25 May 2011

DEREK WALL ON 'LA COMMUNE'



This is from tomorrow's Morning Star....I am not really a fan of Amazon but it does seem to be one place you can buy La Commune click here.


It's time to be inspired again by Peter Watkins' film La Commune

This month marks the crushing of the Paris Commune 140 years ago when, in 1871, the workers took control of the French capital and governed democratically for all.

In doing so they demonstrated that it's not just a minority of human beings who have creative power and can run society in the interest of all.

It was a positive moment historically because of their victory but on the negative side it was brutally crushed and the Commune provides many lessons, not least in the revolt against neoliberalism globally today.

In this country the commune is almost forgotten. There's no better way to jog the memory than watching La Commune by Peter Watkins - director of the War Game which the BBC banned for years because it showed the consequences of a nuclear attack on Britain - which is his most important yet least-seen film.

Shot in just 13 days in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Paris, it shows how the workers - in revolt after the rule of Emperor Napoleon III and the national humiliation of France by the Prussians - took power, ruled and were eventually massacred with huge loss of life.

MORE HERE

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