Jean Vigo’s Zéro de conduite and the spaces of revolt

Abstract

In this article we will contribute to the contemporary theoretical debate about film by considering, from a history-of-education perspective, the film Zéro de conduite by Jean Vigo (1905–1934). This film is classified under the umbrella of “poetic realism”: a product of cinéma de gauche and an avant-gardist, surrealist and anarchist-catalogued film by a film-maker described by many as very talented and creative. The paper is divided into five parts. In the first part we sketch Vigo’s own biography and the social biography of the film. The second section documents the response to the film both at the time of its release and subsequently. In the third section we explore anarchist ideas about education both in theory and practice. In the fourth section we use this understanding to analyse the film. The final section returns to the question of film as an underused resource and the possibilities of bringing new elements into historical practice.

Keywords:

• anarchism
• film
• Jean Vigo
• education

Notes

¹ Noël Arnaud, L’état débauche, quoted in Gaston Bachelard, La poétique de l’espace, 11th ed. (Paris: PUF, 2012), 131.

² See e.g. Martin Lawn, Kate Rousmaniere and Ian Grosvenor, eds., Silences and Images. The Social History of the Classroom (New York: Peter Lang, 1999); Marc Depaepe, B. Henkens, J. Albisetti, J. Dekker, M. D’hoker, F. Simon and J. Tollebeek, eds., The Visual in Education, Paedagogica Historica Supplementary Series, VI (Gent: CHSP, 2000); Nick Peim, Kevin Myers and Ulrike Mietzner, eds., Visualising Subject and Object in the History of Education (New York: Peter Lang, 2005).

³ Sol Cohen, “Postmodernism, the New Cultural History, Film: Resisting Images of Education,” Paedagogica Historica 32, no. 2 (1996): 395–420; Daniel Perlstein, “Imagined Authority: Blackboard Jungle and the Project of Educational Liberalism,” in Depaepe et al., eds., The Visual in Education, 407–21; Paul Warmington, Angelo Van Gorp and Ian Grosvenor, “Education in Motion: Uses of Documentary Film in Educational Research,” Paedagogica Historica 47, no. 4 (2011): 457–72. About the “Hollywood teacher”, see Mary M. Dalton, The Hollywood Curriculum. Teachers and Teaching in the Movies (New York: Peter Lang, 1999).

⁴ Archive.org/details/zero_de_conduite.

⁵ Dudley Andrew, Mists of Regret. Culture and Sensibility in Classic French Film (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995), 26, 65–74.

⁶ Jean-Pierre Jeancolas, Le cinéma français. 15 ans d’années trente (1929–1944), 2nd ed. (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2005), 119.

⁷ About the connection between surrealism (revolt, dream, fantasy, eroticism, the oneiric, the scatological, play), childhood and Zéro de conduite, see the splendid analysis of Allen Thiher in The Cinematic Muse: Critical Studies in the History of French Cinema (University of Missouri Press, 1979), 78–89. Vigo did not actually belong to the group of surrealists, but according to his daughter Luce he shared some ideas that have influenced his vision of cinema and of the world. Luce Vigo, Jean Vigo, une vie engagée dans le cinéma (Cahiers du cinéma, 2002), 80–1. The surrealists admired Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali’s Un chien Andalou (1928) and were less interested in Vigo’s work. When Vigo presented his documentary À propos de Nice (June 14, 1930), he talked for a while about Un chien Andalou and labelled it as “une oeuvre capitale à tout points de vue: sûreté de la mise en scène, habilité des éclairages, science parfaite des associations visuelles et idéologiques, logique solide du rêve, admirable confrontation du subconscient et du rationnel”. Jean Vigo, Vers-un-cinéma-social. Texte prononcé par Jean Vigo au Vieux-Colombier, le 14 juin 1930, lors de la seconde projection du film A propos de Nice, http://www.derives.tv/Vers-un-cinema-social. This passage was used as a “foreword” by Phillip Drummond in Un chien Andalou. Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali (London: Faber and Faber, 1994). About Un chien Andalou as surrealist cinematic icon, see Andrew J. Webber, The European Avant-Garde 1900-1940 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), 156–66.

