More on Vik Muniz and Marat: a retraction

This article continues the debate over Vik Muniz’s reappropriation of Jacques-Louis David’s portrait of Marat (1793) in his 2008 series, “Pictures of Garbage” which was featured in the hit documentary by Lucy Walker, Waste Land (2010).
In my March 11, 2012 posting, I wrote: “By now, Santos has likely learned that Marat was more than just ‘an intellectual’ (the only adjective used by Muniz to describe him in the film). I wonder if he still appreciates the connection? And I wonder if Muniz regrets yoking his friend to this villain of international disrepute?”
On March 22, 2012, I had the good fortune to receive an email reply from Mr. dos Santos in response to this question, via his agent Diana Gabanyi. I hereby admit I was wrong. Santos does not regret being featured as Marat, in fact he relishes the connection!
An article forthcoming in Martial Poirson’s book on the French Revolution in global popular culture today will lay out all the details. (“Les martyres de Marat et de Sebastião: Une légende révolutionnaire mise à jour.”) Until then, I have only one thing to say: Marat est mort, vive Marat!

Robespierre the fop

Maximilien Robespierre, born May 6, 1758, has been accused of many things but rarely has “fop” been among them.* Yet what other adjective comes to mind when one reads the following letter, which was penned by Robespierre to Adélaide Labille-Guiard in February 1791 ?! The letter is his reply to Mme Labille-Guiard’s request to paint his portrait. At that time, she was painting a series of portraits in pastel of deputies to the National Assembly.

Paris, 13 février 1791.
On m’a dit que les Grâces voulaient faire mon portrait. Je serais trop indigne d’une telle faveur si je n’en avais senti tout le prix. Cependant, puisqu’un surcroît d’embarras et d’affaires ou puisqu’un Dieu jaloux ne m’a pas permis de leur témoigner jusqu’ici tout mon empressement, il faut que mes excuses précèdent les hommages que je leur dois. Je les prie donc de vouloir bien agréer les unes et de m’indiquer où je pourrais leur présenter les autres.

Robespierre’s defenders may point out that this poetic and somewhat pompous language—calling his lady correspondent “The Graces” and suggesting that a “jealous God” was hindering his activities—was standard fare in late eighteenth-century upper-class society. But that is just the point! Robespierre was like many others of his day, an ambitious, somewhat foppish young provincial seeking fame (if not fortune) in the new Assembly. He was unexceptional, and his flattery of Mme Labille-Guiard is uninspired.

In the Salon of September 1791, Mme Labille-Guillard exhibited her pastel portrait of Robespierre to the public. Although it was deemed realistic (“toujours de la vérité”), critics scorned the choice of pastels to immortalize the young deputy. “Auriez-vous par hasard mesuré leur gloire à l’éclat fugitif de ces couleurs. Ah ! peignez un Robespierre à l’huile, » wrote La Béquille de Voltaire.

Mme Labille-Guiard’s portrait of Robespierre is lost, but the replica I’ve reproduced here is said to be a close copy. Note the young deputy’s lacy sleeves, his silky jabot and cravat, and the tight-fitting vest and redingote. Note the smile flitting across his face. He looks pleased as punch.

This hardly seems to be the same man as the tight-lipped L’Incorruptible of ill-repute. I offer this reflection as a belated birthday tribute to Mr. Robespierre, lest we forget that this enigmatic man was many things and may remain forever beyond our ken. In his early years at the Assembly, as this letter and portrait attest, he was still quite attuned to the dandy-ish standards of ancien régime court society. And you must admit, he acted a bit like a fop.

*Fop: a man who is preoccupied with and often vain about his clothes and manners; a dandy.

References are from Anne Marie Passez, Adélaide Labille-Guiard, 1749-1803: Biographie et catalogue raisonné de son oeuvre (Paris : Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1973), pp. 247-50.

