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Filmmakers Journal

Welcome to the eighth issue of One+One Filmmakers Journal

I am watching TV5s coverage of the British Diamond Jubilee TV screen hatched with red, white and blue diagonals, verticals and horizontals - in the Swiss quadrant of a French airport. Outside the white cross of Switzerland is lazily overlaid now, now... now by the parallel bands of the tricolore. Into this very Journal European lattice, seeps the garbled French of German fashion Filmmakers designer Karl Lagerfeld clad in his usual black, I presume (though I cant see through the grid), swathing an approaching woman in flattery more virginal white than her raiment. Upon a boat she appears, solitary and luminous, set apart from the weave of sodden subjects by the stilly greeny plane of the river Thames over which she glides. The Royal Jubilee bells sound incessantly, signalling her resplendence, as a cash register behind my head rings up fifty-seven francs and fifty-seven cents. This eighth issue of One+One: Filmmakers Journal begins with some responses to a Jubilee of a different sort the 1978 film and arguable jewel in the crown of the celebratedandcontroversialBritishdirectorDerekJarman.Openingourdialoguewith Jarmansincendiaryifflawedmasterpiece,JamesMarcusTuckeroffersapersonal reflectiononJarmanandJubileeinparticularasearlyinfluencesuponhiswork,which foreveralteredthedevelopmentallocusofthisyoungfilmmaker.Hisaccountsketches thepoliticalambivalenceofJarmansworkandportraysthedirectorasanEnglishmanat warwithhimself:conservativethoughqueer;staidyetincontrovertiblyradical.Bradley TucksTheLastDreamsofEnglandintersectswithJamespiece,ontheideological ambivalence which characterises this film, and considers Jarmans reaction to the nihilisticco-ordinatesofpunk.Traversing,insomeways,alinethatJamesquotesfrom Jarman, that politics has had it, old-fashioned politics like Marxism, Capitalism and Socialism,Bradleyexploresthesignificanceof1977asitsurfacesthroughantithetical and yet coterminous ideologies which protrude through Jarmans film. In a parallel fashion, my contribution imagines possible interpenetrations between the concerns of Kathy Ackers provocative 1978 novel Blood and Guts in High School and those of Jarmans Jubilee, finding in the one a sideshow mirror-image of the other, in their respectivedisillusionmentwithwhattheyperceivedtobepunksforeshortenedfuture.

Considering a different British filmmaker, though occasionally criss-crossing these preceding pieces, Paul Barrs Englands Disappearing Metropolis: Patrick Keilliers Critique of Disembodied Spaces, suggests that the key to understanding Patrick KeilliersworkisinitsmobilisationofthepastinordertoyieldBergsonianvirtualities. London(1994),accordingtoBarrsfascinatingconjunctionofKeillierandGillesDeleuze, usestheoverlappingtexturesoftheLondonlandscapeinordertogenerateconditions foraffectiveintensitiesandalternatetemporalitiesinthehereandnow:hepersuasively arguesthatKeillierasksustoconsideranewmeansofperceivingthecity;becoming attunedtothecityshidden(virtual,yetnonethelessreal)vitalenergiesthatretainthe imprintofalternatefutures. InthisissueyouwillalsofindareportoutliningOne+OnesRevolutionsinProgress filmchallengesetlastwinterthat,respondingtoaculturalzeitgeistepitomisedbythe emergenceofOccupyandtheArabSpring,askedfilmmakerstorespondtothetheme ofrevolutionandfilm,revolutiononfilmandrevolutionbyfilm.LikeOne+Oneitself,this challengeattemptedtomapoutsmooth,un-striatedcinematicspaceswhereradical thought and radical filmmaking might coalesce, venturing beyond the circumscribed confinesofthecontemporarypoliticalmatrix. Issue8closeswithJamesMarcusTuckersnewcolumnTheViewfromHere,which combines personal ruminations on the craft of filmmaking with in-depth analysis of some prominent issues and concerns facing independent filmmakers today. His impressive derive through the backstreets of independent filmmaking takes in, en route, such subjects as the fraught relationship of independent filmmaking to the vampirecephalopodofthecapitalistsystem,DerrideanhauntologyintworecentBFI releases,TheodorosAngelopoulosnewhumanismandtheverypossibilityofcinema asresistance.JamesalsoreflectsuponOne+OneandtheLondonUndergroundFilm FestivalsRevolutionsinProgressroundtableheldattheHorseHospitalinDecember 2011, which included a screening and discussion with up-and-coming filmmakers, OccupyactivistsandfilmtheoristsfromGoldsmiths,UniversityofLondon. Theissueyouarereadingattemptstorendthegossamerbeforeyouandexpose,in modestways,theillusory,arbitraryandaboveallmutablenatureoftheproverbialgrid. Wehopeyouwillenjoyit. Diarmuid Hester

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Filmmakers Journal

Contents 05 14 22 30

On Derek Jarmans Jubilee

James Marcus Tucker, Bradley Tuck & Diarmuid Hester

OnDerekJarmansJubilee James Marcus Tucker, Bradley Tuck & Dirarmuid Hester

EnglandsDisappearingMetropolis Paul Barr

FilmmakinginanageofCrisis Bradley Tuck

TheViewfromHere/Issue1 James Marcus Tucker

Production Still from Jubilee

A Shelter from the Storm

James Marcus Tucker Jubilee was the first Derek Jarman film I watched. I was in my early teens, sometime in the mid 1990s. Its title card in bold red stuck in my mind along with images of naked priests, orgies and a young tubby Toyah Wilcox running around with orange hair. I had never heard of Derek Jarman,

Issue 08

Published 23rd July 2012 Cover image: Derek Jarman BFI Design: Benoit Schmit, www.buenito.com Editors: James Marcus Tucker, Bradley Tuck, Diarmuid Hester, Daniel Fawcett Search Facebook for One+One: Filmmakers Journal or tweet us @OnePlusOneUk Email: info@filmmakersjournal.co.uk

and it was not until later that decade when the internet was finally installed that I was able to google Alta-Vista the two words Jubilee film and discover the filmmaker who was to change the way I thought about filmmaking. Watching Jubilee again in 2012, many yearssincemylastviewing,Iwasstruck by a few things I had never really considered before. I always remembered it in platitudes: punk, low-budget, queer I had not really remembered it as in any way spiritual, quintessentially English, or

One+One has been produced collaboratively by a group of Brighton-based filmmakers, with internationally based contributors and writers and is a not-for-profit project. HTML and pdf versions of this journal and back issues are available at www.oneplusonejournal.co.uk

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Filmmakers Journal

Stills from Jubilee

indeed, very funny. Yet here it was, as clear as day, in all its witty philosophical musings:IdidntknowIwasdeaduntilI was 15, and its campy crudeness: You clammy slag, youve sat in the KY with your fat arse. Dereks proverbial tongue isinhis(innuendointended)cheektheentiretime. As for its Englishness, it perhaps isnt surprising; Derek was always considered tobea(smallcimplied)conservative.His conservatism wasnt a sexual conservatism,buthewasclingingontosomething! It seemed to be a desire to salvage an Englandhefeltwasalwaysatriskofdisappearing an England perhaps facing, yetstillmanagingtofendoffthestormsof rampant,shacklingideologies. In1979hetoldGayNews:Politicshas hadit,old-fashionedpoliticslikeMarxism,

CapitalismandSocialism.Theyreallpart ofagreatant-heap.Theyreallbuildingthe same materialist commercial culture. Yet theyallpretendliketheyvegottheblueprintorthattheyprovidethefreedom...the world is now waitingforacompletenew lookateverythingbecausethetwentiethcenturyhascompletelyfailed.AlltheUtopianideologieshaveledtoconcentration campsorbarbedwire. Andso,itiswiththisknowledgeoffailed revolutionary and progressive ideas, that DerekwroteanddirectedJubilee.Inpart it is a warning. It taps into our collective unconscious fears of the vicious, callous andlawlesshumanidbeingletloose.Yet, despitethisvisionofpunksrunningferal onthestreets,anarchistsfirebombingand stabbingpolicemen,mediamogulsbuying up every last inch of what is considered culture,thereisstilltimeforteaorbingo. Notallthegoodthingshavedisappeared! ThisEnglishnessisexudedfromthefirst frame.WearelandedintoElizabethanEngland where occultist John Dee summons an angel Ariel to time-leap and guide his clientQueenthrough1970surbanstreets. Thefirstsceneislikewatchingaschool(ok lets be kind, an am-dram) production of Shakespeare:whichisfittingbecauseAriel isobviouslysummonedbyDeepresumably very shortly after being freed by Prospero (nowonderhelookssomewhatpissedoff). ButwhyElizabeth?DidDerekdesirerefuge through a return to the religiously warring, expansionist 16th and 17th centuries? Of course not, but Derek saw Elizabeth as a symbol, an encapsulation of the ever corrodingGreatinGreatBritainaunifying specter for a lost modern age. Perhaps if CapitalismandSocialismofferednosolace fromthefuturetempest(thatwas,forhim, tobecomeThatcherism),thenhistorycould. AndtherestheUnionJack.Ifonlypeo-

isntspiritualIdontknowwhatis.Butthe tracks were already being laid this early. AsJohnDeewalksthroughaveryEnglish garden, he tells Elizabeth, Beyond this Labyrinthandtheserpentofmemoryisthe stillpointoftheworld,thatgatewaywhich menseek.Itiseverywhere,andnowhere. Itishereandnow.Roundedtimeturnsin acirclethroughoutinfinity.Afterallissaid and done, it seems not even Elizabeth is enough of an antidote to the ruin that surrounds A desire to salvage an England he felt her in the film. Perhaps was always at risk of disappearing this madness (perhaps all madness) needs the more pertinently now, in 2012, because counterpointofeternitytoanchoritsomethis phony commercialised nationalism, wherebeyondtimeandplace.Derekgives headed by a seemingly indestructible us John Dee to offer this vantage. Bewhat I say, goes pop master, has be- yondthehistoryofElizabeth,thefutureof come a staple of our Britains Got Talent Thatcherism,AIDSandwhatwenowourtea-time telly viewing. Derek had a thing selvesface,Derekishere,alreadyoffering forthisflag.InThe Last of Englandadec- us his Blue a still point which is eternal ade later, he was to film a soldier and a andtimeless.Perhapsthisistheonlyshelterrorist fucking on top of it. He liked to terfromthestorm. offend,sotherefore,Isuppose,hewasnt completelyEnglishafterall! Iremainincrediblyfondofthisfilm.Itis interesting to view it now, knowing what we do about Dereks own personal battle to come. Near the end of Jubilee, as thecharacterBodthrowsafirebombinto the house of a policeman - inadvertently killingherfriendnamedCrabs(seeItold Bradley Tuck plerealizedGeriHalliwellsnowinfamous dress for that 97 Brits performance was nothingnew.IwishIcouldsuggestithad been fashioned on Jordans (much more risqu)RuleBritannianumberbut,despite its reminiscence, I am not convinced it was that conscious. This scene - Jordan performing her entry into the Eurovision SongContestinthepresenceofcackling media mogul Borgia Ginz - reads even

The Last Dreams of England

youitwasfunny)whowasinbedwithhim she cries, No future! Derek wasnt to know this Punked-up statement was to become a slogan of much Queer Theory oftheAIDSravaged1990s.Hewasavisionaryevenwhenhedidntintendtobe. I mentioned earlier about it also being spiritual. Dereks filmmaking was to change dramatically from the mid 1980s onwards, becoming, I believe more transcendentandpoetic;andifthevoidofBlue

The meaning of 1977 The year 1977, the year Derek Jarmans Jubilee was made (although it wasnt releaseduntilthefollowingyear),isboththe startandendofanera.Itistheendofthe reddecadeandthecounter-culturalrebellions(1966-1977).Wemightevenextend thistoincludetheperiodfrom1917-1977 (The revolutionary century) or even from

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Filmmakers Journal

Still from Jubilee

1914 or before (the century of war and destruction). Badiou characterises this short century simultaneously as end, exhaustion, decadence and as absolute commencement. Part of the centurys problem is the conjunction of these two convictions. In other words, the century conceived of itself as nihilism, but equally as Dionysian affirmation.1 This centuryisonethatstrugglestodiscover anewideaofmanandhumanity,evenin faceofviolence,catastropheandfailure. On the other hand, 1977 is the beginning of another project: the neoliberal project, the withdrawal of the left (although this doesnt finally take place until the 90s). Badiou characterises this era as calls for renunciation, resignation, the lesser evil, together with moderation, the end of humanity as a spiritual force, and the critique of grand narratives.2. This era gives up on grand ideologies and the struggle foranewmanand,instead,returnsto themarket.

Communism in the Service of the Market Punkemergesbetweenthesetwoperiods. Bothnihilisticandaffirmativeitisthefinal death rattle of a revolutionary countercultural spirit, and yet, as Jubilee itself suggests, looking on in trepidation at the end of ideology, towards another kind of nihilism.InJubileewefindamishmashof ideologicalsignifiersapparentlydeflatedof meaning.BorgiaGinz,theKingofKapital and owner of the BBC, TUC, ATV, ABC, ITV, CIA, CBA, NFT, MGM, KGB, C of E. You name it,hetellsusI bought them all and rearranged the alphabet. Without me they dont exist. 3 We encounter him as boththerepresentativeofthemusic/entertainmentindustryandevenmonopolycapitalismitself.Andyetwhenhetakesatrip toDorset(theonlysafeplaceinthewhole of England) we find his mansion protected by Nazis with a communist flag flying aboveandHitlerhimselfclaimingtobethe greatestartist.Capitalismsvictoryandthe safehavenofthebourgeoisieareprotected by fascists working under the banner

more conservative-romantic element to this film. Queen Elizabeth I, along with JohnDeeandtheAngelArieltraveltothe futuretofindQueenElizabethIIdeadand her crown stolen. She looks on in horror andconcernassheencountersthisdesolatedystopia.Itishardtothinkthatsuch a Queen who saw and practiced such barbarityinherownperiodwouldbeconcerned with such death and destruction. Butmaybesheismoreofasymbolfora romantic spirit of the days gone by. The references to John Dee and Ariel add a spiritual dimension, comparable more to Shakespeareratherthananygenuineroyalism. However this is maybe one of the reasons for Vivienne Westwoods t-shirt proclaiming Derek the dull little middleclass wanker. The scene The film asks us to reconsider the appears to signify Jarmans detachment from punk, his possibility of dreaming and a lost lookingonasartisticoutsider, utopianism in the past as if from the past. The past becomes a means for the diasapotentialdefenderoftheliberalfree- rectortoresurrectthemeaningofdreammarket).Todaywefindasimilarideaem- ing in both the Shakespearian figure of bodied in Communist China and the EU, ArialandthephilosophicalfigureofJohn both, in effect, restricting the power of Dee.Reactionaryandanti-punkasitmay democracytokeeptheeconomyrunning. seem, the film asks us to reconsider the TheideologicalhalosofCommunismand possibilityofdreamingandalostutopianEuropean solidarity are reduced to mere isminthepast. On the other hand, Amyl Nitrate symbols, while the market becomes the dominant ideology par se usurping state (Jorden)s performance of Rule Britania is layered with (as Jarmans script powerforitsownends. notes tell us) Mayday, Mayday, its the God save the Queen peoples death cry. Mayday, mayday, its Thefilmwasmadethesameyearasthe paradise, baby, the peoples paradise. Queens Jubilee, where national senti- Hitlershystericalspeechjabbersthrough mentsflewhigh.Nolongerwasittheage the football crowds chanting, Engof revolution, but instead 1977 was the land! England! England Dive bombers, return to form of that old archaic order: explosions4Nationalism, from Hitler to themonarchyandallitsloyalnationalistic footballtoQueenandcountryandwarare supporters. The film, of course, explores thrusttogether.Athispointthefilmcomes this. On the one hand there appears a closesttotheSexPistolsGodsavethe ofCommunism.Ontheonehandwemay seethisinthelightofAdornoandHorkheimersDialectic of Enlightenment,whereall seemingactsofideologicalsalvationreveal theirowninherentnihilism:theDisenchantmentoftheWorld.Inthisrespect,despite their rhetorical differences, Stalinism, Nazism,Protestantism,Positivism,capitalism allleadtothesameworldofinstrumental domination. Ontheotherhand,wemayseethisas apredictionconcerningourownpost-ideological era. Friedrich Hayek, Thatchers philosopherkingandarchitectofneo-liberalism, thought it necessary to preserve the interest of the market from the corruptinghandsofdemocracy(anideathat leadhimtoengagewithGeneralPinochet

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Filmmakers Journal

Queen, ironically making the statement (GodsavetheQueen),whilstsimultaneouslyrevealingitsfascistunderside(and herfascistregime). No Future. The punks appear like the last vestiges of any kind of 68 counter-culture, but drainedofanyrealhope.Atsomepoints they appear continuous with the SituationistinternationalortheriotersofMay 68, but this time their idols are more Myra Hindley than Mao and imagination appears only to lead to more violence and destruction. The punks themselves also appear layered with signifiers. The scriptdrewuponfanzinesofthetimeand exploresthetensionsandcontradictions ofpunkitself.Isitnihilismandmindless violence? Support of the national front? Isittheaffirmationofart?Ortheendof art?TheSexPistolsphrasenoFuture appearswithinthefilmandseemstosum up the general feel. They can no longer holdtheoptimismofthe68ers,butnor can they accept the traditional order either, instead they appear to skirt closer and closer to the void, caught between

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unemployment and the need for a different future thatcantbeoffered. But where the Sex Pistols tell us that Englands Dreaming, Jubilee shows an England where Dreams are no longer possible. As AmylTellsusIn those days desires werent allowed to become reality, so fantasy was substituted for them. Films, books, pictures. They called it art, but when your Still from Jubilee desires become reality, you dont need fantasy any longer or art. 5.However,therealityofthejubilee world is a world that has reached a kindofendofhistory(albeitwithoutresolving the tensions). We are shown a world where art is obsolete: where dreams are supposedtobereality,butinfactrealityis merelywithoutdreams.Itisalmostasifthe charactersofJubileecouldsaythatweare allpunksnow,acceptingthattheyhaveno future,noart,nodreams,andallthenihilismthatcomeswithit. Howeverifthesepunksappearnihilistic, itisworthcomparingthemtothepurenihilismofBlink182.Herepunk(ifyoucancallit punk)loosesallofitsromanticlongingand needforresistance.Punkbecomesmerely anattitudetoaccompanyteenagehedonist escapism. The Punks of 77 havent completelylosttheirsoulsandinsteadlook outataworldcrumplingaroundthemwith uneasiness and apprehension, originality and fighting spirit. Never quite fitting into conventionalgenderrolesandnevergiving up experimentation. These Punk stand at theendofanera. Thisyear,2012,thejubileeisonceagain graced us. The good ol red carpet treatment has been whisked out for the, still

notdeadinreallife,QueenElizabethII:A symbol, not only of her (ever-so-superior) bloodline, but also custodian of class inequalityandtradition.Atthistimeitismaybe worth reflecting on our own future. As unemployment rises and public services arecutwemayfindourselvesinthesame positionasmanyofthepunksof1977:facing up to the prospect of No future. But maybe our no future has another meaningbeyondmereunemploymentandbeing financially worse off than our parents. As MarioTrontiwrites Once the revolutionary project was defeated, the reformist programme became impossible too. In this sense, the latest form of neo-liberal capitalism may prove ironically similar to the final form of state socialism: incapable of reform,6 It may be in this respect that our no future opens us up to more questions, dreamsandfuturesthanwebargainedfor.

JarmanAcker: Fold
Diarmuid Hester 1978 saw the release of Derek Jarmans Jubilee and Kathy Ackers novel Blood and Guts in High School, two provocative and iconoclastic works that present bleak,fragmentaryandwilfullyamateurish tableaux based around refracted visions ofcontemporarysociety.Inflectedbythe nascentfeaturesof1970spunkinLondon andNewYorkrespectively,Jarmansfilm and Ackers book may be productively readtogetheraspleatsinpunk,rareearly instances of punk reflexivity that, interrogatingitsideologicalinvestmentsandthe threatitactuallyposestothestatusquo,

ultimatelyfinditwanting. Blood and Guts is a furious and obscenenovel,whichrampagesthroughthe cultural and political debates of the late 1970swithanexcessofangerandenergy thatisnothingshortofbreath-taking.Designedalmosttobeliesummation,Ackers quasi-Bildungsromanunfolds,inbaroque prose,theerraticwanderingsofa10year oldgirlcalledJaneywholeavesanincestuous relationship with her father, moves to New York, is kidnapped by a Persian slave-trader,movestoTangier,meetsthe Frenchavant-gardistJeanGenetanddies fromcancer.Withsimilarferociousenergy, JarmansJubileeoffersitsvieweratimebending tale of magic and mysticism, presided over by the character of Queen ElizabethI,enfoldinganightmarishvision of social chaos in a dystopian England sharedbyrovingbandsofviolentfascists andgangsofviolent,queerpunkssecretedbyfilthysquats.Intheirrenunciationof formalandnarratologicalcoherencyconsistentwithpunksexperimentalandd.i.y. aesthetic, Jarman and Acker both signal their familiarity with and participation in proto-typicalpunkstyles.Thisisparticularlyevidentintheirrespectiveapproachestogenre:JarmansinclusioninJubilee of period/historical film, musical, social realist and documentary tropes, appears designedtotoywithviewerexpectations, persistentlywithdrawingfromtheworkits narrative pay-off. Ackers use of theatre, poetry, diary entries, line-drawings and literarycriticism,meanwhile,aimstomobilise such styles toward the subversion of normative narratives of psychosexual development. Theirproximitytopunkislikewisevisibleinwhatlookslikecontemptfortradition and enduring authority. In Jarmans case,hiscastingthesameactress(Jenny

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Still from Jubilee

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Runacre) as both Queen Elizabeth, the timeless symbol of the sceptred isle, and Bod,viciousleaderofthenihilisticpunks, inevitably folds the former into the latter, drawing them together in an unflattering comparison. In Ackers hands, authoritativesymbolsofAmericanliteraturesuchas Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter are similarly manipulated: conducted and contorted through the screen of her riotousprose,andmadetocommunicatewith a contemporary punk dystopia, the effect of Hawthornes masterpiece is corroded and inverted. On first impressions, Acker andJarmanintheirrespectiveworksseem contemptuous of the advantages attendant to the patriarchal line Jarmans film appears to interrogate hereditary privilege asitisrepresentedbytheroyalline;Ackers novel seems to critique the numbing linearityofliterarylineageembeddedinthe successionofcanonicalworks. Now, these defacements of old-world masters and masterpieces, viewed front

toback,aremerelysuperficial,designed, apparently, to cause no lasting damage: thus Jarmans treatment of Elizabeth retains a kind of respect and awe for the virginqueenasshemovesregallythrough the labyrinth of time and, though she gravitatestowardsaninevitablecomparisonwithBod,itisevidentlythepunklifestyle of the latter rather than the lineage of the former which is the target of Jarmans critique. As evinced by the ease andwillingnesswithwhichitisconducted intoregimesofcapitalistexploitationand control in the film (embodied by the figure of Borgia Ginz played by a maniacal Jack Birkett), punk seems to Jarman a superficial, adolescent rebellion without substance, whose future lies within the capitalistapparatustowhichitwasonce opposed. Likewise, Ackers deployment ofTheScarlet Letterintheformofabook report offers coordinates by which her character Janey may, at least provisionally,formsomesemblanceofselfhooda

state of grace? before adding, Id rather considerthatallthisgrandstuffandlooking atdiamondsissomethingtodowithagay (whichyouare)boysloveofdressingup+ playingatcharacter. Jarman and Ackers expressions of disillusionment Jarman and Acker both signal and trepidation in the midst their familiarity with and participation of a maelstrom of 1970s punk enthusiasm stand as in proto-typical punk styles prescient reminders of the unfortunate, inexorable fate Gutspornographicdepictionsofsexualvi- of punk, its incorporation into the very olencecoupledwitharejectionofanyform systems it was bound to resist and, as of redemptive, affirmative moment caused such, they take the form of untimely, consternation amongst radical feminist pre-post-punkmeditations. groups, particularly those who argued for the liberatory potential of sadomasochistic sexualpractices.Meanwhile,the(nowrich, 1AlainBadiou,TheCentury,PolityPress,2007,p.31 popular, influential) fashion designer Vivi- 2Ibid enne Westwood, in her famous t-shirt to 3DerekJarman,Jubilee:SixFilmScripts,UniversityofMinnesota Jarmanaccusedhimofmisrepresentingthe Press,2011, characteristics of punk, exclaiming: Im a 4Ibidpp.57 PUNKman!Andasyouusethevaluesyou 5Ibidpp.48 givetopunksasawarning,amIsupposed 6MarioTronti,OUROPERAISMONLR2/73January/February, toseeoldElizabethsengland[sic]assome 2012,pp.139

potentactwhichthedestructionofpunk and pomo posturing explicitly disavows. The bleakness and negativity that coursesthroughthistext,compoundedbythe protagonists miserable doom, indexes Ackers refusal to affirm without reserve punksexuberantpseudo-nihilism. These two works, then, in some ways maybeseentolamentthepassingofacontext in which archaic systems might have heldswayandsimultaneouslyacknowledge that the world envisaged by a punk ethos is hardly an adequate alternative. Consequently, both Jubilee and Blood and Guts were subjected to harsh condemnation by their so-called radical critics. Blood and

Still from Jubilee

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Englands Disappearing Metropolis:

Patrick Keillers Critique of Disembodied Spaces
Paul Barr

The true identity of London is in its absence. As a city, it no longer exists. In this alone it is truly modern: London was the first metropolis to disappear.
(QuotefromLondonbyPatrickKeiller).

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This essay is concerned with exploring thefilmmakerPatrickKeillersattemptsto redefine our experience of the city by reimagining an alternate reality for London. For the sake of brevity the discussion of Keillersworkwillbeconfinedtothefirstof hisRobinsontrilogy;London,releasedin 1994. The other two films in this triptych, Robinson in Space (1997) and Robinson in Ruins(2010)willnotbedealtwithhere. KeillersLondoninvolvesaseriesofSituationisttypedrivesordriftsthroughthecity in an attempt to intensify our relationship withtheurbanlandscape.Hisfilmseeksto engagewiththecityonanembodied,affectivelevel,thatis,tocontestourpresent disconnection from the material fabric of themetropolis.Theunnamedandunseen narrator (voiced by Paul Scofield) accompanieshisfriendandone-timeloverRobinson on a series of journeys through the city to investigate what Robinson terms the problem of London. Robinson, like thenarrator,isneverseenandappearsat afurtherremove,since,unlikethenarrator, we never hear his voice directly. It is only

throughthenarratorthatwelearnofRobinsonscriticalresponsestoLondonandhis attemptsatthinkingbeyonditspresentcalamitousstatethroughaprocessRobinson describesastime-travelling. As Robert Mayer notes the three journeys undertaken throughout London are characterised by a series of what lain Sinclairdescribesasmovingstills,shots of varying length recorded by an almost uniformlystaticcameraandgenerallyheld longenoughfortheviewertoexperience themascarefullycomposedphotographs. Whatiscapturedonfilmisfrequentlyinfrastructure-buildings, bridges, industrial or commercial establishments, schools, hotels, transportation facilities, shopping malls, distribution centres, and the like -althoughsuchelementsofthelandscape are often balanced by shots of natural scenes: Wandsworth or Clapham CommonorthevalleyoftheBrentinthefirst film and aristocratic parks, seascapes, and farmland in the second. The voiceover narration features statistics, discussion of economic conditions and social relations,andmuchpoliticalargument.1 Time-travelling along a series of unrealised, virtual paths, a ghostly other of Londonemergesthatconteststhedominant narratives that shape the citys built environmentandultimatelyourperception and experience of the city. The notion of

time-travelling underpins Keillers work andthisessaywillattempttointerrogate this key concept in order to see how it works and how it is at the heart of Keillers liberatory project. Briefly then timetravelling refers to uncovering layers of the citys history that - like the citys Bohemianoccupants-havebeenmarginalisedandlargelyeffaced.Itisbyliberating the citys creative energies located in its artistic past and buried under the weight of a symbolic, militaristic and capitalist repression that the motivation for Robinsonstravelsemerges.Therecoveryofan alternaterealityhiddenbeneathLondons regimented corporate terrains is distinctlypolitical.2SpecificallyKeillersfilmic essayexpoundsapoliticsofliberationin whichlearningtoseedifferentlyisthefirst stepinlearningtothinkdifferently.3 Time-travelling may seem like a rather grandiose claim for what Keiller is doing. However at the heart of Keillers projectisanattempttoescapeapresentist perspective by rethinking the pasts forking paths not as erased by the single actualisation of a present but rather preserved or retained as potentials for thinkingotherwisethanthelimitsofthe presentallow.AsGillesDeleuzeobserves, thoughtthinksitsownhistory(thepast), butinordertofreeitselffromwhatitthinks (the present) and be able finally to think otherwise(thefuture).4Thekeythenisin Keillersbeliefinthetransformativenature ofthepastanditscapacitytocontinueto unsettleanddisturbthepresentandthereforetoultimatelyprovideuswithdifferent, presently unthinkable futures. DiscussingLondon,StevePilehasobservedthat Keillersfilmisanattempttoexaminethe detailofthecitytofinditshiddensecrets in order to unsettle assured histories of thepresent.5

Byviewingthepastasasiteoftransformative potential Keiller argues we can begin to escape the impasses of a built environment whose logic is based either onamythologizedversionofthepastand the military greatness of Blighty (trooping the colour, statues of Nelson and Bomber Harris) or on the influence of capitalism as the chief architect of our surroundings. The landscape of London, asStephenBarberhasobserved,isoften one of homogeneity, from the Tesco and Ikea surfaces of the obliterating suburbs to the architecture of infinitely replicated office complexes, hastily erected during thelate-1980spropertyboom.6 Homogeneity and replication are central to the logic of arrested development within the city, ensuring the erasure - through an aggressive, assertive capital - of any would-be competitors to the hegemonyofthepresentasitiscurrently orderedandadministered.Therearevery fewseedsofrevolutiontobefoundinthe present;thinkingthroughthestructuresof thepresentandtheconceptsandcategoriesofthepresentdoesnotproduceradicalalternativestowhatwealreadyhave. By producing solutions from the already known rather than attempting to rethink the genetic conditions of the real to include possibilities that might have arisen but did not we second guess the future ratherthankeepingittrulyopen.Keillers workisacontributiontothinkingbeyond modelling the world and our relations withinitsolelyonthecapitalisthegemony ofthepresent. When Keillers unseen and unheard character Robinson talks of diagnosing theproblemofLondonwecouldexpand this to include the problem of London in its present formation. Indeed naming his chief protagonist Robinson and forging

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associations with Defoes Robinson Crusoe is also suggestive of Keillers notion that his disembodied characters are ultimatelydis-locatedintime;time-travellers shipwreckedinthepresent.Robinsonand thenarratorarenotlookingatLondonwith the eyes of the present. Instead they are seeking to estrange themselves and the viewerfromthepresentinordertoliberate creative,aesthetic,poeticandpoliticalenergies from the past whose moment has not been realised. Londons treatment of artistsandpoetsisepitomisedforRobinsoninthephilistinismofanRACstreetsign foraRenMagritteexhibitionwhichcant evenmanagetospelltheBelgianSurrealists name correctly (Figure 1). Robinson connectstheuncheckedriseofcapitalism anditshijackingofthesubsequentdevelopment of the city with a marginalisation ofdissentingbohemianvoices.