⁸ John Wakeman, World Film Directors: Volume I 1890–1945 (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1987); Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, The Oxford History of World Cinema (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Erik Barnouw, Documentary. A History of the non-fiction film, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

⁹ http://explore.bfi.org.uk/sightandsoundpolls/2012/critics, accessed June 2, 2013.

¹⁰ Sight and Sound 22, no. 9, 39–71.

¹¹ Sight and Sound 23, no. 8, 44–52.

¹² Luce Vigo, Jean Vigo, une vie engagée dans le cinéma (Cahiers du cinéma, 2002).

¹³ Pierre Lherminier, Jean Vigo, un cinéma singulier (Paris: Ramsay, 2007).

¹⁴ Michael Temple, Jean Vigo (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005; see also the book review in Film-Philosophy, December 2007).

¹⁵ Patrick Louguet, “Zéro de conduite de Jean Vigo (1933). De l’univers scolaire aux conquêtes de l’art du cinema,” Cahiers Robinson, 28 (2010): 183–96.

¹⁶ Florian Scheibe, Die Filme von Jean Vigo. Sphären des Spiels und des Spielerischen (Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2008).

¹⁷ Isabelle Marinone, “Anarchisme et cinéma, panoramique sur une histoire du 7e art français virée au noir” (PhD diss., Université Paris I, 2004).

¹⁸ Richard Porton, guest editor of a special issue of the journal Arena on Anarchist Film and Video (Arena 1, 2007, p. I) labels Zéro de Conduite as a subversive masterpiece and refers to his book Film and the Anarchist Imagination (London: Verso, 1999, 195–207; see also the book review in Film-philosophy, December 2003).

¹⁹ Perrine Boutin and Nathalie Montoya, Zéro de conduite est-il toujours un film subversif? Sociologie d’une oeuvre et de sa reception (2011), http://www.cinemas93.orgpageressources-pedagogiques (accessed 24 April 2013).

²⁰ http://www.univ-montp3.fr/filemanager/colloques_conf/programme28_29_30.pdf (accessed 22 May 2013). Salles Gomes is the first to have described the life and work of Vigo and is still considered the basic source. Paulo Emilio Sales Gomes, Jean Vigo (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1957).

²¹ Michael Hoare, “Eléments sur l’histoire des ciné-clubs en France. Les projections non commerciales – passé, présent, avenir…” http://www.avenirvivable.ouvaton.org/journal/cineclubhistoire.html (accessed 8 May 2013).

²² http://www.zerodeconduite.net/

²³ http://www.enfants-de-cinema.com/2011/films/zero-de-conduite.html (accessed 24 May 2013).

²⁴ Boutin and Montoya, Zéro de conduite est-il toujours un film subversif?

²⁵ For Vigo’s bibliography/filmography it is best to consult L’herminier’s works, Jean Vigo. Un cinéma singulier, 278–98, and Jean Vigo: oeuvre de cinéma (Paris: Cinémathèque Française, 1985).

²⁶ Pierre L’herminier, Jean Vigo (Paris: Editions Seghers, 1967), 48.

²⁷ Jean Vigo, “Mon Journal (Janvier 1918-Août 1919),” Positif, no. 7 (1953): 77–93.

²⁸ Jean Vigo, “Présentation de Zéro de conduite,” Positif, no. 7 (1953): 42–5.

²⁹ Caussat is interviewed in Jacques Rozier’s documentary film Cinéastes de notre temps: Jean Vigo (1964) and recounts that the dormitories were rudimentary and had no heating, that they were constantly under surveillance, that beans were a frequent part of the diet, that the chemistry teacher in the film bore an “uncanny resemblance” to their teacher and that children were always sharing the “precious commodity of the cigarette”.

³⁰ Jean Vigo, Vers-un-cinéma-social.

³¹ Marinone, Anarchisme et cinema.

³² http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xwjap2_ecoutez-jeanne-humbert_news#.UaS2-dJ7JYQ (accessed 28 May 2013); Ecoutez Jeanne Humbert, a film by Bernard Baissat, 1981; Jeanne Humbert, “Hommes d'hier: Jean Vigo, cinéaste d'avant-garde”. Cahiers de contre-courant, n. 56 (November 1957) (consulted in International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, Eugène Humbert/ Jeanne Rigaudin Papers, n. 867; see http://www.iisg.nl/archives/en/files/h/ARCH00598full.php#N102FA.

