Archive Fever: The Polemical Cine-Essay
Cine-essays & Essay-films that: 1) Make a persuasive argument, but in an open-ended, essayistic, para-academic manner 2) Primarily use archival, compilation, or supercut visuals 3) Embrace wordiness and difficult language without apologies
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- DirectorChris MarkerStarsSimone SignoretJorge SemprúnDavos HanichFrench essay film focusing on global political turmoil in the 1960s and '70s, particularly the rise of the New Left in France and the development of socialist movements in Latin America.
- DirectorGuy DebordStarsRasit TahtaciDuygu ErkanA Latin palindrome is the title of Guy Debord's last film, in which he, as narrator, explains that he will make neither concessions to the tastes of his viewers nor to the dominant ideas of his day. After extensively insulting the audience that goes to the cinema to forget its heteronomous life, the film becomes autobiographical, using images from the world of spectacle: advertising brochures, clips from feature films (Les enfants du paradis), comics, aerial footage of Paris, tracking shots through Venice, photographs of friends - all commented on by Debord, with an at times melancholy undertone: "This Paris no longer exists." His assessment is that one of the great pleasures of his life has been the sensation of the passage of time, and as a witness to the disintegration of social order, he has loved his epoch.
- DirectorDziga VertovStarsMikhail KaufmanElizaveta SvilovaA man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.
- DirectorPenny LaneStarsRichard NixonH.R. HaldemanJohn EhrlichmanNever before seen Super 8 home movies filmed by Richard Nixon's closest aides - and convicted Watergate conspirators - offer a surprising and intimate new look into his Presidency.
- DirectorSophie FiennesStarsSlavoj ZizekPhilosopher Slavoj Zizek examines the hidden themes and existential questions asked by world renowned films.
- DirectorJason OsderStarsBirdie AfricaRamona AfricaWilson GoodeA history of the conflict of the City of Philadelphia and the Black Liberation organization, MOVE, that led to the disastrously violent final confrontation in 1985.
- DirectorAlain ResnaisStarsJacques DumesnilThis documentary explores the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, its priceless treasures, and how humanity remembers itself.
- DirectorSierra PettengillStarsCharlene ModesteLyndon B. JohnsonOtto KernerWelcome to Riotsville, a fictional town built by the US military. Using all archival footage, the film explores the militarization of the police and creates a counter-narrative to the nation's reaction to the uprisings of the late '60s.
- DirectorSierra PettengillPacho VelezStarsRonald ReaganNancy ReaganMikhail GorbachevMade up entirely of archival news and White House footage, this documentary captures the pageantry, absurdity, and mastery of the made-for-TV politics of Ronald Reagan.
- DirectorJean-Denis BonanGérard FromangerPhilippe GarrelA series of 41 documentary shorts, directed (without credit) by several famous French filmmakers and each running between two and four minutes. Each "tract" espouses a leftist political viewpoint through the filmed depiction of real-life events, including workers' strikes and the events of Paris in May '68.
- DirectorGuy DebordStarsGuy DebordLeonid BrezhnevFidel CastroGuy Debord's cinematic analysis of consumer society based on his influential book "La société du spectacle" (1967).
- DirectorYannick BellonChris MarkerStarsPierre ArditiThrough photos made by the French photographer Denise Bellon, a personnal history of France.
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardJoris IvensWilliam KleinStarsAnne BellecKaren BlanguernonFidel CastroIn seven different segments, Godard, Klein, Lelouch, Marker, Resnais, and Varda show their sympathy and support for the North Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War.
- DirectorTrinh T. Minh-haA short film which documents the lives of women in a rural Senegal.
- DirectorJean RouchStarsJean RouchA documentary short depicting a Hauka ceremony where young workers are possessed by British colonial officers.
- DirectorRené ViénetStarsHung-Liu ChanIngrid Yin-Yin HuJason Piao PaiImagine a kung fu flick in which the martial artists spout Situationist aphorisms about conquering alienation while decadent bureaucrats ply the ironies of a stalled revolution. This is what you'll encounter in René Viénet's's outrageous refashioning of a Chinese fisticuff film. An influential Situationist, director René Viénet's stripped the soundtrack from a run-of-the-mill Hong Kong export and lathered on his own devastating dialogue. A brilliant, acerbic and riotous critique of the failure of socialism in which the martial artists counter ideological blows with theoretical thrusts from Debord, Reich and others.
- DirectorRené ViénetTaking rare archives, texts and extracts from speeches, René Viénet shows Mao Tse-tung in an unusual light, the fate of his mythology.
- DirectorFrancis DeronJean-Paul TchangRené ViénetA Shakespearian story full of noise and fury, but that means something. In the role of the "Grand Helmsman", Mao ZeDong himself, in the role of Madame Mao, famous actress Lan Ping, aka Jian Qing, as closest comrade in arms, traitor Lin Piao. Co-star-ring the vanished glories of the "Gang of Four". In the role of the proletariat, the Worker XXX. The costumes, the make-up, the gala dinners were kindly provided by the Maoist bureaucracy. Historical tricks: Third International, American imperialism, Jean Chesneaux, the Maoist bureaucracy, etc. The directors thank the People's Liberation Army for its invaluable assistance in eliminating the traitor Lin Piao. As writer Simon Leyes said: "The film gives us back the hysterical liturgies and medieval thaumaturgies of the cult of Mao".
- DirectorRené ViénetA team of female heroes, forced into a disciplinary school, who revolt against the authorities and their assistants.
- DirectorDziga VertovThis documentary promoting the joys of life in a Soviet village centers around the activities of the Young Pioneers. These children are constantly busy, pasting propaganda posters on walls, distributing hand bills, exhorting all to "buy from the cooperative" as opposed to the Private Sector, promoting temperance, and helping poor widows. Experimental portions of the film, projected in reverse, feature the un-slaughtering of a bull and the un-baking of bread.
- DirectorDziga VertovHow the miners of the Don coal basin (one of the industrial regions of Ukraine) were striving to fulfill in four years their part of the Five Year Plan.
- DirectorDziga VertovStarsDolores IbárruriNadezhda KrupskayaVladimir LeninThree anonymous songs about Lenin provide the basis for this documentary that celebrates the achievements of the Soviet Union and Lenin's role in creating them.
- DirectorHala AbdallahJohn AkomfrahWang BingStarsJessica AlexanderBernardo BertolucciLola CrétonSeventy short films about cinema and its future.
- DirectorGuy DebordStarsGuy DebordCaroline RittenerA theory of Situationism is proposed through shots of Paris, a young woman, newsreel clips, extracts from classic films, photographs and newspaper images
- DirectorGuy DebordStarsGuy DebordSerge BernaIsidore IsouThe director renders tribute to the Marquis of Sade without images. The screen is white when the testimonies speak, and black when they don't, in this experimental film.
- DirectorJohn AkomfrahStarsOctavia ButlerGeorge ClintonKodwo EshunFramed by the fictional story of the "data thief," this hybrid documentary takes a look at the origins, impact and significance of Afrofuturism and techno music for the black diaspora.
- DirectorJohn AkomfrahStarsBrian BovellSiobhan BurkeTruman Penfold
- DirectorEmile de AntonioStarsHarry S. AshmoreDaniel BerriganJoseph ButtingerA documentary chronicling the background to, and history of, the Vietnam War.
- DirectorEmile de AntonioStarsJohn G. AdamsRoy M. CohnRay JenkinsAn unfiltered, unflinching document of the notorious 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, compiled entirely from raw TV footage (with no narration, music, or added scenes).
- DirectorPeter DavisStarsTin ChanChau DiemNgo Dinh DiemA startling and courageous landmark documentary that unflinchingly confronted the United States' involvement in Vietnam at the height of the controversy that surrounded it.
- DirectorBarbara KoppleStarsJohn L. LewisCarl HornNorman YarboroughA heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.
- DirectorJean-Marie StraubStarsAimé AgnelChristiane VeschambreA film in three parts: An aquarium, a man sitting at a table reading various text passages, and a sequence from Jean Renoir's film La Marseillaise.
