Abstracts
Abstract
This essay reconsiders several documentary projects in film and photography that sought to articulate utopian possibilities at the height of the Cold War, when ideological imperatives constrained artists of all political persuasions. The central art work is Joris Ivens’ Song of the Rivers (1954), which is analysed and then juxtaposed to Edward Steichen’s Family of Man (1955) photography exhibition. In seeking to reclaim the textual complexity and dialectics of Ivens’ work, this analysis looks at the personal narratives that are threaded through the film’s epic aspirations. Involving Ivens and Paul Robeson, these narratives mobilize the trope of the river that recurs in both Soviet film and Robeson’s performances. Ivens and Robeson both returned to, and so refigured, elements of Song of the Rivers in two much smaller and more intimate film projects : Ivens’ La Seine a rencontré Paris ( The Seine Meets Paris, 1957) and Robeson’s Brücke über den Ozean ( Bridge Over the Ocean, 1958), made with Earl Robinson.
Résumé
Cet article porte un regard nouveau sur certains projets documentaires, cinématographiques et photographiques, qui tentaient d’articuler des éventualités utopiques au plus fort de la guerre froide, au moment où des impératifs idéologiques muselaient les artistes, quelles que soient leurs convictions politiques. L’oeuvre au centre de cette étude est Song of the Rivers (1954) de Joris Ivens, qui est analysée et ensuite mise en parallèle avec l’exposition de photographies d’Edward Steichen, Family of Man (1955). Afin de mesurer la complexité textuelle et la dialectique propre au film d’Ivens, cette analyse se penche sur les récits personnels, tissés à même les aspirations épiques du film. Ces récits, concernant Ivens et Paul Robeson, mobilisent la figure du fleuve qui apparaît à la fois dans le cinéma soviétique et les performances de Robeson. Ivens et Robeson ont tous deux repris, et par là-même re-figuré, des éléments de Song of the Rivers dans le cadre de deux projets cinématographiques de moins grande envergure et plus intimistes : pour Ivens, La Seine a rencontré Paris (1957) et, pour Robeson, Brücke über den Ozean ( Bridge Over the Ocean, 1958), réalisé avec Earl Robinson.
Appendices
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