³³ Isabelle Marinone, “Anarchisme et Cinéma: Panoramique sur une histoire du 7ème art français virée au noir,” http://raforum.info/dissertations/spip.php?article127 (accessed 17 October 2012). About Sébastien Faure and La Ruche see Roland Lewin, Sébastien Faure et “La Ruche” ou l'Education libertaire (Vauchrétien: Ivan Davy, 1989).

³⁴ Barnouw, Documentary, 74–7. See Kaufman's article on Vigo, “Un génie lucide,” Ciné-Club, n. 5 (February 1949): 8 (consulted in International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, Eugène Humbert/Jeanne Rigaudin Papers, n. 867). The very suggestive “La dernière photo de Jean Vigo” – ill, in bed – is printed right under the article.

³⁵ Jaubert (1900–1940) had already composed film music for, among others, Jean Renoir, Pierre Prévert and René Clair. François Porcile, Maurice Jaubert musicien populaire ou maudit? (Paris: Les Éditeurs français réunis, 1971). 

³⁶ Sales Gomes, Jean Vigo, 124.

³⁷ Rozier, Cinéastes de notre temps: Jean Vigo.

³⁸ Vigo, “Présentation de Zéro de conduite,” 45.

³⁹ Sales Gomes, Jean Vigo, 147, 154; Temple, Jean Vigo, 56. For a (partial) analysis of Zéro de Conduite's music, see the article by Claudia Gorbman (overlooked in the recent Vigo literature): “Vigo/Jaubert,” Ciné-Tracts I, no. 2 (Summer 1977): 65–80.

⁴⁰ Albert Montagne. Histoire juridique des interdits cinématographiques en France (1909–2001). Paris: L'Harmattan, 2007, 40.

⁴¹ Sales Gomes, Jean Vigo, 160–1, 165.

⁴² Film distributors or exhibitors had to show their movies to a film control board unless they wanted to screen the films for audiences that included children or young adolescents under 16. Daniel Biltereyst, “Film Censorship in a Liberal Free Market Democracy: Strategies of Film Control and Audiences’ Experiences of Censorship in Belgium,” in Daniël Biltereyst and Roel Vande Winkel, eds., Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 275–93. Zéro de Conduite is not registered in the archives of the Belgian Board of Film Control: National Archives of Belgium, Ministère de la Justice, Commission de contrôle des films (1921–2005), n° 68.

⁴³ Sales Gomes, Jean Vigo, 157.

⁴⁴ Pierre Lherminier, Jean Vigo, 98–9.

⁴⁵ See Marc Depaepe, “De Vlaamse katholieke pedagogiek en de nationaal-socialistische opvoedingsleer” [The Flemish Catholic pedagogics and national-socialist science of teaching. An exploratory study based on the Vlaamsch Opvoedkundig Tijdschrift (1919–1955)], in La Seconde Guerre Mondiale, une étape dans l'histoire de l'enseignement. Approches d'un domaine méconnu en Belgique, eds. Marc Depaepe and Dirk Martin (Bruxelles: Centre de Recherches et d'Etudes historiques de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale), 79–106.

⁴⁶ See Lieve Dhaene, “De offensiefbeweging in Vlaanderen 1933–1939: katholieken tussen traditie en vooruitgang” (The offensive movement in Flanders: Catholics between tradition and progress), Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis XVII, nos. 1–2 (1986): 227–68; Daniël Biltereyst and Sofie Van Bauwel, Regional Cinema, Nationalism and Ideology: a Historical Reception and Analysis of a Classic Belgian Movie, ‘De Witte’ (1934) (Gent: Academia Press, 2005).

⁴⁷ See Valérie Vignaux, Jean Benoit-Lévy ou le corps comme utopie. Une histoire du cinéma

éducateur dans l’entre-deux-guerres en France (Paris: AFRHC, 2007).

⁴⁸ Felix Morlion, O.P., “Het kind in de film” (The child in the film), Vlaamsch Opvoedkundig Tijdschrift XV (1933/1934): 591–603. The film La Maternelle received permission from the Film Board Control but had to cut some material. National Archives of Belgium, Ministère de la Justice, Commission de contrôle des films (1921–2005), n° 68, matricule 25234, La Maternelle, Universal film, 19 July 1933.