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journeys propose an alternate reality whoseseedslieinthecreativeenergiesto befoundinartandrevolutionarypolitics. SurveyingLondonRobinsonlamentsthat thefailureoftheEnglishrevolutioniseverywherearoundus.CruciallythenRobinsonsjourneysinspacearealsotravelsin timeinordertorecuperatearevolutionary pastwhosetimemayyetbeactualised. Taken further, the problem of London istheproblemofthepresentandourinability to think solutions that problematise and critique the present. Keillers work challenges the legitimacy and the dominance of the present and provides what the philosopher Gilles Deleuze has termed resistance to the present.7 This is why re-presentation (and the re-presented spaces described by for example Bomber Harriss statue) proves so inimicaltocreativethinkingsinceitcannot disengagethoughtfromthe interests of power, opinion, ideology, and more importantly,itdoesnotencounter the genetic conditions of thought; that which forces us to think. According to Deleuze, people think rarely, and more often under the impulse of a shock thanintheexcitementofa tasteforthinking.8Thought mustbeshockedoutofits stupor, it must be roused into action, it is not something innate, automatic. As Figure 1 - Misspelt sign for Ren Magritte Exhibition. Deleuze observes, somethingin the world forces us Contra the overcoding of potentially to think. This something is an object not disruptive and revolutionary energies by of recognition but of a fundamental enthe present formations of military/regal counter.9Thoughtonlytakesplacewhen spectacle and the unrelenting expansion we encounter the world directly and not of capitalist globalisation, Robinsons throughtherepresentationsthatwehave

ofit.Thoughtthencannottake place in transcendent isolationfromtheworldandthisis because thought comes from the world (and our embodied engagement with it) and not from the detached, contemplative mind of the rational subject or the willed intellect. To represent the world, as Mark Halsey observes, in an eternal or logical fashion (whether this be through the auspices of God, science, or the propositional form) is to Figure 2 - Inflatable Ronald McDonald. relegatethoughttosomething that is central to the logic of disembodilittlemorethanorganisedmemories.10 mentatworkinthecapital.Figures2and Representation takes as its model thingsthatalreadyexist,yetcrucially,itis 3insteadovercodeasenseofplacewith unabletoaccountforthecontingentcon- theabstract,universalandideologicalvalditionsthatbroughtsuchthingsintoexist- uesofthedominantpowersofcapitalism, enceandthereforefailstoseehowthings monarchyandthemilitary. Keillers discovery of an unacknowlcouldhavebeenotherwise.KeillersLondontacklestheproblemsofre-presenta- edged and invisible (within the dominant tion head on and the damage that it has discoursesofthepresent)associationbeinflicted on the metropolis by usurping tween capitalism, monarchy and military creation(bothartisticandpolitical)andar- andtheirattemptstocontrolmeaningsof rogatingtoitselfthemeansofconstruct- thecityappearsinhisunlikelyjuxtaposiingandthereforereadingandinterpreting tionofmilitaryfigureandcorporatelogo. urbanspace.Throughitsmonumentsand TheunveilingofBomberHarrissstatue office blocks, its dead zones of retail byaRoyal(theQueenMother)describes and business parks, its monarchical and a space that is as disembodied and as military displacement of material space emptied of meaning as the space ostenwith that of allegorical space - the myth sibly occupied by an inflatable Ronald ofBlightyorAlbiondeposingtheempirical McDonald(Figure2). The inflatable Ronald McDonald funcrealityofurbanlifeaseriesofdisembodied, immaterial spaces stand-in for and tions unwittingly as a grotesquely grinre-presentspaceratherthanconstructit. ning marker for the disappearance of Keillerscameraironicallycapturesthe any connection, any embeddness and sense of disappearance that character- embodied-nesswithinthecity.Thisisan ises many of Londons spaces. Figure 2 unheimlich (unhomely) space inasmuch andFigure3describethekindofabstract, asspacessuchasMcDonaldscannotbe universal spaces that separate empirical occupiedsincewearrivetoolate.Thatis bodiesfromconcretespacesinastrategy tosaysuchspacesarealreadyoccupied

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by capital the skewing of human relations, supplanted, displaced, evacuated, renderedunhomelybycommodifiedexchange.Theemployees smile echoing the rictus grin of the giant, inflatable Ronald McDonald; pseudo politeness disconnecting emotion from the human and attaching it solely to capital. A disembodied smile; a Cheshire cat grin minusthecat. In this way the logic of the disembodied space is trans- Figure 3 - Statue of Bomber Harris. mitted to its employees; bodiesandgesturesemptiedofmeaning,in- pening of Leicester Square - devastated authentic spaces distributing inauthentic byanIRAbomb-andtheQueenmothers bodies.Suchspacesaredis-locatedand unveiling of Bomber Harriss idealised dis-locating yet lacking in any interest. statue(Figure3).OntheonehandbombMcDonaldsconstructsadisorienting,sci- ers are excoriated as barbaric for laying fi, zero gravity space where expressions waste to Englands great capital, on the and emotions are no longer attached to otherabomberiscelebrated,lionised;the bodiesbutcirculatefreelywiththemove- bombing of civilians re-presented as hementandspeedofcapital.Thatistosay roicandnecessary,thestatueembodying the interesting possibilities of dislocation thevictorstruth. ThestatueofbomberHarrisoffersa and disorientation are put at the service of and immediately recuperated by de-historicised, revisionist re-occupation capital. The inflatable Ronald McDonald of space, utilising space representationbecomes the symbol par excellence of allyasremovedfromreality,frommaterithe disembodied city; spaces that hover ality.Asthechiefarchitectofthedestrucabovelife,transcendingit,ratherthanen- tionofthecitiesofDresdenandCologne gagingwithit,divorcedfromthefabricof theBomberHarrisstatueistheultimate realisation of the disconnected, disemcitylifeanditsexchanges. In a similar vein the activation of eve- bodied, essentially uninhabitable spaces rydayspacesastemporarilyregalormo- thatconstitutelargeswathesofLondon. The heroic rehabilitation of Bomber narchical also points to the free-floating, disembodied nature of the city, in other HarrisviolentlyestablishesthroughRoyal words the abstract nature of the spaces assentthedestructionofactual,material of London. Regal power, like economic space and its replacement by allegorical powerworksatadistance,i.e.abstracted space, the myth of Blighty, the myth of from real bodies, both function symboli- Albion. In a very real sense the building cally,unilaterally.Keillerprovidesanironic ofmythsandthemythologizingofheroic juxtaposition between the Queens reo- eventsorbattlesisconnectedtoajustifi-

cationofpresent organisationsofpower. Warswerefoughtandciviliansdiedtodefendafutureandacultureswallowedup byRonaldMcDonaldsterrifyinggrin.11 Keillers London interrogates the disembodied nature of the city, its ontology asadisappearingmetropolisthroughan immanentcritique. ThatistosayKeillerexploresthedisembodied nature of the city (and our inabilitytodwellinit,tooccupyit)through his own disembodied time travellers. To view Keillers London merely as a critical project, as some kind of melancholic lamentisonlyhalfthestorysincethecritical aspect of Keillers project is followed by a more affirmatory second stage. As IanRobinsonobserves,whilenon-place and homelessness characterize the city films of Cohen, Keiller, and Steinmetz andChananthesefilmsoperateascritical practices which engage in attempts toreclaimthecityasalivedandliveable place.Thefilmscanbereadasnotsimply responding to the perceived problems of urban decline, abandonment, homogenization,andalossoflocalidentity,butas intervening in an argument about where the city is situated and how it should be represented.12 While I am in broad agreement with Robinsons statement I would argue that for Keiller, thinking the city involves estrangement and dislocation and is nonrepresentational, that is, it is intermixed withaffectandsensation. While I have focussed largely on the first, critical dimension of Keillers project throughout this essay I would now like to consider the positive, affirmatory and creative dimension. This second stage involves a reclamation of the city through the senses, through what the philosopher Gilles Deleuze has termed a pedagogy

of the senses.13 Artists give us the eyes toseetheworlddifferently,expandingour senses,throughtheunprepared-forshock ofradicallyformalistvocabularies.Itisthen by reinvigorating these lost voices within the atrophied present that the citys vital energiescanbereactivated. The artists and poets that Keiller privileges (Turner, Monet, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Baudelaire) expand our perception forcingustoseevisions,alternaterealitiesof thecity,virtualfuturesthatexistonlyas creationswithintheartwork,thatcannotbe seenwiththeeyesofthepresentyetwhose forcecanstillbeexperiencedthroughart.It isthroughthesensesthatthesepioneers ofurbanism(asRobinsoncallsthem)enableustoreclaimthecity,toexperienceit bodily,totrulyoccupyit. Artisdirectedatthesenses,atthelevel of the sensible and in this way it is bodily, a truly embodied thought. Art is akin to a pairofglassesasProustmemorablyputit that enables us to see the world in a way thatwasnotpossiblebeforeourexposure toitsnewgeometries,itsunfamiliarshapes, disorienting colours and violent deformations. A sensory thought; thought as sensation. Such a thought disturbs the body andinvolvesagiddying,vertiginousexcitement which introduces physiological, bodilychange(anincreaseinheartrate,amomentary dizziness, an increased breathing rate).Aphysiologicalorembodiedthought thatproducesmaterialchangesinthebody is diametrically opposed to thought as the re-presentation of existing (dis-embodied) statesofaffairs. A key scene in London which demonstratesthesensorygenesisofthoughtqua thecityoccurswhenRobinsonaccidentally encountersastatuelocatedbehindrailings on the north side of St. Pauls Cathedral (Figure4).

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stone,light,weatherconditions. These impersonal forces converge to produce in Robinson anewsensation,anewstateof mind,anembodiedthought. Like Robinson the figure seems marooned; ostensibly attached to St. Pauls but also estranged from it, dislocated intimeaswellasplace.Rather than being shipwrecked solely in the present the statue also actsasamemento mori,itsvery incongruity poignantly reminds Figure 4 Statue Located at the North side of St.Pauls. RobinsonofaformerartistscolonyinLondonsdocklands.The statueoccupiesboththepresentandfor Asthenarratorobserves: AswepassedthenorthsideofSt.Pauls, Robinsonanalternatepastexpressingthe he[Robinson]stoppedandgazedintently chanceforapoeticrevolution,anaesthetatafigurewhichhadbeenhiddenbehind ictransformation(harbouringthepossibiltherailings.Herememberedhowsoonthe ityofacreativetransformationofspaceby artistshadbeenpricedoutofthedocks. artists,writersandpoets)thatnevermade Itisasifthestatuetransmitsanaffec- itswayintothebuiltenvironment. ForRobinsonthecitycanstillgenerate tive force connected with the pathos of the statue, the light and shadows playing suchresponses,impartingakindofelecacross its surface (the time of day folded tric shock to those who look elsewhere into its form), its location (imprisoned be- than the disembodied present. Keiller hind the railings) and its site (somewhat asksustoconsideranewmeansofpermarooned or cast adrift from the main ceivingthecity;becomingattunedtothe buildingofSt.Pauls).Thisconvergenceof cityshidden(virtual,yetnonethelessreal) nonhuman,non-subjectiveforces,impacts vitalenergiesthatretaintheimprintofaluponRobinson,producingafeeling,anat- ternate futures. Such futures constitute mosphereforthoughttodwellin.Itproduc- possibilitiesinaccessibletousthroughour es a charged field that forces us to think presentformationsofpowerandunthinkthroughaseriesofinterconnected,contin- ablewithinourpresentmodelsofthought. Suchvitalenergiescangalvanisethought gentandunwilledphysicalsensations. Outoftheloose,vague,indistinctcon- andenhanceourlivesbyproducingtruly vergence of statue, site, place and time dynamic, continually evolving models of thereisproducedanewrelationbetween thought and helping to generate hitherto spaceandthebody.Thisisarelationthat unthinkable possibilities for life. Such a isnotdeterminedinadvancethroughthe thought is embodied and embedded in symbolicovercodingofstatuary(asinthe theunknowablecontingenciesofliferathBomberHarrisstatue)butemergesout erthandisconnectedfromthemovement ofthenon-totalising,non-humanforcesof oflife,rejectingade-materialisedthought,

where,asinMarxsmaxim,allthatissolidmeltsintoair. KeillersformalconstructionofLondonas aseriesofdepopulatedpostcardsforcesus toengagewiththecityoutsideitscapitalist framing, altering our perception through its formalist dtournement. As Steve Pile observes, Keillers film looks like a series of postcards. These postcards frame the city, slowitdown,enticingustolookatthecity with new eyes.14 As Pile suggests Keiller finds within the postcard a critical dimensionthatenablesustoseethecityafresh, outsidetheenfeeblementofthesensesthat the postcard usually introduces. In Keillers work the postcard is dtourned, diverted fromitsconstructionofthecityasaseriesof banal touristic dead zones Buckingham Palace,TowerBridge,theRoutemasterbus, the Houses of Parliament. Dtournement as Tom McDonough explains is, the situationiststrategyofdivertingelementsofaffirmative bourgeois culture to revolutionary ends,ofdistortingreceivedmeanings.15As a fragmentary critique of the totality of the present, the postcard constitutes an alternatejourneythroughthecityspastandthe promiseofcreative,unknowablefutures.AccordingtoFrancoisPenz,inKeillerswork,it ispossibletodiscernawayofthinkingfrom fragments to a broader understanding of Londonandcitylife.Moreinterestingly,perhaps,eachfragmentsuggestsanalternative presentanalternativetothecitieshistories andgeographies.16 Like the Surrealist re-enchantment of urban space, it is poignant for Robinson thatthecitycanstillgeneratesuchavisceralcharge;thatthecitycanstillaffectthe body, generating sensations within it that are outside the regulating relays of capital(asifdesiremustbeattachedtosome specific object or commodity). Such sites emergeoutofatime-travellingprojectthat

expands the present to include the unrealised past thereby opening up genuine futures that are contested, open and ultimatelycriticalofthepresent. Accordingtothenarrator,Robinsonbelievedifhelookedatithardenoughhecould causethesurfaceofthecitytorevealtohim themolecularbasisofhistoricalevents,and, inthisway,hehopedtoseeintothefuture.
1 Robert Mayer, Not Adaptation but Drifting: Patrick Keiller, Daniel Defoe, and the Relationship between Film and Literature,Eighteenth-CenturyFiction,Vol16:No.4(July2004),pp. 803-827.Quotepp.805-806. 2StephenBarber,Projected Cities: Cinema and Urban Space, London:ReaktionBooks,2002,p.98. 3RonaldBogue,DeleuzeonMusic,Painting,andtheArts,New York:Routledge,2003,p.194. 4GillesDeleuze,Foucault,TranslatedbySeanHand,London: Continuum,1988,p.98. 5StevePile,Real Cities: Modernity, Space and the Phantasmagorias of City Life,London:Sage,2005,p.9. 6Barber,Projected Cities,p.98. 7 According to Deleuze and Guattari, we lack creation. We lack resistance to the present.GillesDeleuzeandFlixGuattari,What is Philosophy?NewYork:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1994,p.108. 8GillesDeleuze,Difference and Repetition,TranslatedbyPaul Patton,London:AthlonePress,1994,p.132. 9GillesDeleuze,Difference and Repetition,p.139. 10MarkHalsey,Deleuze and Environmental Damage: Violence of the Text,Aldershot:Ashgate,2006,p.58. 11 Movements such as Occupy London have highlighted the extenttowhichanychallengetotheexistingnarrativesofLondon as a series of disembodied spaces for the circulation of capital(protesterswereurgedtogetajob,tocontributetothe circulationofcapital)willbemetbyhostilityandultimatelyforce. 12 Ian Robinson, Searching for the City: Cinema and the Critique of Urban Space in the Films of Keiller, Cohen, and Steinmetz and Chanan, in Richard Koeck, Les Roberts (Editors),The City and the Moving Image: Urban Projections,Basingstoke:PalgraveMacmillan,2010,pp.114-124.Quotep.120. 13GillesDeleuze,Difference and Repetition,p.237. 14StevePile,Real Cities,p.9. 15TomMcDonough,Guy Debord and the Situationist International,Cambridge:MITPress,2002,pp.xiii-xiv. 16 Patrick Sjberg, I Am Here, Or, the Art of Getting Lost: PatrickKeillerandtheNewCitySymphony,inFranoisPenz, AndongLu(Editors),Urban Cinematics: Understanding Urban Phenomena Through the MovingImage,Bristol:Intellect,2011, pp.43-51.Quotep.49.

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Filmmaking in an age of Crisis

A report and reflection on One+Ones 2011 film challenge
Bradley Tuck

wasintheinterestofscienceandpublicly fundedresearchshouldbemadepublic), artists, likewise, found ways to use the internet as a means to make their work free and accessible to all. The internet emergedasameanstodefendsomething Common, not restricted as either public orprivateproperty.Thisopeningupofthe internettothecommoninterestcouldbe found in the aims of activist groups like

Still from Aion

Above Still from Better the Devil, Below Still from Aion

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In April 2011 inspired by the Arab spring, protests against the austerity and cuts, the release of the final instalment of the Zeitgeist trilogy and the recent upsurge of interest in the theme of communism (for example the 2009 conference on The Idea of Communism at Berkbeck University) One+One decided to set a film challenge on the theme of Revolution in Progress. Itwasatempestuousyearwhichsawnot onlytheexpectedcentristpoliciestrotting outausteritymeasureswithsomekindof populisthalo,butconcomitantriseofradical and reactionary groups. On the one

hand,therewasthetea-party,theEnglish defence league and the royal wedding, firmlycommittedtoshoringupanostalgic and conservative vision of national identity. On the other was the occupy movement, Arab uprising and the rising spirit of the digital commons, who, oriented towardanun-prescribedfuturity,affirmed thepressingneedforchange.Theinternet appearedtoofferaspacefordialogue,for neworganisationalstrategiesandsubversion. Whilst scientists debated the need foropenaccesstoscientificresearch(argumentsaboundthataccessibleresearch

WikileaksandAnonomous.Herenational/ publicandprivateinterestswereviolated in the name of free information and freedom of speech as a common interests. Heretheinternetprovidedausefulsource for information sharing and so-called hactivism, which used internet hacking toexertpressureuponanddiscreditpublicauthoritiesandprivateenterprises. It is in light of such changes that we look out, tentatively, upon the future of film-making and upon the fraught issue offilmdistributioninparticular,whichhas polarised debate over the last decade or

so. Youtube and vimeo, amongst many othersprovidedaspaceforfilm-makersto uploadtheirfilmanddistributewithoutany needforamiddlemanoranydistribution costs.Likewise,piratebayprovidedfora means of freely downloading films. Such innovations and changes have contributedtoasurgeinvideoactivismaroundthe world.Thoughbetterknownfortheirhactivism,Anonymousdecentralisedonline activist community also produced and widelydisseminatedfilm,postersandother forms of media propaganda designed todrawattentiontotheircause.Totalitarian regimes like China also saw a huge increase in activism, expressed through filmmakingpractices:radicalfilmtheorist Ying Qian, highlighted the rising convergencebetweenfilm-makingandactivism in China, claiming that whereas [b]efore the mid 2000s, documentary film-makers had adopted a non-interventionist perspective studying the workings of power at the micro-level, inter-personal relationships, processes of social transformation and served as persistent eyewitnesses to suffering1fromthemid-2000sonwardsa newsortoffilmactivismemerged. Video downloading allowed independently made documentaries to reach a wider audience. Meanwhile, activist groups and new social organizations began to form around the citizen-rights movement as of 2003. As more connections were made between film-makers, public intellectuals and grassroots activists, a new political cinemawith a distinct activist subjectivity and aestheticsbegan to emerge. No longer satisfied with passive observation or sympathetic portrayals of victimized individuals, these works rest on an active, interventionist agency and an investigative attitude on the part of the filmmaker, who seeks out the realities beneath the visible

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filmandrevolution? I found a time-machine and Kay HaywardsBetter the Devil Take you to Heaven than an Angel take you to Hell, two films submitted to the film challenge, explored thepoliticsofspace,andquestionsofland ownership, occupation, appropriation and repossession in this light. The former film usesillegallycapturedfootagefrominside Above: Still from Better the Devil abandoned buildings in Pennsylvania in order to reclaim space. The editor drew theirinspirationfromtheUrbanExploration Community and the abandoned buildings inAmerica:thefilmitselfwasfilmedinan abandoned power station and only later transformedintoafilm.Inourdiscussions, the film-maker/editor talked about her experience within the Urban Exploration Community and the abandoned building Byberry, the Philadelphia State Hospital. Shetalksofthefantastic adventuresand what could be called an anarchist community full of artists and explorers. From here she went on to explore other abandonedbuildingincludingthepowerstation includedinthevideo.ShetellsusthatByAbove: Stills from I found a time machine berry was destroyed in an effort to make way for a 55+ The internet emerged as a means living community. However, the community was never to defend something Common, not built and all that remains is restricted as either public or private an empty lot. All of the tallproperty est trees were cut down, and every last brick was removed. Every empty building is waste that surface. Instead of the international-festival circuit, they largely circulate through has been left behind by capitalist ideals. She talks of the importance of capturactivist networks as well as online.2 Theconjunctionofeconomiccrisisand ing and remembering the history of these accelerateddevelopmentoftechnologies buildings. Many of these building were revoplacesusinauniqueposition.Withsuch changes and developments there arises lutionary in their very design. Electricity theobviousinterestingquestions:Whatis was a brand new invention, so power stathefutureandpossibilitiesoffilm-making tions had never been seen or conceived inourownage?Whatisthelinkbetween of before - it was important to capture

an attempt to capture and preserve this history to take back and take control (in some form) of the waste-products of Americancapital.Thefilmitselfcontainsa hiddentrace,alosttime-line,adocument of the past rendered into a fast-paced time-lapseddigitalworld.
Still from Broken Children

