''La Société du Spectacle'' (''Society of the Spectacle'') is a black-and-white 1974 film by the

Situationist The Situationist International (SI) was an Proletarian internationalism, international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and Political philosophy, political theorists. It was prominent in Eu ...

Guy Debord, based on his 1967 book of the same name. It was Debord's first feature-length film. It uses found footage and détournement in a radical Marxist

critique Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic study of a written or oral discourse. Although critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgment,Rodolphe Gasché (2007''The honor of thinking: critique, theory, philosophy''p ...

mass marketing Mass marketing is a marketing strategy in which a firm decides to ignore market segment differences and appeal the whole market with one offer or one strategy, which supports the idea of broadcasting a message that will reach the largest number o ...

and its role in the alienation of modern society.

Film content

The 88 minute film took a year to make and incorporates an apparent jumble of footage from feature films juxtaposed with still photographs, industrial films, early 1970s glossy 'lifestyle' TV ads, and news footage of unrest in the streets. The feature films include ''

The 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 ...

'', ''

October October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the sixth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old calendar of Romulus , October retained its name (from Latin and Greek ''ôc ...

'', '' Chapaev'', ''

The New Babylon ''The New Babylon'' (russian: Новый Вавилон, Novyy Vavilon alt. title: russian: Штурм неба, Shturm neba) is a 1929 silent historical drama film written and directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg. The film deals w ...

'', '' The Shanghai Gesture'', ''

For Whom the Bell Tolls ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned ...

'', '' Rio Grande'', ''

They Died with Their Boots On ''They Died with Their Boots On'' is a 1941 American black-and-white Western film from Warner Bros. Pictures, produced by Hal B. Wallis and Robert Fellows, directed by Raoul Walsh, that stars Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. The film's sto ...

'', ''

Johnny Guitar ''Johnny Guitar'' is a 1954 American Western film directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Ernest Borgnine and Scott Brady. It was produced and distributed by Republic Pictures. The screen ...

'', and '' Mr. Arkadin'', as well as other Soviet films. Throughout the film, there are intertitles consisting of quotations from ''

The Society of the Spectacle ''The Society of the Spectacle'' (french: La société du spectacle) is a 1967 work of philosophy and Marxist critical theory by Guy Debord, in which the author develops and presents the concept of the Spectacle. The book is considered a semin ...

'', along with Debord (in voice-over) reading texts from

Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

, Machiavelli, the 1968

Occupation Committee of the Sorbonne Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, th ...

Tocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his work ...

Émile Pouget Émile Pouget (12 October 1860 in Pont-de-Salars, Aveyron, now Lozère – 21 July 1931 Palaiseau, Essonne) was a French anarcho-communist,The Anarchist Papers III, page 97 who adopted tactics close to those of anarcho-syndicalism. He was vice-se ...

, and Sergey Solovyov and others. Without citations, these quotes are hard to decipher, especially with the conflicting subtitles (which exist even in the French version): but that is part of Debord's goal to "problematize reception" (Greil and Sanborn) and force the viewer to be active. In addition, the words of some of the authors are détourned through deliberate misquoting.Guide to the détournements in ''The Society of the Spectacle''
/ref> Footage of historical events is included, such as the murder of

Lee Harvey Oswald Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was a U.S. Marine veteran who assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, on November 22, 1963. Oswald was placed in juvenile detention at the age of 12 fo ...

(the assassin of U.S. President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

in 1963), the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

of 1936-1939, the

1956 Hungarian Revolution The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hung ...

and the Paris riots in May 1968, along with clips of people such as

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

, Fidel Castro,

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

and the Spanish anarchist

Durruti José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange (14 July 1896 – 20 November 1936) was a Spanish insurrectionary, anarcho-syndicalist militant involved with the CNT and FAI in the periods before and during the Spanish Civil War. Durruti played an in ...

. In 1984, Debord withdrew his films from circulation because of the negative press and the assassination of his friend and patron Gerard Lebovici. Since Debord's suicide in 1994, Debord's wife

Alice Becker-Ho Alice Becker-Ho, also known as Alice Debord (born August 6, 1941), is a Chinese-born French intellectual closely associated with the Situationist International. Among other works, she has written poetry, a scholarly study of slang, and a trave ...

has been promoting Debord's film. A DVD box set titled ''Guy Debord: Oeuvres cinématographiques complètes'' was released in 2005 and contains Debord's seven films.

Music

The piece used in the film is ''Les Delices de la Solitude'', Op. 20 No. 6 - Sonata in D Major : I. ''Allegro Moderato'', by

Michel Corrette Michel Corrette (10 April 1707 – 21 January 1795) was a French composer, organist and author of musical method books. Life Corrette was born in Rouen, Normandy. His father, Gaspard Corrette, was an organist and composer. Little is known of ...

References

Sources

*Marcus, Greil and Sanborn, "On the films of Guy Debord", Keith; Feature; Artforum; February 2006 *Bracken, Len; ''Guy Debord: Revolutionary''; Feral House; 1997; California *Knabb, Ken; ''Guy Debord's Complete Cinematic Works''; AK Press; 1978; Canada *Marshall, Peter; '' Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism''; Fontana Press; 1992; London *Lasn, Kalle; ''Culture Jam: How to Reverse America's Suicidal Consumer Binge - And Why We Must''; Quill; 1999; New York

External links

*
Observations on the English translation of Guy Debord's ''Oeuvres Cinématographiques Completes''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Society Of The Spectacle, The French documentary films Situationist International Anti-modernist films Documentary films about the media Collage film 1970s French films