⁴⁹ Rozier, Cinéastes de notre temps: Jean Vigo.

⁵⁰ Sales Gomes, Jean Vigo, 167–8.

⁵¹ Antoine de Baecque, La cinéphilie. Invention d’un regard, histoire d’une culture 1944–1968 (Paris: Fayard, 2013).

⁵² Roger Manvel, “The Quarter’s Films,” Sight and Sound Fall (1946): 96.

⁵³ Sales Gomes, Jean Vigo, 236–71; Scheibe, Die Filme von Jean Vigo, 11–30.

⁵⁴ Boutin and Montoya, Zéro de conduite est-il toujours un film subversif?, 9.

⁵⁵ Jeancolas, 15 ans d’années trente, 156–65.

⁵⁶ Colin Ward, “Preface,” in No Master High and Low. Libertarian Education and Schooling, 1890–1990, ed. John Shotton (Bristol: Libertarian Education 1993), v.

⁵⁷ The French Board of Film Control cited the film’s “denigrement de l’instruction publique” as a reason to refuse it a licence to be shown, Temple, Jean Vigo, 58.

⁵⁸ Film critic Pierre Ogouz in Marianne, 19 April 1933, quoted in Temple, Jean Vigo, 57.

⁵⁹ Richard Porton, Film and the Anarchist Imagination (London: Verso, 1999), 196.

⁶⁰ Temple, Jean Vigo, 59, 77.

⁶¹ Allan Pred, Recognizing European Modernities. A Montage of the Present (London: Routledge, 1995), 25. See, for example, Ian Grosvenor and Martin Lawn, “Ways of Seeing Education and Schooling: Emerging Historiographies,” History of Education 30, no. 2 (2001): 105–8.

⁶² P. Avrich, The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980); P. Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995); G. Fidler, “The Escuela Moderna Movement of Francisco Ferrer: ‘Por la Verdad y la Justica’,” History of Education Quarterly 25, nos. 1&2 (1985): 103–32; Shotton, No Master High and Low; M. Smith, The Libertarians and Education (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983); J. Spring, A Primer of Libertarian Education (New York: Free Life Editions, 1975); Judith Suissa, Anarchism and Education. A Philosophical Perspective (London: Routledge, 2006).

⁶³ Suissa, Anarchism and Education, 11.

⁶⁴ Shotton, No Master High and Low, 261.

⁶⁵ Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action (London: Freedom Press, 1996), 32.

⁶⁶ Suissa, Anarchism and Education, 77. See chapter 2 for Suissa’s discussion of anarchism and human nature.

⁶⁷ Francisco Ferrer, The Origins and Ideals of the Modern School, trans. Joseph McCabe (London: Watts, 1913), 49.

⁶⁸ Franscisco Ferrer, “The Rational Education of Children,” quoted in Suissa, Anarchism and Education, 80.

⁶⁹ Ferrer, Origins and Ideals of the Modern School, 55–9.

⁷⁰ Temple, Jean Vigo, 74.

⁷¹ Porton, Film and the Anarchist Imagination, 202.

⁷² Temple, Jean Vigo, 76.

⁷³ Alan Lovell, Anarchist Cinema (London: Peace News, 1962), 5.

⁷⁴ See Antonio Viñao, “Do Education Reforms fail? A Historian’s Response,” Encounters in Education II (Fall 2001): 27–47. 

⁷⁵ Boutin and Montoya, Zéro de conduite est-il toujours un film subversif?, 7.

⁷⁶ Boutin and Montoya, Zéro de conduite est-il toujours un film subversif?, 9–12.

⁷⁷ Claudia Gorbman, “Vigo/Jaubert.”

⁷⁸ Florian Scheibe, Die Filme von Jean Vigo, 174–7.

⁷⁹ George Sarton to Raymond Limbosch, 19 May 1907, Archives et Musée de la Littérature (Brussels), ML 2956, quoted in Christophe Verbruggen, “Het egonetwerk van Reiner Leven en George Sarton als toegang tot transnationaal intellectueel engagement,” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis 38, nos. 1–2 (2008): 87–129.