Thoughts on a film: Every Revolution is a Throw of the Dice
(1977)
Nine bodies,
dressed ordinarily enough in the unassuming fashions of the time, place this
discussion of old words into a deliberately contemporary setting. These nine bodies of limbs, joints, hearts and
minds are credited to Danièle Huillet, Marilù Parolini, Dominique Villain,
Andrea Spingler, Helmut Färber, Michel Delahaye, Manfred Blank, Georges
Goldfayn and Aksar Khaled, who are each posed, cross-legged in a semi-circle,
in the gardens of Père Lachaise. The
setting, as with the conflict between the image and text, suggests the very
literal idea of bringing the dead back to life.
In this
instance, it is the Dead of the Commune, 21st to the 28th of May, 1871, as
noted in the film's opening subtitle. However, it's also an attempt to revive the
dead forms of Stéphane Mallarmé's 1897 poem, A Throw of the Dice Will Never
Abolish Chance (in French, Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard), which is
spoken between the various characters,
throughout.
Every Revolution is a Throw of the Dice [Danièle Huillet &
Jean-Marie Straub, 1977]:
Watching
this incredibly faded and badly damaged copy of the film, I was stuck by a strange
coincidence. If the deterioration of the
image here suggested something that has, in a sense, been forgotten, then
likewise the deterioration of its burnt-in subtitles - soft and difficult to
make out against the unnaturally faded images of the film - reinforced the concept
of communication and the difficulties of expressing thoughts and ideas, either in
the individuals sense, or as part of a collective. This was an interesting concurrence (albeit,
unplanned) since the film is one where the nature of (and the need for)
communication is being deconstructed; where the various lines of Mallarmé's
work are rationed out between these nine figures in an attempt to effectively
underline the ideology of 'the group', political or otherwise, converging in an
attempt to forge collective intent.
The idea of
individualism vs. collectivism is a thread that runs throughout the film,
introduced primarily through the positioning of these figures within the frame, and the particular way
in which they are each subsequently re-framed,
compositionally, as they deliver this quoted call and response. The group shot,
positioning them in this setting, the famous Parisian cemetery and resting
place of everyone from Molière to Jean-François Lyotard, to the heart of
Jacques-Louis David - who documented, in exquisite detail, the death of
Jean-Paul Marat; one of the most iconic images of the earlier French Revolution
- once again suggests an image of the living dead. Not living
in the sense of George A. Romero and his shuffling bodies as commentary on
human indifference, but in the sense of channelling the voices of the dead;
bringing their ideas (and ideals) back to life.
Though the
style of the film initially seems rather restricted - limited as it is to a few
point-and-shoot dialogue exchanges and establishing-shots - the actual cinematic-form
(and more importantly, how it is used) is nonetheless essential in illustrating
the disparities between the group, as a collective, in comparison to their
eventual single-shot interchanges that occur towards the end of the film. If the group shot expresses the idea of the
commune - of nine bodies with a single voice - then the cutting into these
moments to highlight the significance of each speaker seems to reinforce the conception
that each "collective" is, in essence, a collaboration between individuals
attempting to establish a common ground.
The
positioning of these actors - these speakers - both together and apart, is
intended to suggest the very specific "symbolist" typeface of Mallarmé's
original work, with the actors staggered on-screen like the words of the poem
are staggered on the page. By
positioning the actors in such a way, the filmmakers are literally adapting Mallarmé's
work into images, suggesting, through the literal personification of these
words, that the nature of the collective is like a sentence, when written on the
page. A collection of words, individual,
which together, in collaboration, form a single meaning; an argument or
message; to express thoughts, feelings and ideas.
Every Revolution is a Throw of the Dice [Danièle Huillet &
Jean-Marie Straub, 1977]:
A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance [Stéphane
Mallarmé, 1897]:
