''A Grin Without a Cat'' is a 1977 French
essay film by
Chris Marker. It focuses on global political turmoil in the 1960s and '70s, including the rise of the
New Left in France and the development of socialist movements in Latin America. Using the image of
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...
's
Cheshire Cat
The Cheshire Cat ( or ) is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll in ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' and known for its distinctive mischievous grin. While now most often used in ''Alice''-related contexts, the association of a "Ch ...
, the film's title evokes a dissonance between the promise of a global socialist revolution (the grin) and its actual nonexistence.
The film's original French title is ''Le fond de l'air est rouge'', which means "The essence of the air is red", and has a subtext similar to the English title, implying that the
socialist movement
The history of socialism has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution and the changes which it brought, although it has precedents in earlier movements and ideas. ''The Communist Manifesto'' was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1847-4 ...
existed only in the air.
The title is also a
play on words
Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phonet ...
:
The original expression in French is "Le fond de l'air est frais
", meaning "there is a chill/a nip in the air". Chris Marker replaced the last word, "frais" (fresh), with "rouge" (red), so the original title translates to ''There is Red (communism/socialism) in the Air''.
Synopsis
The film features many interviews with
French communist leaders, students, and
sociologists. The
Prague Spring of 1968 is featured, with footage of a
Fidel Castro speech in which he explains his political support for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia while questioning the legality of the action. Other sections deal with the Vietnam War, the guerrilla war in Bolivia, the rise of
Salvador Allende
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...
,
Minamata poisoning in Japan, and the
Watergate Scandal
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's contin ...
in the US. There are many subtle references to cats throughout the film, as well as brief shots of raccoons.
Release
The film was originally released in France on 23 November 1977 with a running time of four hours. It was released with the subtitle "Scènes de la Troisième Guerre mondiale (1967-1977)", which means "Scenes from the Third World War (1967-1977)". It was re-edited by Marker in 1993 and scaled down to two parts of one- hour-and-a-half each, the first titled ''Fragile Hands'' and the second titled ''Severed Hands''.
The film premiered theatrically in the US in 2002.
Critical response
J. Hoberman
James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949) is an American film critic, journalist, author and academic. He began working at ''The Village Voice'' in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic ...
reviewed the film for ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...
'', and wrote that "Marker begins by evoking ''
Battleship Potemkin
'' Battleship Potemkin'' (russian: Бронено́сец «Потёмкин», ''Bronenosets Potyomkin''), sometimes rendered as ''Battleship Potyomkin'', is a 1925 Soviet silent
drama film produced by Mosfilm. Directed and co-written by S ...
'', and although hardly
agitprop
Agitprop (; from rus, агитпроп, r=agitpróp, portmanteau of ''agitatsiya'', "agitation" and ''propaganda'', " propaganda") refers to an intentional, vigorous promulgation of ideas. The term originated in Soviet Russia where it referred ...
, ''A Grin Without a Cat'' is in that tradition—a
montage film with a mass hero. Unlike
Eisenstein, however, Marker isn't out to invent historical truth so much as to look for it." The critic wrote that the film "reaches its emotional peak with the hopeful New Left demonstrations that swept Europe in 1967. ... But as felt in the tempo of the filmmaking, the tide turns in May 1968: A long, less than exciting section on the various strikes and committees of '68 culminates with the pointless attack on the annual
theater festival in Avignon." Hoberman complimented Marker's "genius for poetic aphorism", and concluded, "More impressionistic than analytical, ''A Grin Without a Cat'' is a grand immersion. Is it a tract without a thesis?"
In ''
Cineaste'',
David Sterritt
David Sterritt (born September 11, 1944) is a film critic, author and scholar. He is most notable for his work on Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard, and his many years as the Film Critic for ''The Christian Science Monitor'', where, from 1 ...
described Marker as a "committed Marxist and ... a sophisticated skeptic" while characterizing ''A Grin Without a Cat'' as "a film without a dogma". Sterritt wrote: "In sum, ''A Grin Without a Cat'' is not a lesson in history but a lesson in how history is dismembered and remembered by every generation in its own faulty way. The film is like a dream gradually coming into focus, or rather, a dream having its last bursts of energy as it gives way to newer but equally skewed patterns of cognition, imagination, and wishful fantasy."
See also
*
1977 in film
*
Cinema of France
*
Essay: Film
*
French New Wave: Left Bank
References
External links
*
*
Icarus FilmsISKRA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grin Without a Cat
1977 documentary films
1977 films
Films directed by Chris Marker
French documentary films
1970s French-language films
Documentary films about politics
1970s French films