From: michael a. lebowitz (mlebowit@SFU.CA)
Date: Wed Dec 13 2006 - 22:06:15 EST
If I remember correctly, Marta worked up the
chronology for the film; she had a lot of
information from editing Chile Hoy, the left weekly journal of the period.
michael
At 21:54 13/12/2006, you wrote:
>Paolo:
>
>The movie you are thinking of is "Batalla de Chile" ["The Battle of
>Chile"], a 1977 3-part film by Patricio Guzmán. There is also a 1997
>film which is considered the 4th part. An online description of this
>very lengthy but enthralling documentary follows. Note that Marta
>Harnecker (who is affiliated with an OPE-L member) served as a special
>advisor in the making of the film. While often sober and grim, it is a
>film to be seen and a subject to be remembered and learned from.
>
>In solidarity, Jerry
>
>
>
>
>Part 1: The Bourgeois Insurrection, 1975.
>
>The first film in a two-part documentary on the fate of Allende's Popular
>Unity government filmed throughout Chile from February toSeptember 1973.
>Part one examines the escalation of rightist opposition following the
>left's victory in Congressional elections held in March, 1973.
>
>Part 2: The Coup, 1976.
>
>The second film in a two-part documentary on the fate of Allende's Popular
>Unity government filmed throughout Chile from February to September 1973.
>Part two opens with the attempted military coup of June 1973, which is put
>down by troops loyal to the government but everyone now realizes the final
>showdown is only a matter of time. The film shows a left divided over
>strategy, while the right methodically lays the groundwork for the
>military seizure of power.
>
>Part 3: The Struggle of an Unarmed People (La Fuerza del pueblo)", 1978.
>
>Completed two years after the first two parts of "The Battle of Chile" in
>1978, this film deals with the creation of thousands of local groups of
>"popular power" by ordinary workers and peasants.
>
>"Obstinate Memory" 1997.
>
>Patricio Guzman, returns to Chile 23 years later to show his film The
>Battle of Chile (which has never been shown in Chile) to his old friends
>and to a student group to enlighten them concerning the historical facts
>surrounding the military coup.
>
>Background description:
>
>September 11, 1973: Chile's democratically elected socialist government,
>led by President Salvador Allende, is overthrown in a violent coup d'etat
>by a right-wing military junta. On hand: Chilean filmmaker Patricio
>Guzman, who, with a collective of five additional filmmakers, captured the
>tumultuous final months of the Allende government. The result was a
>monumental three-part documentary titled THE BATTLE OF CHILE, first shown
>in the U.S. in 1976. It's a shattering piece of history that's essential
>viewing for anyone even remotely interested in the history of the world
>around them. The unabashedly ideological voice-over narration may be
>intrusive (all the talk of "the struggle" and "the revolutionary process"
>sounds like a parody of Marxist agitprop), but it's detailed and
>informative, and the power of Guzman's images is undeniable: An unarmed
>cameraman films his own death when a pro-coup soldier takes aim and guns
>him down; a cabal of military officers of dubious allegiance prowl the
>funeral of Allende's murdered aide-de-camp like a pack of hungry wolves;
>and the climactic bombing of Allende's La Moneda Palace is a shocking
>spectacle. In 1996, Guzman returned to Chile, where THE BATTLE OF CHILE
>has never been shown. Guzman planned to screen the film and interview
>survivors of that fateful summer and the ensuing years of terror, but
>encountered something even more compelling: a nation brutalized into
>amnesia, struggling to remember its recent past. This film, CHILE,
>OBSTINATE MEMORY is a profoundly moving experience. No longer "merely" a
>political documentary, Guzman's film is reconfigured and transformed into
>a painful but ultimately optimistic examination of collective memory,
>nationhood and history.-- Ken Fox
>
>The Battle of Chile surely must be the most interesting from the Chilean
>troubles from the 70's, handled with style & fervour by the passionate
>director, who by all accounts is a left-wing sympathiser. The film starts
>with a roar with the failed coup d'etat, & from there builds up the tragic
>story of the Allende lead "Marxist" party, telling us who plotted against
>them & why, all set behind the backdrop of mass public support, eventually
>quashed by right-wing terror. The film has to be admired also for publicly
>stating that the CIA helped the bourguoise eventually kill close to 30,000
>people, and the fact that this film was a huge risk to the lives of the
>makers (who had to smuggle it out of Chile and edit it as exiles). Overall
>it deals with the worker's plight not only in Chile, but as a case study
>around the world (Brazil & Bolivia for example), and only watching these
>types of films (this is part 2 of a trilogy) do you sense the realities of
>this world, and shake off the ideals set by society. Well worth a
>watch--Jamie O'Halleron
>
>The list of those who collaborated on the film is impressive. The Equipo
>Tercer Ańo consists of six filmmakers who worked together throughout the
>UP period under the direction of Patricio Guzman. Pedro Chaskel, head of
>UCAL (Latin American Union of Film Societies), is credited with the
>editing, and Jorge Muller, abducted and held as an "unacknowledged
>prisoner" by the secret police since November 29, 1974,( 2 ) was director
>of photography on this as well as many other award-winning Chilean films.
>Militant French filmmaker Chris Marker helped get the footage out of Chile
>and collaborated in its final shaping. Marta Harnecker, former editor of
>the magazine Chile Hoy and co-author of the famous Cuadernos de Educacion
>Popular (popular pamphlets offering a Marxist social analysis), and Cuban
>filmmaker and film theorist Julio Garcia Espinosa served as special
>advisors.
>
>See also:
>
>--Interview with Guzmán:
><http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:eieSBYpGaIYJ:www.modjourn.brown.edu/Cinetracts/CT09.pdf+%22Batalla+de+chile%22+patricio+guzman&hl=en&ie=UTF-8>
>Credits:
>
>Patricio Guzman: Narrator
>
>Producer: Chris Marker
>
>Director: Patricio Guzman
>
>Editor: Pedro Chaskel
>
>Sound: Bernardo Menz
>
>Cinematographer: Jorge Muller
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Currently based in Venezuela.
NOTE NEW PHONE NUMBERS
Can be reached at
Residencias Anauco Suites
Departamento 601
Parque Central, Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1
Caracas, Venezuela
(58-212) 573-6333, 571-1520, 571-3820 (or hotel cell: 0412-200-7540)
fax: (58-212) 573-7724
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Dec 31 2006 - 00:00:04 EST