The ‘French Frankenstein’ for kids

After watching and loving Hugo, especially the scenes with the automaton “Draughtsman-Writer” (Henri Maillardet, early 19th century), I was inspired to pen a kid-friendly version of the “French Frankenstein.” Nogaret’s story, Le Miroir des événemens (The Looking Glass of Actuality), was truly at the forefront of period invention.
Enjoy!
The True Story of Frankenstein
A long time ago, a girl named Mary lived alone with her father and a ghost they called Mother. Mother was tall. Her eyes were purplish-blue. Her stiff skirts swished through the rooms and left a lemony perfume behind. You could never see her, but you could feel her being there. When Mary and her dad felt confused (which was often), they asked, “What would Mother do?”
Mother was grand. But she made them feel a little bit small.
Mother had taken part in revolutions. She had demanded rights for women and working people. She had an audience with the King. She had written books that were banned by the police. Mary did not really know what all that meant, but she felt proud. People talked about Mother still, even though she had been dead since Mary was born, twelve years ago.
Mary was not really as strong and brave as people thought. She was scared of lots of things, like mice, and crowds, and lightning. She worried about the letters her dad received, and the angry voices she overheard in the night. So sometimes she hid in Mother’s library. It wasn’t really a library, not like you’d see in a picture book or a movie. It was just a bunch of prickly wooden crates jammed in a stuffy closet. But what books!
There were tales of dwarves and giants, and a horseman battling a long-armed windmill. There were stories of hermits, and young lovers who kissed just once before dying. Way in the back of the closet, there was a box marked POMMES DE NORMANDIE. It smelled faintly of apples. Those books were musty and old and written in French. And so for a long time, Mary ignored them.
But one night when she was feeling more restless than usual, and the voices downstairs made her skittish, Mary opened that box. She took out The Looking Glass of Actuality, a Two-Faced Tale. Before she knew it, she was engrossed. There was urgent business here, and a teenaged girl was in charge!
Squinting in the wavering candlelight, Mary was transported to a place called Lutecia where a girl was trying to save her country. She was the judge and jury of a contest: whoever made the best machine would get to marry her and save the day. So, one by one, inventors filed into town and stood in line. Everyone held their breath.
The machines were strangely familiar. The first was a tripod for holding pots, but its three legs walked around so stiffly that it sloshed soup on the floor. The second inventor brought a tiny carved wagon. But when the girl hooked it up to a housefly, it flew out the window. The third brought a telescope. But while the girl was squinting in search of moon-men, he stole her pocket book and ran away. A hot air balloon rolled in next, with an orange flame shooting sparks into its billows. Mary thought for sure she’d pick that one. But the man wasn’t very nice. He bragged about his money and made the girl feel ashamed.
The fifth suitor was Mary’s favorite. His name sounded like the North: “Frankén,” conjured up smells of green grass in a sunny village, and “Steїn” rang like a mug of fizzy cider. The machine he brought was wonderful. It was a life-size robot he built by hand out of scraps of metal. Dressed in a funny little suit that covered his battered tin, the robot lifted a flute to rubber lips and played a song. The music made her feel wispy and light. Then he stopped, and started again, and she was lifted into another dreamy state. This master inventor was modest and kind. He promised to love the girl. Together they would build a snug family and show the country how to live, hand-in-hand with their robot man. They would convince the king to help the people and help them all. The musical robot bowed politely and rolled away.
Mary dozed off then while Mother stood vigil, her dark eyes gleaming bright. When morning broke, Mary forgot everything. The little book got lost in the shuffle; eventually it was thrown out.
Until one night years later. A storm howled through the windowpanes. Nobody could sleep, so somebody proposed story-telling. Soon cups of cocoa were in their hands, laughter broke up the storm clouds, and the long night inched toward dawn. Ghosts, vampires, monsters, and goblins swarmed around; it was very exciting.
Then it was Mary’s turn. She fumbled in embarrassment, tongue-tied and blushing. Suddenly a voice whispered to her, “Looking glass.” Mary turned her head sharply. But no one was there. She heard a rustle of petticoats and felt a tangy breeze brush her cheek, then it was gone. And before she knew it, a legend crept out of her imagination, a marvelous tale inspired by the life-size robot and the new world he promised. She retold The Looking Glass using her own words, and the FRANKENSTEIN legend was born.
For years and years, no one thought to read that little book, The Looking Glass of Actuality. And yet Frankénsteїn was waiting there all along.
—-