Kay Haywards film, Better the Devil Take you to Heaven than an Angel take you to Hell,documentstheopeningweekend ofOccupyLondon.Originallyintendedto be outside the London stock exchange, butunabletogainaccessduetolawenforcementitsetupcampoutsideSt.Pauls Cathedral. The film was layered with references to Alan Moore, Gurdjieff, current revolutionary struggles, stags rutting, the paganGoddessDiana,occupyandRumi poetry.Thefilminterweavesbetweenpoetic and mythic (for example, reflections onthehistoryoftheSt.Paulssite,asacredworshippingsiteoftheRomanGoddess Diana, goddess of the hunt and of

the imagination of the common man via beautifully designed industrial buildings. Today, this type of design process would be considered a waste of time and money. An important thing to note about old mental institutions is that the idea of healing was built into their very design - before they became dens of abuse and poison, they were constructed as places of hope and tranquillity for the ill and disturbed. We must remember that psychology is a relatively young science, and by eliminating these examples of healing architecture from our landscape we are potentially destroying valuable educational information. In this sense the film can be seen as

Still from Broken Children

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Still from Counter Indoctrination

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needstohappenbeforetherecanbepoliticalchangeandwhetherthespiritualcan illuminate our political tasks. We are presentedwithamulti-layermeditationonthe mythicconstructionofourspiritualandpoliticallives.Whatbothfilmsremindusisof thelostsedimentedhistorythatformsthe grounds beneath our feet. No less is this trueofourcurrentsituation,Occupyasks thatwetakeanewlookatourrelationship tolandandlife.Iaskedherwhatshethinks oftheoccupymovementnow. The occupy movement is still going and it is something that I personally want to continue to participate in. I think now we have to think differently in terms of how we protest. the phrase the 99% risked (unOne thing that I really took derstandably) scapegoating the 1%, away from being at the ocwithout addressing problems of the cupation was a sense of love and hope. I was inspired by capitalist system as a whole the inclusiveness of the people, I was inspired by the determination that thisfilm. In exploring the spiritual the film ex- no group of people are in charge but that amines whether revolution and progress we are all participants and that we have an arepossibleatall,whetherspiritualchange equal place in this movement. I can quite wild animals) and the political and social (forexample,thepresentoccupation).The film realises the essential nature of conflictfrombothsides.Ontheonehand,the spiritual is presented against the backdropofmyinabilitytoretainaconstantI, Diana, Goddess of the hunt and images of rutting stags; natures own essential conflicts. On the other hand there is the occupationofaspaceandtheprotesters verses the law-enforcement. Despite the essentialdifferencesofbothperspectives, KayHaywardrefusestogivesusthatclassical dichotomy of spiritual oneness and politicaldivides.Conflictrunsthroughout

categorically say that I have had very little experience of living as a participating member of a community in my life. Our society does not encourage community living, we are a very individualistic society, it is all about me and my fight to survive, and having raised two children starting as a teenage single mother from a working class background that effort for survival has been all consuming. capitalism places us in competition with each other, and most people scoff at the idea of wealth sharing and the need for equal opportunities. I would like to see the occupy movement begin to reclaim land, to re occupy the land that was stolen from our ancestors through land clearances and invasions. The financial crises has exposed the monetary system for what it it is. Based on nothing real but with much very real suffering as people are loosing there homes to the financial corporations. In a sense the redistribution of wealth needs to be based on real wealth by that I mean land. Land is the only thing that can feed and water you and provide you with shelter. I would like to see a mass occupation of land. We could start with the 60 million acres of UK land owned by her majesty the queen. This would be fitting jubilee celebration I think. It may also inspire others across the world to reclaim and re occupy the 2,467 million acres that she owns in Canada, the 1,900 million she owns in Australia, the 114 million she owns in Papua new guinea, this land ownership makes our deceptively meek and mild queen the richest person on earth. Owning, one sixth of the earths known ocean surfaces. I would like to see the occupations reclaiming the land held by the aristocracy and class system communities growing

that start with the ethos of equality, and respect for difference. Very simple ideals but ones that generations have yet to achieve. KayHaywardwasnottheonlysubmitted film to explore the mythical and spiritualdimensionofrevolution.InKatyaKobrinasBroken Childrenweareintroduced to a group of teenager experience alienationandrelievingitthroughselfharm.Here revolution,orwhatappearslikerevolution, isaverypersonal.Likewise,AionbyNikolasKasinos,DavidSharkeyandKristaPapista,weseeafilmaboutapotentialfuture where theism has become outlawed. The film-makerstellusofhow revolution is not all guns and coups and over-throwing governments, but LGBT rights was/is a revolution, feminism was/is a revolution, even the start of Christianity was a revolution each started at a social level, end up effecting governments and ethos. InspiredbyHannahArendtsclaimthat

Still from Counter Indoctrination

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolutiontheywanted to comment on the cyclical nature of revolution and chose to do this through exploring religion. In their newscast scenes they quoted real elements from the news, such as the discovery of a Muslim extremist terrorist cell and the 2011 London Riots. The

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Still from Counter Indoctrination

filmtookthemoutoftheircontextandreimaginedtheminanewsetting.Creating anewcontexttorethinkthem. During this time, we at the magazine also decided to subject ourselves to the challenge. Melanie Hay and I teamed up to make the film Counter Indoctrination. We were genuinely excited by the ideas surrounding the commons and how the threat of environmental catastrophe, depleting natural resources and the privatisation of the internet might cause us

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awhole.Allaroundusweseehalf-baked compromises that prolong the problem, or at least dont solve it. We constantly hear talk of renewable energy, recycling, diversity,multiculturalism,thebigsociety, democratic compromise, ethical capitalism, consumer hedonism as if they are the pinnacle of progressiveness, yet we seeallthesepiecemealmeasuresglossing a world unable to achieve genuine justice,equalityandenvironmentalsecurity.Ourworrywasthatoccupy,theradicalpotentialoftheinternet and the commons would Such innovations and changes be depleted of meaning, have contributed to a surge in video re-branded and sold to us. So we were excited, but activism around the world cautious and we wanted a pieceofworkthatreflected to think this and other concepts anew. this ambivalence. We chose to have our We were also excited by the blooming spoken thoughts accompanied by footoccupy movement and yet we were also agefromtheinternet,filmedonani-phone tentative. We were concerned that the using a stop-motion app. We wanted to phrasethe99%risked(understandably) capture the exciting possibilities of new scapegoating the 1%, without address- technologiesbutalsotheirdisorientating ing problems of the capitalist system as and dislocating potential. We thought of

it as a kind of counter-indocritination, a usurping of the indoctrinational material from the internet and using it to prompt questioning.Inarecentinterview,Crispin Glover, cult actor and radical filmmaker, addressessomeoftheseissuesapplying themtooccupy. I think the worst part of the corporate climate at this point in time is that theres no questioning; any film that is corporately funded and distributed will not truly ask questions. If they do, theyre the kind of questions that are virtually not real questions. There are good films every once in a while that are made though the corporate system, but for the most part if you genuinely ask a question, it will not be corporately funded or distributed. Its that moment where an audience sits back in their chair and looks up at the screen and thinks to themselves, is this right what Im watching? Is this wrong what Im watching? Should I be here? Should the filmmaker have done this? What is it? [...] When people are not asking real questions, theres a lack of education; or the opposite of education, which is propaganda. And I do feel that that is, by far the majority, 99.9 percent of all movies that are made, particularly coming out of the United States, are propaganda.[...] Ive worked in the film industry, so its exceedingly clear to me that it is propaganda and it makes me very uncomfortable. The films that people review and the actors that people love are generally

smiling propagandists that are corporate cheerleaders, and its very well hidden. But people dont protest propaganda because its propaganda and theyre not as aware of it. Whereas banking systems and other evidences of corruption that have happened are so obvious and so readily tangible that people can go out and protest, as they should and I agree with those kind of protests. I would like to see those protests and Occupy movements go into the movie theatres. I would love to see that, but its got too friendly of a face, its too difficult to pierce that propaganda, but to me its exceedingly evident. It would be interesting to see if theres a releasing of control, I would be very happy if that happened.3 Inanageofcrisis,occupyfunctions,not onlyasamovement,butamodel,amodel of resistance, one that can be taken into other areas and one which may point towardsanewwayofapproachingfilmand resistingthecommercialisationandindoctrinationofmainstreamcinema.

*All the films mentioned in this article can be viewed on the One+Onewebsite. 1YingQian,PowerintheFrame:ChinasIndependentDocumentaryMovement,NewLeftReview2/74,March-April2012. p.119ii 2YingQian,PowerintheFrame:ChinasIndependentDocumentaryMovement,NewLeftReview2/74,March-April2012. p.120 3SimonJablonski,CrispinGlover:ItIsFine!EverythingisFine. Dazed Digital (see http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/12248/1/crispin-glover-it-is-fine-everything-is-fine sourcedonJune2012)

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The View From Here

An ongoing column for One+One. Snapshots, thoughts and rants on issues relating to filmmaking, politics, life and ideas. Issue 1
James Marcus Tucker

Panel debate at the London Underground Film Festival

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Revolution. Just a Word? In December 2011, One+One launched issue 7 with a panel debate and short films screening, as part of the London Underground Film Festival. The screening coincided, fortuitously with the media spectacle that was the Occupy movement and its trespassing of privately owned ground outside St Pauls Cathedral.AstheeventwastitledRevolutions in Progress it seemed importanttospeakoftheongoingmovement, andwhereitstoodhistorically.Theevent

beganwithamontageofclipsfromfilms dealing with the issue of revolution. The obvious early examples included Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927), October (SergeiEisenstein,1928)andMan with a Movie Camera(DzigaVertov,1929).The sequence highlighted scenes throughoutthe20thandearly21stcentury,culminating in the internet activist/call-toarms documentary series phenomenon Zeitgeist (2008 2011) and the philosophicalmusingsfromAstraTaylorsExamined Life(2008).

