Production : Video Out

 
On 16 October 1970, at the Hôtel Cecil in Paris, the group Video Out (Carole and Paul Roussopoulos) filmed Jean Genet reading a declaration following the announcement of the arrest of Angela Davis, a member of the Black Panthers and professor of philosophy in the United States.

The writer Rezvani had invited a number of intellectuals, including Genet, to appear on a television show, a broadcast called L'invité du dimanche to be aired on 8 November 1970.

The filmmaker observes the taping of the show by the French television crew (ORTF), directed by Jean Daniel Pollet.

During the initial taping, Genet gives a scathing reading of the following text (excerpted here): “Angela Davis is now in your grip. Everything is in place. Your cops—who have already shot a judge, the better to kill three Blacks—your cops, your administration, your judges are training everyday, your scientists as well, to massacre the Blacks. First, the Blacks. All of them. Then the Indians who have survived until now. Then the Chicanos. Then the radical Whites. Then, I hope, the liberal Whites. Then the White administration. Then yourselves. The world will then be free. After your passage, the memory, the philosophy and the ideas of Angela Davis and the Black Panther will remain.”

Genet violently denounces the racist politics of the United States and shows his support of Davis and the Black Panthers. At the request of the ORTF film director, he rereads his text twice, doing his best to promote his political text on screen rather than himself. The broadcast was eventually censored.

The filmmaker takes in the television studio with an ironic gaze. She points up the difference between the attitude of a Jean Genet, conscious of his political commitment, and the behavior of the television crew hurrying to finish taping the show. The rhythm and repeated cuts of the TV shots offer a stark contrast with the fluidity of Roussopoulos's view and the affinity she displays for her subject. On the one hand, we see a TV camera looking to give an “objective” view, on the other, a shoulder-mounted camera empathizing with the subject and his political message.

Nicole Fernandez Ferrer