BFI Southbank fortieth anniversary of May '68 season

A season at BFI Southbank pitches pop against politics to kick off a series of capital events to mark the fortieth anniversary of the cultural upheaval of 1968. Wally Hammond previews this hive of activity

Next month the BFI Southbank will be firing the opening salvoes in a Londonwide, two-month series of screenings and events to mark the fortieth anniversary of the radical events of 1968. The season is called, in suitable agitprop-style, ‘All Power to the Imagination! 1968 and its Legacies’ and will contribute to an ongoing survey of that contradictory year’s ‘culture, politics and thought’ and ‘its legacy to cinema, visual art, literature, music and activism’. There’s no explicit reference to the revolting workers and their demands: more money, good sex and great music – but more of that later on.

Politics and culture suddenly exploded in 1968 – the flowering of Czech cinema and the crushing of the Prague Spring by Soviet tanks; in America the debut of ‘Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In’ and the assassination of Martin Luther King; or closer to home, the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in Grosvenor Square and – why not ring our own bell? – the founding of this very organ.

The events of 1968 had a clear internationalist dimension, but the BFI Southbank, with justification, will turn first to cinema and France, that historic copywriter of revolutions, to begin its reassessment. Its 12-film programme, ‘Pop Goes the Revolution: French Cinema and May ’68’ comprises French films made from 1966 to 1969 – films of the sort that the students may have seen before storming the Paris or Nanterre barricades, or that were made in direct response to those and other actions at the time.

It’s rare that the spark of revolution comes from the defence of a dismissed bureaucrat, but that’s what happened in France. The ‘open’ policies of Henri Langlois, the secretary of the Paris-based Cinémathèque (an equivalent of our BFI), had made him the hero of French cinephiles. What nobody expected was that the broad, startling campaign for his reinstatement after his sacking by the French government would prove to be such a major factor in triggering the events of 1968.

It’s entirely appropriate, then, that dominating ‘Pop Goes the Revolution’ are films by Langlois’ ‘children’ – Jean-Luc Godard’s playfully satiric ‘Masculin Féminin’, his dystopic ‘Alphaville’ and his enervated masterpiece ‘Weekend’; Eric Rohmer’s teasing ‘La Collectionneuse’; and François Truffaut’s feminist-hued murder-thriller, ‘The Bride Wore Black’. ‘Masculin Féminin’ was ‘pre-political’ Godard, made before he donned the full revolutionary battle gear and adopted the self-denying Maoist edicts of the Dziga Vertov group he co-founded. But its joyful, ludic portrayal of various Parisian youths gave these filmmakers their famous moniker, ‘The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola’.

Since the mid-1950s, the record industry had been quick to follow economic change and demographic shift, cashing in on the youth ‘dollar’ in a big way. Meanwhile, the film industry was still stuck in the mire of the ‘youth problem’ movie era; in France, ex-Cahiers du Cinéma critics such as Godard, Truffaut and Rohmer helped bring it bang up to date, following the kids on to the streets with new, light, experimental cameras and sound equipment, new cooperative working methods, new ideas, pretty faces and music. On the music front, France, bereft of rock ’n’ roll had to make do with yé-yé, their brand of beat-oriented pop music (see Marc’o’s film ‘Les Idoles’), and Serge Gainsbourg (see Pierre Grimblat’s ‘Slogan’).

‘Pop Goes the Revolution’ captures much of that ecstatic, collectivist excitement – and by leaving out many of the heavier cinematic tomes (where is Godard’s 1963 take on the Algerian ‘problem’ and terrorism, ‘Le Petit Soldat’?) can be recommended to buffs and newcomers alike as engaging, stimulating and fun. But, to be fair, the season does capture some of the stresses and contradictions this early ’60s movement masked. Néstor Almendros, the cinematographer who worked on Rohmer’s ‘La Collectionneuse’, neatly punctured some of its intellectual pretensions: ‘We were making the films that it was possible for us to make, and trying after the fact to find theoretical justifications.’ Almendros pointed out that the ‘natural’ look of the film was down to their lack of lamps, and that Rohmer’s revolutionary ‘one take only’ philosophy was down to lack of cash.

Other featured movies – from Alain Robbe-Grillet’s deconstructionist noir ‘Trans-Europ-Express’ and fashionista-faux documentarist William Klein’s satiric ‘Mr Freedom’ and op-art ‘Who Are You, Polly Maggoo?’ – show not only the extraordinary fecundity, immediacy and engagement of French filmmakers of the time, but also their auto-destructive willingness to pull down the sets, designs and fabric of their creations. From 1965 to 1967, Klein, Almendros, Godard and Rohmer – alongside Chris Marker, Claude Chabrol, Barbet Schroeder and Jean Rouch – had all worked collectively on projects such as ‘Paris Vu Par’ and ‘Loin de Vietnam’. But by 1968, in scenes as reminiscent of the Marx Brothers as Karl Marx, they were denouncing each other. Rohmer was dismissed as a ‘bourgeois individualist’ (for stressing his character’s emotional autonomy); while the ‘conservative’ Truffaut was a betrayer of the revolution. So the intellectual slanging match went bitterly on. Which side are you on? The ’60s drew the battle lines, but the war still rages.

Critic and screenwriter Gilbert Adair, witty as ever, drew his own myth-mocking synthesis. His script for Bernardo Bertolucci’s 2003 film ‘The Dreamers’, a remembrance of ‘les événements’ of Paris ’68, has his idealistic, but sleepy, young protesters too busy with three-way sex to pick up their Molotov cocktails and join the rioters. Why not have the best of both worlds? Revisit the revolution and enjoy yourself at the same time.

The 1968 season will run at various venues from April 11 to June 10. ‘Pop Goes the Revolution: French Cinema and May ’68’ is at BFI Southbank from April 13 to 30.