- DirectorJean-Marie StraubStarsArnaud DommercJean-Marie StraubGilles PandelComposed in six parts, Communists (Kommunisten) re-ignites scenes from the diverse filmography of Straub and Huillet, moving from Switzerland to Italy to Egypt, to chart a story of resistance across the 20th century.
- DirectorRamin BahraniStarsWerner HerzogBarbara WeetmanA plastic bag, thrown out in the trash, attempts to find his way back to his owner and along the way discovers the world.
- DirectorJeff Orlowski-YangStarsTristan HarrisJeff SeibertBailey RichardsonExplores the dangerous human impact of social networking; tech experts sound the alarm on their own creations.
- DirectorCharlie ShackletonStarsFairuza BalkBeyond Clueless is a dizzying journey into the mind, body and soul of the teen movie, as seen through the eyes of over 200 modern coming-of-age classics.
- DirectorGiovanni GuareschiPier Paolo PasoliniStarsGiorgio BassaniRenato GuttusoGigi Artuso"La Rabbia" employs documentary footage (from the 1950s) and accompanying commentary to attempt to answer the existential question, Why are our lives characterized by discontent, anguish, and fear? The film is in two completely separate parts, and the directors of these respective sections, left-wing Pier Paolo Pasolini and conservative Giovanni Guareschi, offer the viewer contrasting analyses of and prescriptions for modern society. Part I, by Pasolini, is a denunciation of the offenses of Western culture, particularly those against colonized Africa. It is at the same time a chronicle of the liberation and independence of the former African colonies, portraying these peoples as the new protagonists of the world stage, holding up Marxism as their "salvation," and suggesting that their "innocent ferocity" will be the new religion of the era. Guareschi's part, by contrast, constitutes a defense of Western civilization and a word of hope, couched in traditional Christian terms, for man's future.
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniGiuseppe BertolucciStarsGiorgio BassaniRenato GuttusoGiuseppe BertolucciAn attempt to reconstruct the complete version of Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment of Anger (1963).
- DirectorGiovanni BonfantiPier Paolo PasoliniStarsEdoardo Di GiovanniMarcello GentiliAugusto LudovichettiOn December 12th, 1969, a bomb went off at the Piazza Fontana in Milan that killed 16 people and injured 84. Railway worker and anarchist activist Giuseppe Pinelli was picked up, with other anarchists, for questioning regarding the attack. He was held and interrogated for three days, longer than Italian law specified that people could be held without seeing a judge. Just before midnight on December 15, 1969, Pinelli was seen falling to his death from a fourth-floor window of the Milan police station. Although officially deemed a suicide, the reporter who watched the fall from the street maintained that he was pushed. Three police officers interrogating Pinelli were put under investigation in 1971 for murder, but charges were dropped for lack of evidence.
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsPier Paolo PasoliniDocumentary footage of the city of Sana'a in Yemen, one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, with a voice-over calling for UNESCO to protect the city's architectural heritage before it is destroyed by development.
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsNinetto Davoli
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsdon Andrea CarraroPier Paolo PasoliniWhile scouting locations for his classic "The Gospel According to St. Matthew", director Pier Paolo Pasolini noticed that filming in the actual site of the story, in Palestine, wouldn't be much of a great choice due to the modern invasion which completely altered the biblical settings. Here, the director explained his reasons of why his search in the Middle East end up being wrong - though somewhat fruitful and rewarding in other ways - and why his native Italy surprised him and became the scenario for his religious epic.
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsK.A. AbbasRajinder Singh BediPier Paolo PasoliniA half hour documentary Pasolini made about his search for places, faces and ideas to be in a film about India that was never completed.
- DirectorPier Paolo PasoliniStarsLello BersaniAlberto MoraviaCesare MusattiDirector Pasolini traverses Italy in 1963 with camera and microphone interviewing people in public places about sex, marriage and gender roles.
- DirectorJean-Marie StraubStarsBarbara UlrichIn the text "From "L'exercitation", Montaigne tells us about his fall from his horse and shows us how we transform what is painful or threatening into experience, the danger in what saves.
- DirectorYanira YarivNatalie DanaStarsAndrea VergoniGabriella Basso RicciAndrea Lorenzo Donnino ForzaniAMORI E METAMORFOSI is inspired by Ovide's poem Metamorphoses, performed by transgender people talking about their own experiences.
- DirectorJean-Marie StraubStarsBarbara UlrichGustav LeonhardtGlory and collapse of the great Republic of Venice. The reasons are multiple, complex, human and too human. Are these the same ingredients, whose mix will decide whether or not and under what conditions does Europe survive today?
- DirectorJean-Marie StraubStarsGünther Peter StraschekDanièle HuilletPeter NestlerA documentary based on Arnold Schoenberg's treatise that speaks out against the persecution of the Jewish people.
- DirectorWalter HeynowskiGerhard ScheumannStarsWolfgang HeinzGerhard ScheumannSalvador AllendeIn the spring of 1974, a camera team from Studio H&S succeeded against the explicit orders of the Chilean Junta's Chancellery, entered into two large concentration camps in the north of the country - Chacabuco and Pisagua - leaving with filmed sequences and sound recordings.
- DirectorAmos GitaiStarsAdina BaronInspired by Bertolt Brecht's poem "A Worker Reads History," documentary and fictional scenes are juxtaposed to create a parable about the need for a strong man, a charismatic leader. This film includes the first images filmed by Gitai in Wadi Rushmia in 1974.
- DirectorDanièle HuilletJean-Marie StraubStarsFranco FortiniLuciana NissimAdriano ApràThe film is a sort of presentation of Franco Fortini's book 'I Cani del Sinai'. Fortini, an Italian Jew, reads excerpts from the book about his alienation from Judaism and from the social relations around him, the rise of Fascism in Italy, the anti-Arab attitude of European culture. The images, mostly a series of Italian landscape shots, provide a backdrop that highlights the meaning of the text.
- DirectorDanièle HuilletJean-Marie StraubStarsDanièle HuilletBahgat ElnadiGérard SamaanA sequence of shots of rural landscapes accompanied by readings of texts about the struggles of poor farmers.
- DirectorJean-Marie StraubDanièle HuilletStarsHelmut FärberMichel DelahayeGeorges GoldfaynA group of actors declaim excerpts from Mallarmé's 'A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance' in the cemetery where the martyrs of the Paris Commune were shot in 1871.
- DirectorDanièle HuilletJean-Marie StraubStarsLinda ArvidsonDolando BernardiniKate BruceGreed and capitalism are presented in this political featurette.
- DirectorJean-Marie StraubStarsChristophe ClavertA man wanders near the Léman reciting the critical thoughts of Bernanos.
- DirectorAlexandre MorattoA portrait of the current state of Brazil in the context of ongoing political and social unrest.
- DirectorYulia LokshinaA multi-layered documentary about escalating capitalism and the working conditions in Germany's largest slaughterhouse.
- DirectorAl RazutisStarsAl RazutisWearing a professorial suit (without pants), poised at a podium (with large magnifying screen), Professor Al Razutis proceeds to "instruct" with a dildo pointer, reads prepared lecture text using a voice synthesizer (writings based on Frederick Jameson, Arthur Kroker, Gilles Deleuze, Walter Benjamin and others) while a series of slides of "famous modernist paintings" from the US, Canada, and Europe are projected with superimposed projected 16mm film cross-hair - the tilted X.
- DirectorAl RazutisStarsLincoln ClarkesSamantha Hamernes-CoombsSusan Lee-NovaExperimental film which was created one reel at a time to function as a mosaic that expresses various sensations, myths, landscapes of industrialized Western culture.
- DirectorAl RazutisStarsSusan BerganziTrevor BrazilMaria Insell
- DirectorDouglas ChomynScott HaynesAl RazutisStarsPatricia GrubenMaria InsellRoss McLarenA reconstruction, reinterpretation, and representation of a panel presentation on "Avant-Garde Film Practice" during National Film Week in Vancouver (March 1986), featuring five of the panelists offering views on individualism, new feminist narrative, erotic aestheticism, and anti-semiotics, with moderator Maria Insell. Each presentation is reconstructed using formal devices that arise in each panelist/experimental director's particular film practices.
- DirectorAl RazutisThe video was completed after the conclusion of Al Razutis's retrospective shows at EMAF, in Osnabrück, Germany (2002). There are three short films edited within the final montage, each with a different subject matter and form.
- DirectorAl RazutisAnarchist tune to the visuals of cyber virus: To the tune '99 Red Balloons' performed by Goldfinger, we view spread 'Code Red Worm' across 350K computers, in 14 hours, throughout the world wide web. The party's getting bigger.
- DirectorAl RazutisStarsAl RazutisMulti-media performance where a 'director' with baseball cap encourages audience to participate, reading philosophers' texts, as time-lapse film camera shoots melting block of ice; the act being a commentary on the making of Canadian films.
- DirectorSylvain Maestraggi
- DirectorJean-Luc GodardStarsJean-Marc StehléAgatha CoutureMathias DomahidyThe passengers on a Mediterranean cruise enjoy their luxuries as a small family struggles with overbearing media attention.
- DirectorChristian BlackwoodMichael BlackwoodStarsHannah ArendtPeter StadelmayerAn intimate and intellectual lecture given by Hannah Arendt about the work and fate of her friend and colleague in the philosophical field, Walter Benjamin. Delivered in January 1968 at the Goethe House in New York, Arendt's speech paid tribute to Benjamin's ideologies surrounding linguistic philosophy, history and literature. Arendt notes the importance of German-Jewish literature in Benjamin's work, insisting that "without being a poet, he thought poetically. For him the metaphor was the greatest gift of language, because it transforms the invisible into the sensual." (Hannah Ardent) Through his passion for writers such as Kafka, Goethe and Proust, Benjamin honed his own sort of theology revolving around classic texts, preservation, and the collecting of wisdom.
- DirectorRamin BahraniStarsRichard DavisAn exploration of Richard Davis, the inventor of the modern-day bulletproof vest who shot himself at least 192 times to prove his product worked.
- DirectorRamin BahraniBob BalabanJoe BerlingerStarsChadd SmithRobert ClotworthyBilly EichnerAn anthology of short films that pairs directors with leading economic advisers to create stories that offer a better understanding of how the economy impacts all of our lives.
- DirectorAlfredo AngeliGiorgio ArlorioMario BalsamoA collective documentary on the protest movement against the G8 meeting in Genoa, Italy in 2001.
- DirectorThom AndersenA personal history of cinema, partially inspired by Gilles Deleuze, 'The movement-image' and 'The time-image.' All quotations are from Deleuze, unless otherwise attributed.
- DirectorThom AndersenNoël BurchStarsPaul JarricoEric JohnstonRing Lardner Jr.A documentary that examines the films made by the victims of the Hollywood Blacklist and offers a radically difference perspective on a key period in the history of American cinema.
- DirectorPaula TrabulsiStarsMaria Fernanda CândidoCiça AzevedoMarilu BeerA woman is faced with a situation in which a desire would lead her to change her whole life. This and other personal issues by Ana Thereza serve as a starting point to address the main object of this documentary, the Desire.
- DirectorVirginie LinhartStarsNoam ChomskyGilles ChâteletHélène CixousThe documentary recounts the epic of Vincennes Experimental University Center, from its creation after the events of May 68 until its demolition in the summer of 1980. To talk about Vincennes is to relive unique ten years of intense intellectual and political extravaganza, educational and artistic inventiveness, utopias, hopes, and betrayals that marked the history in a unique place, the forest with the eponymous name.
- DirectorUsulStarsUsulBernard-Henri LévyPaul Amar
- DirectorGilles BovonLuc HermannStarsMelody OvertonJaime PraterBryant SimonStarbucks is now a part of our daily lives. Like McDonald's, its 22,000 coffeehouses present in 67 countries have made it a recognizable symbol of globalization. This investigative report explores the brand's appeal, what made its success and reveals the coffee giant's dark underside.
- DirectorMichèle RosierStarsAnne WiazemskyAlain LiboltDenis GunsbourgThis interrogation of famed 19th century French writer, proto feminist George Sand, includes discussion with the new early 1970s feminist movement and a critique of the limitations of her progressivism (she opposed the 1871 Paris Commune).