Author’s notes:

Although fictional, this story is based on the following facts: Mary Godwin Shelley lived her early years in the shadow of a famous mother, the legendary activist and writer Mary Wollstonecraft, author of The Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). Wollstonecraft died of complications just days after giving birth to little Mary, on September 10, 1797. Recent research has uncovered a book that Mary Wollstonecraft may have brought home to London from her years living in the midst of revolutionary Paris, Le Miroir des événemens actuels (“The Looking Glass of Actuality,” 1790). The similarities between the plot and character names in Le Miroir and Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818) are uncanny, and far too close to be accidental. That is why Le Miroir is now known as “The French Frankenstein.”

Frankenstein is one of the world’s best-loved tales. Since its original edition in 1818, it has been republished constantly in English and been made into more than 30 films. Frankenstein has been translated into more than 20 languages, including Korean, Malay, and Braille, making it a truly planetary hit with centuries-old appeal.

Mélenchon’s populism: marketing solidarité

What a wonderful moment for students of the French Revolution! A full-fledged re-enactment of 1789 is unfolding on the streets of Paris, thanks to the populist campaign of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Today’s article by Raphaëlle Besse Desmoulières in Le Monde provides a excellent summary of Mélenchon’s clever recycling of revolutionary rhetoric. “Take back the power” (“Prenez le pouvoir”), his campaign intones, “Make way for the people” (“place au peuple”). Exploiting the unease (morosité) of the current situation in France, Mélenchon is gambling on the notion of a radical break with business-as-usual. These are fighting words! Is the government of the Fifth Republic really analogous with the absolutist Bourbon monarchy? Or is the Front de Gauche merely exploiting the French sympathy for populist sloganeering, such one might find on an advertisement for an insurance company?

Controversy and kitsch : The French Revolution of spring 2012

A recent trip to Paris convinced me more than ever that the Revolution is far from “Over” (with all due respect to François Furet). Consider the demonstration held in my neighborhood (Bastille) on March 18, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s “Front de Gauche.” The flyers were quite amazing for an American reader. It seems like the incendiary rhetoric and political discourse was lifted right out of a rather scholarly history book. Not only was the slogan an obvious linkage to ’89 (“Reprenons la Bastille!”), but the demands of organizers also built on French history in a rather erudite way. The flyer reads: “Pour une assemblée constituante! Dans l’histoire de la République Française, chaque fois qu’il a fallu rédiger une nouvelle Constitution, c’est une assemblée élue par le peuple qui en a été chargée. C’était le cas en 1789, en 1792, en 1848, en 1870-75, en 1946. La seule exception est la Constitution actuelle. Elle a été rédigée en 1958 par seulement quelques ‘experts.’ Dès le départ, la 5e République a voulu limiter la souveraineté populaire. Il est grand temps de tourner la page ! »
This call to arms mixes populist indignation with constitutional argumentation in ways that strike me as quintessentially French. You may disagree with their views, and indeed Laurence Parisot did so on I-télé and Europe 1 on April 1, calling the discourse “vulgar” and “old-fashioned.” (It may be relevant to note that Mme Parisot, president of the employers’ union MEDEF, is one of the wealthiest citizens of the Republic today.)
Unlike some of our American pundits, Mélenchon’s group at least has a pretty decent grasp of historical memory and constitutional procedure. In contrast, one might consider the latest word from our own defender of the Constitution, former VP candidate Sarah Palin, who wrote on March 29, “Despite President Obama’s claim in San Francisco that working-class Americans “bitterly cling” to guns or religion out of frustration, the truth is we cling to God not because we’re “bitter” but because there’s nothing better. And as for “clinging” to our Second Amendment rights and, in fact, to all of our constitutionally protected liberties…well, you betcha’, we do cling to them proudly.” Palin’s populism, calling for an armed militia in guise of an informed citizenry, would be ludicrous if it were not so dangerous.
Lest readers find this posting overly Francophile or elitist, I hasten to add a couple more reflections on how the Revolution lives on in France today. Both capitalize on the populist ferment of 2012, but with results that may make any student of ’89 cringe.
Consider Brumaire & cie’s play, « Révolutionnairement vôtre » now playing at the Theo Theatre, which claims to be a comedy about three aristocrats—a “mysterious nun,” a bumbling counter-revolutionary (chouan), and a British spy–trying to escape from the guillotine in 1794. Although the synopsis and four audience reviews guarantee “lots of laughs and relaxation,” and “proven historical references,” the handbill’s goofy pictures suggest a spectacle that trivializes Thermidor in ways that I cannot help but suspect are cringe-inducing. (But if you’re in Paris and have a chance to see it, please do write your own review here. “A Revolution in Fiction” will be happy to retract these wary words, if they are proven wrong.)

