Communist Filmmakers on Television. Political Commitment: Resource or Stigma?
Coutant, Isabelle
Communist Filmmakers on Television. Political Commitment: Resource or Stigma? - 2001.
47
From 1950 to the early 1970’s, in spite of the censorship on television news broadcast imposed by the Gaullist power as soon as 1958, communist stage directors were numerous and influent on French television. Most of them had completed their studies at the IDHEC national cinema school, and lacked the necessary resources to work in cinema; they, therefore gathered their political and unionist resources in order to find a place in the artistic world, succeeding in getting the statute of authors in 1963: inside professional worlds in the making, political involvement would then be a source of autonomy. Acknowledged as artists, these directors had also to be acknowledged as communist intellectuals. Convinced that television was an important vector for popular education, they tried to get the heads of the French Communist Party interested in the “programs”, but those heads, focused on the stakes of the TV news, required to solve conflicts between directors and technicians, and doubtless annoyed at the “pretension” of the directors to be the “prince’s advisors“, didn’t meet their expectations. From the 1970’s onwards, audience ratings and advertising have been taking a growing importance, and the communist directors who wouldn’t adapt to the new rules were discarded.
Communist Filmmakers on Television. Political Commitment: Resource or Stigma? - 2001.
47
From 1950 to the early 1970’s, in spite of the censorship on television news broadcast imposed by the Gaullist power as soon as 1958, communist stage directors were numerous and influent on French television. Most of them had completed their studies at the IDHEC national cinema school, and lacked the necessary resources to work in cinema; they, therefore gathered their political and unionist resources in order to find a place in the artistic world, succeeding in getting the statute of authors in 1963: inside professional worlds in the making, political involvement would then be a source of autonomy. Acknowledged as artists, these directors had also to be acknowledged as communist intellectuals. Convinced that television was an important vector for popular education, they tried to get the heads of the French Communist Party interested in the “programs”, but those heads, focused on the stakes of the TV news, required to solve conflicts between directors and technicians, and doubtless annoyed at the “pretension” of the directors to be the “prince’s advisors“, didn’t meet their expectations. From the 1970’s onwards, audience ratings and advertising have been taking a growing importance, and the communist directors who wouldn’t adapt to the new rules were discarded.
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