- DirectorM. FoucaultStarsEdu AlonsoOlivier ColletJérôme LefaureThe impulse by which a single individual, a group, a minority, or an entire people says, 'I will no longer obey', and throws the risk of their life in the face of an authority they consider unjust seems to me to be something irreducible. This is because no power is capable of making it absolutely impossible.
- DirectorSatu HärkönenStarsTom WentzelA poetic documentary about a busy everyday life in the city. Free time and freedom are scarce in a contemporary society. Different social norms are expected to be maintained.
- DirectorPatrick Delabre
- DirectorRené AllioStarsClaude HébertJacqueline MillièreJoseph LeportierBased on documents compiled by leading French philosopher Michel Foucault, this unique and original film charts the gruesome events which took place in a Normandy village in 1835, when a young man, Pierre Rivière, murdered his mother, sister and brother before fleeing to the countryside. With a cast made up of real-life villagers from the area where the events took place, the detailed re-enactments and careful attention to the gestures of their ancestors serve to create an intense and sometimes disturbing atmosphere of hyper-realism. Details of the crime and of the trial that followed are told from varied perspectives, including the written confession of Pierre himself, and form a rich and complex narrative that interrogates the concepts of "truth" and "history".
- DirectorChantal AkermanRené AllioDenis AmarStarsPaul AmarRobert BadinterGuy BedosContre l'Oubli (Against Oblivion) is a compilation of 30 French filmmakers, Alain Resnais and Jean Luc Godard among them, who use film to make a plea on behalf of a political prisoner. Jean Luc Godard and Anne Marie Mieville's film concerns the plight of Thomas Wanggai, West Papuan activist who has since died in prison. The short films were commissioned by Amnesty International.
- DirectorJoris IvensMarceline Loridan IvensJean BigiaouiFrom 1972 until 1974, Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan, along with a Chinese film crew, documented the last days of the Cultural Revolution, marking the end of an era. The vast amount of footage they shot was edited into twelve films of varying lengths. Focusing on ordinary people spread over a wide geographic area-many of whom were living and working in collectives-the filmmakers recorded a unique moment in history, and also captured some of the more enduring aspects of Chinese culture.
- DirectorPaul GrivasStarsJean-Luc GodardPatti SmithAlain BadiouEarly 2010 Jean Luc Godard shots Film Socialisme incognito aboard the Concordia cruise ship. Thee years later the same ship wrecks in the Mediterranean sea.
- DirectorKonstantin FerstlStarsAlain BadiouDoris BuchruckerInes HollingerCommunism is dead. Long live Capitalism! We learned the credo of our time, the era of market-compliant democracy: Live, but without ideas. Is that truly all there is? - An essay film in search of a lost utopia.
- DirectorFrançois CaillatStarsLeo BersaniGeorges Didi-HubermanDidier EribonCaptures the energy and fierce intellect of the man, introducing us to some of the key elements of his work, while acknowledging--even celebrating--its many contradictions.
- DirectorNicolas DrolcStarsSerge LivrozetMichel FoucaultDeath Must Be Earned is the intimate portrait of Serge Livrozet, former safe-cracker, one of the protagonists of 1970s French counter-culture, alongside Michel Foucault founder of the Committee of Prisoner's Action, self-taught writer and anarchist activist. The film portraits him at age 75 in his hometown of Nice where he revisits the pivotal episodes of his life of social struggle and political activism.
- DirectorJean-Michel DjianStarsAlain BadiouPierre BourdieuPierre ChaunuA philosopher of complexity, Edgar Morin has renewed the figure of the intellectual. Born Edgar Nahoum in Paris in 1921, he joined the Communist Resistance in 1942, where he adopted the pseudonym Morin, which he never abandoned. Author of about a hundred books, doctor "honoris causa" of about forty universities in the world, he never stopped promoting human brotherhood.
- DirectorGilles L'HôteStarsPierre Bourdieu
- 2014–TV EpisodeDirectorUsulStarsUsulLuc BoltanskiPierre Bourdieu
- DirectorThomas HaemmerliStarsLupe HaemmerliPablo HaemmerliAna RoldánA humorous personal and essay film addressing architecture, habitation, space, density, xenophobia, gentrification and urban development.