We felt that a sequence from Monty Pythons Life of Brian(TerryJones,1979) would be a humorous, yet poignant detour in the otherwise worthy collection. The clip I chose highlighted the importance, yet the inconsistency of language when it comes to claiming political and identity-political positions. The scene focusedonasquabblebetweenagroupof characters surrounding the name of their group Are you the Judean Peoples Front? Fuck offWe are the Peoples Front of Judea! The group spirals into confusion as the members cannot seem to agree or remember which group they actuallybelongto.Thesceneculminates in a single, lone individual being pointed outasthesolememberofanothergroup they claim to hate; The Popular Front of Judea.Thecomedy,ofcourse,arisesfrom thesimilarityofthedifferentgroupsnaming,yetsomehowstandingforcompletely apposedpoliticalpositions.What,weare madetoask,isthedifferencebetweena peoplesfrontandapopularfront? Slavojiekhashighlighted,forexample,theveryradicalcontingencyofnaming. He states, it is the name itself, the signifier,whichsupportstheidentityofthe object.1Bythis,hemeansthatbythevery naming of something, it is created. Notions of freedom, democracy, and in this Pythonesque example, peoples fronts, are indeed performative - given meaning and substance retroactively by the language used to define them. It is for this reasonthatbothLeftandRightcanclaim tostandforfreedom,libertyanddemocracy,yetatthesametime,holdsuch opposing ideals. Judith Butler takes this notionfurtherindealingwiththeissueof gender or identity politics. Whist acceptingtheverysocialgainsmadethroughassimilatingpoliticalsignifiers:gay,woman,

blacketc,shehighlightsthatsuchnotions canneverfullyenvelopauniversalagreed meaning.For,whatdoesitmeantobea womanindifferentcultures;withdifferent skin colours; in different periods of time? Butler asserts that identifications are themselves phantasmatic efforts of alignment,loyalty,ambiguousandcrosscorporeal cohabitation; they unsettle the I2 Itisimportanttousesuchsignifiers,indeeditisimpossiblenotto,butlanguage isalwaysinconsistent,andquiteofteninconvenient, contradictory and contested. SimoneWeil,writinginthe1930s,wasto recognize this very point in regard to the recent changes in Russian society. She hadwitnessedtheworkdoneinthename ofrevolution,watchedasthedreamsof so many crumbled into ruin, only to recognize; the word revolution is a word for which you kill, for which you die, for which you send the laboring masses to their death, but which does not possess anycontent.3 The debate moved onto a discussion ofthenotionofrevolution.Wequestioned whatindeedmakessomethingrevolutionary, and how the Occupy movement fits intotherevolutionaryspirit.Haditenough stayingpowertoseearealchangeinthe politicallandscape?Whatwereitsgoals, andcoulditbeconsideredamovement atall?Itwasroundlyagreedthat,forexample, the Tea Party in the USA could notbeconsideredrevolutionarywhenthe movementsmainaimwastomaintaina capitaliststatusquo,despiteitsseemingly populist appeal and revolutionary language(itsnamedoes,afterallreferback toarevolutionarymomentinUShistory). Kerry-anneMendoza-anactivistwho hadbeencampingattheFinsburySquare site for a few weeks, and had been ar-

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rested the week before whilst protesting outsideParliament-wasavocaladvocate fortheactivitiesitsmembershadbeen involvedinwhichincludedtheoccupationandreappropriationofnumeroussites aroundtheworld.Arealsenseofcommunityhadgrownuparoundthecamps,and a general consensus had evolved that, whilst they had no agreed antidotes, the situation with capitalism had to be contested fiercely. The argument seemed to be, and continues to be, although we dontagreeonwhatweshouldcreate,or howwecancreateit,weknowthatTHIS isntright.Inthewakeoftherecentpublic sector cuts, the scandal that became knownasWorkfare,andtheconstantcontinuingdismantlingofthepublicinstitution thatis(was?)theNHS,itseemsthatOccupyhasdonelittletoslowdowntheneoliberaleconomicagenda.Notforthelack oftryingitmustbestated. ThethreeshortfilmspresentedallcenteredonOccupy.Ifeltthefilmwhichhad mostimpactandcausedmostdebateto betheinternetfilmcalledI am Not Moving, uploaded to YouTube by filmmaker Corey Ogilvie. The film is edited together entirely with news and mobile phone footage of occupy demonstrations, Arab spring uprisings and speeches made by American leaders. With the tag line hypocrisy has its own symmetry, it claims that whilst Obama and Clinton proclaim the atrocities of state violence against civiliansintheArabworldsuchasEgypt and Syria, they are being hypocritical when such oppression is perpetrated by American police forces against Occupy protestors. The film itself is a successful piece of agit-prop, utilising tried and tested devices of montage editing, cross cutting and soaring underscore music to drive an emotional response. It was in-

terestingtonotehowtheresponsetothe filmwasmixedsomedecryingitsovertly one-sidedapproach,lambastingitsuseof traditionaltechniques,whilstothersfound the film to be particularly successful and evocative for that very reason. It is true thatthefilmmakerhadgoodknowledgeof cinematic vocabulary. The leading questionstocomefromthedebatewere:What istheartist/filmmakersdutytoportrayall sidesofapoliticalevent?Istherealways anequivalentothersidethatshouldbe givenvoiceto? I was left thinking that no matter how overt and rabble-rousing, or calm and considered a piece of art may be; there isnoescapingideology.Isitnotthecase that the calmest, most considered and balanced approach usually puts a conservative stake in the ground? The continuingdebatearoundclimatechangeis aprimeexample;Thejurysstillouthas become the most ideological presumption imaginable. With such a dogmatic letswaitandseeapproach,willitever be possible to slow down (let alone turn back)thedamagebeingdone? Make em like Marx It was on the train to Deauville that it struck me about the good intentions of independently minded filmmakers who wishtoexistwithinthesystem.Itcomes downtothetime-oldexcuseofwanting to change the system from within. We hear it all the time: Gays in the Tory or RepublicanParty,ethnicminoritiesinthe police and liberals in Cathedral pews. And of course, there is me: a reluctant videographer freelancing for corporationswhoIhopecanbenefitbyosmosis, frommycritiqueofallthingsprofitdriven. But,peoplewithsuchgoodintentions should probably take note of aforemen-

tionedSimoneWeilsexplanationofboth capitalism, and the failure of the Soviet Unions antidote. Firstly, Weil understood, as Marx did, that theunfortunate worker finds himself subordinate not onlytohistools,buttotheintellectual castethatmanageshim.Thesubjectand objecthavebecomeswappedinpriority, meaning that the worker is reliant upon the managing/bureaucratic system for hisaccesstothetoolsfromwhichhecan earn his wage. Of course, then as now, this system is reliant upon the worker foritspower(asmasternecessarilyneeds hisslave,inordertobethatverymaster) butthemanagersofthesystemholdthe means; they have the legally protected possession of the tools and the capital to afford them, and so the exploitation can only ever be directed one way. This very domination was not relieved after theRussianRevolutionsimplyput,the managing system changed hands from theprivatespheretothestate.4 What does this knowledge mean for independently minded artists? In an industry whose product is art, it is easy to forget that Weils critique is relevant tocreatives,justasmuchastoMarxs oppressed factory workers. In the established film industry, the director may of coursecalltheshotstofellowcrewmembers,butatalltimes,thetoolsarenotin his ownership and his intellectual (artistic) vision is subordinate to the Producerscapitalandcommercialrequirements. Thisistheindustrialproductionofcinema. Soitiswithgoodintentionsthattheyoung up-startdirectorappliesforstatefunding, in the knowledge that if capitalism wont help him, then the bureaucratic guardiansoftheculturaltrendmight.Thestate subsidised filmmaker becomes every bit asreliantontick-boxbottomlinesashis

marketplace counterpart. The filmmaker and hisfilmbecome ameans toan end, insteadoftheenditself. The Missing Obit TheodorosAngelopoulosnevermadeitto the Oscars this year. Nobody seemed to notice, although the gossip rags seemed ratherexcitedthatKimJongIlhadmade ittotheredcarpetthankstoSashaBaronCohensurnthataccidentlyspilthis ashes all over TV presenter Ryan Seacrest.(SeethecliponYouTube). ThefirstAngelopoulosfilmIsawwas in a small art-house cinema in Madrid whichplayedtheEnglishsubtitlesburnt intotheprint,andSpanishsubtitlesdigitallydisplayedseparatelyunderneaththe screen.Irememberbeingquiteintrigued by this process. I couldnt help but feel that as (probably) the only English personinthecinema,Iwassomewhatadvantaged. The Spanish subtitles were appearing perhaps half a second later thantheEnglish,whichweretimedcorrectlytothedialogue.TheSpanishaudiencehadtheaddedannoyanceofhavingtoactuallylookawayfromthescreen in order to understand what was being said (assuming none spoke Greek). It remindedmeofmyoneandonlyexperience of going to Glyndebourne Opera house; only there I remember having to lookup,abovethestageinordertounderstandthewarblingItalian. The Suspended Step of the Stork(1991) initiatedmeintothischarmingfilmmakers majestic work. The film, like his others, is a sweeping gesture in landscape, timescape, emotion, perception and memory. Yetforafilmwithsuchexpanses,itisafilm that deals with borders. Set in a remote, national frontier town mostly inhabited by refugees,ayoungjournalistdiscoversare-

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Filmmakers Journal

that the only thing we have to cling to is our roots; and failing that, our humanity. IfItakeonemorestepIam...somewhere else,or...Idie.6TheodorosAngelopoulos, 19352012. Ghosts Asthelatestincarnationofthegayrights movementarguablyreachesitspeak(and most frustrating) hurdle - gay marriage theBFIhavereleasedtwoDVDsthathave mademereconsiderthenotionofhistory asevolution,andhaunting. The Erotic Films of Peter de Romeisa collection of the British born filmmakers New York home movies made during the 1970s,andEncounterspresentsfourshort BritishandAmericanfilmsbydifferentfilmmakersmadeduringthesameperiod. On the surface, of course the films in questionareofgreathistoricalinterestfor amodernviewer.Shotduringatimewhen homosexualitywaseitherillegalorsociallyunacceptable,itishearteningtonotice thechangesandadvancementssincethe productions, yet at the same time (most notably in Andy Milligans Vapours set in a New York bathhouse) recognise signs and ways of behaviour still recognisable today.WhereastheEncounterscollection draws together films perhaps intended for a wider audience, Peter de Romes oftenplayful,eroticandsensualfilmsfeel far more experimental and amateur. Their near-pornographic content would, ofcourse,haverelegatedthemtoprivate screenings for interested parties. For example, repeated close ups of soft or erect penises, masturbation and oral sex areintercutwithshotsofNewYorkstreets on summer days. Or as in one example, jumpcuttingisemployedtoslowlyreveal ablackmanspenisashedancestoupbeatjazzmusic.Hebecomesmoreerect