Or consider the musical comedy, “1789: Les Amants de la Bastille,” which is slated to open in September 2012. You may have already heard its catchy lead song, “Ça ira mon amour,” sung by Rod Janois. Is he photogenic? You betcha. Will this play have any redeeming political or historical value? On verra…
The most exciting development in this spring of discontent is the conference held at the Musée de la Révolution française (Vizille and Grenoble) on « La Révolution française et cultures populaires dans le monde aujourd’hui : mythologies contemporaines » (March 21-23), which reunited scholars from Japan, the Middle East, the USA, and France to share discoveries of this kind. Although I have no eye-witness accounts of Vizille to report, the videoconference session held on Friday 3/23 from San Antonio, TX was FANTASTIC! The two presenters from the USA (who spoke on the Marat of Vik Muniz and Waste Land [myself]; and the counter-revolutionary vampires of American TV [Dan Smith]), enjoyed a bracing and extremely lively dialogue with the very engaged international audience in Grenoble. We look forward to the volume in the works by Martial Poirson. More news on that to come!

Vik Muniz and Marat, revisited

In my October 26, 2010 posting on Viz Muniz and Jean-Paul Marat, I concluded on an idealistic note that “Ashes to ashes, sewer to junkyard, l’ami du peuple would have been proud.” Returning to the topic now in preparation for next week’s exciting conference on The French Revolution in Global Popular Culture, I am starting to see things a bit differently.
Although Ellie Bronson argued in a 2011 article in Art Critical that Santos was “fittingly styled after David’s ‘The Death of Marat,’ I now wonder: what is “fitting” about Muniz’s reappropriation?
The more that I learn about Sebastião dos Santos (known as Tiaõ) and the more that I study Vik Muniz’s project, the less sense this connection makes.
Unlike Jean-Paul Marat, Tiaõ dos Santos received a minimal education. He began working as a garbage picker (more precisely, as a picker of recyclables) in the Jardim Gramacho landfill at age 11. The stunning successes he has attained as founder and organizer of the ACAMJG, the union that has embraced the needs of the Jardim Gramacho workers, are the result of his formidable intellect and drive to make something of his life. It is interesting that the primary influence he mentions is The Prince, by Machiavelli, which he found in the trash. “I learned so much from that book,” he says.
(Marat, on the contrary, was born into what appears a comfortable family situation in Neuchâtel; both he and his brother were sent to school and his brother eventually attained a prestigious post as professor of the Lycée impérial of Tsarkoïe Selois–now known as Pushkin, a city nearby Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Marat pursued studies in medicine, traveled widely in Britain where he attained a certain success as a writer and scientist, and for a time had a flourishing practice among wealthy Parisians.)
In Wasteland, we learn that Santos is a good father, caring, warm-hearted and tender. We see Santos walking hand-in-hand with his young daughter, and sitting cozily next to her on a couch, where he stokes her dreams of going to school to become a psychologist. He is also a good son: we see him telephoning his mother in tears of joy after the London auction where he portrait was first sold.
(In his later life, Marat was apparently estranged from his family. It is uncertain if he married. He had no children. These facts have long been used against him, and have helped forge the portrait of the cold-hearted terrorist that prevails today.)
The final credits of Wasteland reveal the fundamental disconnect between these two men: the portrait of Santos as Marat is juxtaposed against a text mentioning that “a lot of people now believe in Tiaõ and look to him as a leader; some dream that one day he could become president.”
Although Marat achieved a powerful following among certain groups in Parisian society during the mid-1790s, and was elected deputy to the Convention government in 1792, he was not a gifted statesman, to put it mildly. He was a writer of corrosive prose and a divisive figure. Some claim he mounted one of the bloodiest errors in revolutionary history (the September massacres of 1792). His fame was not due to his humanitarianism, but rather to his inflammatory newspaper and prowess at self-fashioning himself as the truth-speaking “man of the people.” His assassination at the hand of a royalist was almost too good to be true: it launched a hack writer into martyrdom by realizing what he had long been telling readers of L’Ami du peuple.

