […] of being disqualified from the literary field, or at least in the pole of the avant-garde” (Gobille 2005, p. 38).
Without author or title, Libération, Saturday, April 11, 1998, p. 12.
These are R. Goupil and G. Mordillat, who are more frequently associated with activism than with “social” issues. Cf. without author, “Illegal immigrants: a night at the Luxembourg Gardens,” Libération, Friday, June 5, 1998, p. 16 and Bantman (1998).
This call asked for a unitary candidate on the left of the French Socialist Party.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Violaine Roussel for having coordinated this issue and Charlotte Ribeyrol and Galina Natchev for their help in translation. She also thanks the CRESPPA-CSU for its financial support for translation.
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Copyright note: This article was originally published in French as part of the book ‘Les Artistes et la Politique. Terrain franco-américain’ edited by Violaine Roussel © Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, May 2010, ISBN: 978-2-84292-257-3). All rights, except for the English language rights, are with Presses Universitaires de Vincennes. Springer thanks PUV for giving us their kind permission to reprint. For copyright and permission requests for languages other than English please write to PUV@univ-paris8.fr or call +33 (0) 1 49 40 67 50.
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Mariette, A. “Commitment Through the Work of Art,” “Commitment Through the Name”: The Case of French Directors of “Social Films” in the 1990s–2000s. Int J Polit Cult Soc 23, 157–173 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-010-9087-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-010-9087-3