A Mediterranean gap in the national canon? Paul Carpita’s anti-colonial cinema between militant amateurism and New Wave

Abstract

A new Marseille cinema, focusing on the city’s everyday culture, emerged in the 1980s with directors such as René Allio and Robert Guédiguian. Even though some of their films received considerable recognition, an important part of the history of this cinematic representation has remained largely unaccounted for: the work of Paul Carpita (1922–2009). His films of the 1950s and 60s are strongly linked to the cultural history of the labour and peace movement. A former member of the Resistance, he created just after World War II Le Rendez-vous des quais/Meeting on the Docks (1953–55), a full-length film shot in the popular quarters of Marseille, thematising the dockers’ protest against the Indochina War. The film was censored before its release and only restored in the 1980s. This article situates the film within the regional and national French cinema of the post-war era, and analyses its hybrid aesthetics, comprising cinematic realism, militant cinema and amateur film. By referring to Carpita’s more intimate and reflexive short films, the article argues that his marginal status within French film history can be traced to the political and amateurish character of his films, but also to the fact that his artistic activity was located in Marseille, at the periphery of the national film scene and academia.

Keywords:

• Amateur film
• censorship
• Communist Party
• New Wave
• Poetic Realism
• regional cinema

Notes

1. Cinema for Peace.

2. General Confederation of Labour.

3. The video was taken off the market without even informing Carpita beforehand. As of 2005, the film was available on DVD, together with Les Sables mouvants (Doriane Films); Marche et rêve ! was edited by Doriane/13 Production in 2003. Six short films were released in 1995 by Provence-based Copsi Video Production, and an extended double DVD was produced in 2008 (Des lapins dans la tête... Rendez-vous avec l’œuvre de Paul Carpita), the only one which is still regularly available on fnac.fr.

4. The film was probably inspired by the pacifist theatre play Les Honneurs de la guerre/The Honours of War by Abrias, performed in late 1953 in Marseille with the participation of Annie Valde (who plays Jean’s wife in Le Rendez-vous des quais) (Lahaxe 2006, 265).

5. It has been mentioned several times that Jo represents the Socialist trade union Force Ouvrière (Workers’ Force), founded in 1948, aiming at weakening the CGT, but there is no such comment in the film (Martino 1996, 45–46).

6. For the historic context see Scullion (2000, 36–39, 48) and Stora (1997, 8ff., 115ff.).

7. ‘Places of memory’.

8. ‘Symbolical aura’.

9. ‘Peace in Vietnam’.

10. ‘Bar of the colonies’ and ‘Marx beer’.

11. ‘Against reaction and fascism’.

12. For this discussion see Lahaxe (2006, 268, 2009).

13. Albert Cervoni, the journalist of La Marseillaise who wrote regularly about Carpita, mentions the censorship only in 1956 (January 3), without naming a film title (Lahaxe 2006, 268); the left-wing journal Regards quotes the censorship in June 1956 (Martino 1996, 132–133).

14. For the rediscovery of Carpita’s film see Winkler (2013, 159–192, 245–248).

15. ‘Missing link’.

16. ‘Cinemas of Freedom’.

17. See e.g. the website of Carpita’s son, http://paul.carpita.pagesperso-orange.fr/index1.htm, and the TV reportage on Carpita: Verabredung mit dem Zufall/Rendez-vous avec le hasard (Jochen Wolf/NDR, 1991).

18. See the bibliography of journal articles in Bécard (2002, 89–90) and Libbra (1994, 79–81).

19. ‘Camera-pen’.

20. Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies.

21. ‘Any kind of following a social and/or regional current’.

22. One of the few recent French studies on regional cinema is the issue Cinéma régional/Cinéma national of the Perpignan-based Cahiers de la Cinémathèque (79), edited in 2008 by François de la Bretèque.