Still from The Suspended Step of the Stork

Theo Angelopoulos

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clusivefarmerwhoresemblesahigh-profilepoliticianwhowentmissingmanyyears before. The most striking and memorable scene shows a wedding taking place betweentwoyoungpeopleateithersidesof theriver.Thebrideandgroomareperhaps of different nationalities, or one has been displaced,andsotheceremonyhastobe conductedwiththecouplestoodfarapart, topologically divided, unable to embrace. The film ends with what appears to be a militaryguard,stoodoveranationaldividingline,liketheeponymousstork,oneleg

suspended. Angelopoulos has said of his film,Indealingwithborders,boundaries, the mixing of languages and cultures today,Iamtryingtoseekanewhumanism,a newway.5Itisachallengethatconfronts usevenmoretoday.Inaglobalisedworld whichseemstoenablethemovementand migration of people, we find even more examples of the dispossessed, the sanspapiers. When statehood equals our only formofintelligibleexistence,andourrights are referred upward, expected in legal codesandprotections,whatandwhoprotects those in transit, between or beyond borders-thosewhohaverejected,orhave been rejected by their official state? This new humanism of which Angelopoulos speaks isneededmoresothanever. The state cannot guarantee protection when itdoesnotrecognizeyou.Asocietyoverfed on nationalism and xenophobia by its tabloidmediaisinnohurrytodefendthe outside other which it perceives as an existentialthreat.Angelopoulosmadefilms about the displaced; recognizing perhaps

Above: DVD Encounters, Below: DVD Peter de Rome

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Still from Dream A40

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overthecourseofhisgyrating,endingin acloseupofaratherimpressiveejaculation.ItisthistonewhichsetsallofPeter de Romes films. There is nothing downheartedaboutthisworkitiscelebratory and certainly more sexually playful than the work of Bailey, Warhol or Anger. For him,sexistobeenjoyedinitsinnocence and fun and of course humour. During oneshort,avoiceoveradvertisingthenew carPanteraexclaimsthejoysofgrabbing the stick-shift, as yet anotherfullfrontalerectpenis ispresented,intercutwitha swirling spiral pattern; the pointaboutthehypnoticaspectofsexandadvertising is as unsubtle as his close upsofanalpenetration. DeRomeisalwaysfinding new and interesting angles and set ups to film hisnakedmuses.Menkiss through shower curtains, theysearcheachotherout inlargeFireIslandhomes, they fuck in front of fish

tanks at the aquarium, they suck each otheroffonthesubway,theythrowphallicshadowsonthewallandlieinchiaroscuroonchurchfloors.Itseemsthatde Romesinterestliesnotinthepoliticalaspectofgaymenslivesduringthistime(a refreshingsidewaysviewfromtheheavily politicised nature of gay identity) but initspleasures.Itisnotcoarseorcrude, but sensual and teasing. It is interesting tome,thatforperhapsthefirsttime,the

Still from Encounters by Peter de Rome

Still from Encounters by Peter de Rome

natureofhomosexualdesire(andparticularly its uncensored sexual manifestations)havebeenconsidered(bytheBFI) andreleasedascinemaforawideraudience,insteadofmerepornography.Of course, the perennial question of genre distinctions relating to sex will never go away, but there is certainly something of cultural interest in the joyous way de Romehighlightsthesacrednatureofhomosexuallovemaking.Thiswasafterall, the pre-AIDS era when gay sex had not yetbecomesynonymouswithdiseasein the minds of the moral-majority. These filmscomeasatimelyreminderthatsex could be, and should remain something pleasurableandguilt-free. In Encounters however, the tone is somewhatdifferentthandeRomeserotics.Thecausticandunfriendlybitchiness

displayedinVapoursremindsyoujusthow guarded and cruel the gay world can be acruelworld,itseems,requiresacruel defence. Dream A40, a beautiful film by JamaicanbornLloydReckordpresentsa youngmalecoupleonaroadtripthatdescendsintoanightmarefantasyscenario of guilt and paranoia. In Come Dancing, BillDouglashighlightsthefearthatwould undoubtedly accompany any encounter withastrangerasayoungmansflirtation with another in a seaside cafe ultimately leads to a homophobic stabbing. Finally, PeterdeRomemakesanappearancewith the film entitled Encounters not included inhisErotic Films.AlloverNewYorkCity, individualmenamongstthecrowdswalk forward with outstretched hands, seemingly guided towards one location by an unseenforce.Theyapproachashopfront,

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ascend the stairs, magically losing items ofclothingen-routeandcometogetherin asecretroomforaritualisticorgyoftactilelovemaking.Formethisisperhapsde Romes most pertinent film it conveys thenatureofgaydesireandlongingsoeffectively,withoutasinglewordspoken.In thefinalshot,themenembraceinacircle, finally splaying out like an opening flower.Itisanoptimisticsymbolicimage toendanotherwisedarkassessmentof gaylifeinthe1960sand1970s. To return to this notion of haunting. Thefilmsmademethinkabouttheways thepasthauntsthepresenttime.Weare foreverhaunted,Iwouldargue,notjust bythepastasitisremembered,butby our concerns for the what might have been.WhatifIhadappliedtothatcollegeinsteadofthis;whatifIhadbeenin thosetowersonSeptember11th;whatif Hitlerhadtriumphed?Itiseasytocalm our unease with the idea of inevitability; that somehow fate had prefigured this outcome all along. And of course, watching these films, you cannot help but consider the onslaught awaiting many of their subjects with the AIDS crisisandthepoliticaloutragethatwas tocomeinitswake.Howdidthesemen respond? How were they personally affected? Who lived long enough to see the light at the tunnels end? And then of course, where would we be today if the political momentum of the 1980s hadnotbeenestablishedinresponseto thedisease?Imagesofpre-AIDSgaylife hauntsthenowofgayidentitiesandde RomesimagesplaylikeatraceofEden beforethefall. Derridasfamoushauntologydealswith thenotionofthespectretheparadoxical stateofbeingandnotbeing.Justasthe spectreoffailed(reallyexisting)socialism

consistently haunts the capitalist order, so too does our symbolic and imaginary past haunt the present with its failures, shames, traumas and desires. Derrida explains it like the ungraspable visibility oftheinvisiblebutatthesametimethe invisibilityofthevisible7.Thishaunting, I would argue, requires an identification. Perhapstobetrulyhauntedatallissimply tofindoneselfidentifyingwithapersonor an idea that somehow resists total symbolicinclusionintoourlives;itisthere,but forever somehow out of reach. With de Romeetalwerecogniseanaspectofourselvesinthesecharactersandsituations, despitetheirdistancefromusintime.Our struggleforsexualemancipationandsocial equality today is haunted by this oftentraumaticpastbecauseitisfromthis place we continue to try and rise above. Asmuchaswestrive,itstillbindsus. Yetunlikeaspectrewhichwatchesus (isntthemosthauntingaspectsofghosts theirabilitytowatchusaswesleep?),the spectresofthesenewlyreleasedfilmsdo notlookback.Theireraisnotours,itasks nothingofus.Thehandsbeingstretched outindeRomesNewYorkstreetsarecertainlynotreachingforus.Thelovemaking istheirown,andthetraumasofBillDouglas and Lloyd Reckord are addressed to the few sympathetic ears in their own time however out of joint it may feel. Perhapsthen,wearenotsomuchbeing hauntedbytheseflickeringimages,aswe arehauntingthem.Searchingdesperately to make their stubborn remains present. Isuggestaworkofmourningisgoingon here.Historyisaconstructioninthenow, makingthepastrelevantnowbybringing today to bear upon it. We need it, I suppose;withoutitouridentitiesfeelrootless and unsupported. Without the identificationthroughtime,wecouldnotbelievein

Still from Encounters by Peter de Rome

asenseofprogressofevolutiontowards somethingtrulyGood. Thecurrentgayrightsmovementrelies, likeanypoliticalmovement,onthenotion of progress. It can only aim forward, towardsabetterplace,ifitcanreferbackto theseexperiences,anditisagreatblessing that the BFI have made these films availableforanewgeneration.

1Zizek,S.,TheSublimeObjectofIdeology,Verso,2008,P.95 2Butler,J.,BodiesThatmatter,Routledge,1993,P.68 3Weil,S.,LibertyandOppression,Routledge,2001,P.53 4Foranindepthanalysis,seeWeil,S.,OppressionandLiberty, Routledge,2001 5QuotefoundatTheodorosAngelopoulosIMDBpage.Sourced February2012.www.imdb.com/name/nm0000766/bio 6TheSuspendedStepoftheStork,TheodorosAngelopoulos,1991 7Derrida,J.,SpectersofMarx,Routledge,1994,p.6

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One+One is looking for writers and articles.

Articlescanbetheoreticalorpractical;however,wearenot5starsreviewsbased.We believeandwanttoencourageathoroughandcriticalanalysisoffilmmakingandits socialandculturaleffectsandimplications.Contributorsshouldnotwritefromaconsumerperspective,ormerelyatheorist.Allarticlesshouldbeinfluencedbytheactof filmmakingtoagreaterorlesserextent.Weencourageawidevarietyofarticleswhether autobiographical,journalistic,historical,philosophical,socio-politicalorwhetherthey aremanifestos,letters,diaries,sketchbooksorinterviews.Howevertheperspectiveof thefilmmakerorthecriticalre-inventionoffilm,asatheme,isofcentralimportance. One+Onealwaystriestotreadthefinelinebetweenstraightupacademicproseand popularwriting,weencouragearticleswhichcanreachapopularaudienceoffilmmakers, artists and intellectual laypersons without becoming anti-intellectual. All articles shouldcoveratleastoneofthetopicslistedbelow. Filmmakingpractice(includingarticleswrittenfromapracticalviewpoint.) Broadersocial,culturalandeconomicissuesforfilmmakers Filmpiracy,theinternet,newtechnologyanditssocial,culturalandeconomicimplication. Socialandpoliticalissuesinfilms Contemporary Independent and World Cinema (This could include little known or importantfilmsorfilmmakersfromallovertheworld) Pornographyandsexinfilm Artandcultcinema ActivismandFilmmaking FilmaspartofaRevolutioninProgress Underrated or under-acknowledged filmmakers or acknowledged filmmakers who haveradicallyandexperimentallybrokenboundariesinsomeway Redesigningcinemaspaceandfilmexperience Filmmakingandfilminrelationtoculturaltheorysuchaspsychoanalysis,phenomenology,psychogeography,queertheory,bodypoliticsandMarxism Articlescanrangefrom500-5000,Althoughthelengthshouldbeappropriatetothecontent. Sendproposalsto submissions@oneplusonejournal.co.uk Further information on submissions, and a downloadable PDF of the journal can be foundonourwebsite www.oneplusonejournal.co.uk