La Commune - 1914
ABOUT THE FILM : La Commune
Cinémathèque françaiseThe Commune
Year: 1914
After the fall of the French to the Prussians in 1870 and the fall of the Second Empire, Adolphe Thiers was appointed head of the French government’s executive branch. The Parisians were humiliated and a popular revolt was imminent. On the 18th March 1871 Thiers sent for General Lecomte to retrieve the Montmartre canons acquired to defend the capital, kept by the National Guard. To begin with the population were against the troops then fraternised with them, causing the beginning of the insurrection with Thiers fleeing to Versailles and Generals Lecomte and Thomas executed. The Commune of Paris was appointed ten days later and an organisation similar to self-management was put in place at the same time to manage the town.
The historic reconstruction at an end, the film continues by introducing former communards and ends with a banner heralding the glory of the Commune before a wall of federates. With this documentary just a few seconds long Guerra shows his commitment as a militant film maker.
Nationality: French
Length: 19' 12"
Sound: silent
Original elements: black & white
Producer: Le Cinéma du Peuple
Composer: Marc Perrone (2009)
Original language: French
A BRIEF HISTORY : La Commune
The Commune is reminiscent of the revolutionary government that brought down royalty in France on the 10th August 1792. After Napoleon the third&rsquos defeat against the Prussians, the Parisians, although relieved by the end of the siege and food shortages, felt betrayed by the newly elected Assembly that was primarily monarchist and in favour of peace. The Parisians had been in for a very hard siege. They refused to let French troops retrieve the canons of Paris and feared that the Prussians, who had entered the city, would seize them. The power struggle began between royalists, the middle-classes and small-town conservatives who had withdrawn to Versailles, in favour of quick peace with Germany and the suffering Parisian population mainly from working-class neighbourhoods from the east of Paris and for the most part republican.
Restored by the French film archives this historic reconstruction of The Commune is one of the rare films produced by the Cinéma du Peuple rediscovered by Henri Langlois (1914 &ndash 1977). Founded in October 1913 by a group of anarchists, the aim of this film production worker&rsquos cooperative was to show the misery the working-class was subjected to. By the same token it heralded a militant film industry later incarnated by the &ldquoGroupe Octobre&rdquo of the 30&rsquos and all leftist cinematic groups at the end of the 60&rsquos and 70&rsquos.
The cooperative contacted José Estivalis Cabo alias Armand Guerra (1886 &ndash 1939) in this same year to put forward the idea of filming non-profit films. With Lucien Descaves (1861- 1949), helping with the script, Armand Guerra chose a theme that was symbolic of the zeal that surrounded his second film and made The Commune. The film is a reconstruction of the episode that triggered a period of insurrection in Paris that lasted approximately two months and it uses static shots alternating between indoor and outdoor scenes.
Despite the last documentary shots showing former communards, a wall of federates and a flag bearing the inscription &ldquoLong live the Commune&rdquo, the film remains quite foreign to the Cinéma du peuple&rsquos militant vocation. With no real bias &ldquothe historic episode chosen doesn&rsquot really argue in favour of the rebels&rdquo as Laurent Mannoni* points out. Nonetheless this film, which was immediately withdrawn because of the war, marks an important stage in the history of film making and furthermore paves the way for future Popular Front films.
The First World War put a permanent end to the Cinéma du Peuple that in total had produced a dozen or so documentaries and fictions. The Old Docker, another Armand Guerra film, is the cooperative&rsquos last production. An incomplete version is kept in the French Film Library.
The original music for this film was composed by Marc Perrone in 2009.
* (scientific director of the French Film Library heritage) in &ldquoLa persistence des images&rdquo (open library), Edition La Cinémathèque française 1996.