By now, Santos has likely learned that Marat was more than just “an intellectual” (the only adjective used by Muniz to describe him in the film). I wonder if he still appreciates the connection? And I wonder if Muniz regrets yoking his friend to this villain of international disrepute?

The Raw and the Cooked, Or Why Politics Matters in ‘Babette’s Feast’

Despite its popularity as a “food film” and icon of the Slow Food movement, one must admit that Babette’s Feast (directed by Axel Gabriel, 1986) disappoints. In its saccharine treatment of the relations between Babette and her employers, Gabriel’s film fails to honor the spirit of Isak Dinesen’s original, published in the Ladies’ Home Journal in 1950 and subsequently reprinted in Dinesen’s final collection, Anecdotes of Destiny (1958). Why does this matter? Because in softening the edges of Babette’s character, the film ignores her political force and transformative potential—a force all the more urgent for the 2010s, when women from Sana’a to Seattle have been mobilizing for political change with astonishing energy and hope. “Babette” deserves better.

I believe Babette’s story is more interesting as a parable of specifically French politics than as a “food film,” and that it is indebted to two icons of French womanhood whose identities are deeply invested in food, fire, and revolution. In Dinesen’s heroine we can hear distant echoes of both the poissarde–the fishmonger or market woman of the French Revolution—and the pétroleuse or fire-starter of the Commune. “Babette’s Feast” allows the lineage from the poissarde to the pétroleuse to come into focus because its heroine is not only a cook she is also a former pétroleuse. And even if the politics of her past were muted by the film-maker in 1986, the relationship between food, fire and revolution is too potent a mix to ignore today.

The film’s shortcoming is unsurprising when one realizes how apolitical most interpretations of Isak Dinesen’s work and her heroine have been. In order to bring this lost subtext back into light, I am developing a short work that follows three moves: first, a quick glance at two moments in French political history will reveal the cultural work done by the poissarde and the pétroleuse in the revolutionary eras of 1789-94 and 1871. Second, textual analysis of culinary allusions and narrative asides in “Babette’s Feast” will demonstrate how Dinesen’s heroine incarnates both the pride of a culinary genius and the pétroleuse’s menace to society. Finally, a comparison of the story’s finale will show how the book’s heroine—unlike her avatar on the screen—transforms radicalism into a different kind of rigor, a more life-giving and artistic ambition than film-goers can see. In her portrayal of an appealing working–class woman who is both an unrepentant revolutionary and an authentic artist, Dinesen’s tale reveals a stronger affirmation of human potential than has yet been realized.

Any film-makers out there? Time for a remake, a truly revolutionary rendition of “Babette’s Feast.” Stay tuned for the fiery details…

The French Revolution according to Rick Santorum (Republican candidate for President of the USA)

There have been some very interesting interpretations of the French Revolution recently here in the USA.
According to ABC News (February 9, 2012), Rick Santorum is afraid that the French Revolution is going to descend on us (or perhaps Texas?), unless he gets elected as the next president of the USA.
The ABC News reports:
He told the audience at the raucous rally that Obama is restricting religious freedoms in this country, and even that a situation like the French Revolution could happen in America. As he spoke supporters yelled, “We want Rick!” and “We want you!” throughout the speech.
“They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God given rights then what’s left?” Santorum asked and an audience member offered, “Communism!”
“The French Revolution,” Santorum answered. “What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we are a long way from that, but if we do follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”

Stand by for more of these creative forays into revolutionary history.

Arab Protesters in the American Classroom: Notes on a Failure worth Repeating

Have you seen the Time magazine cover story by Kurt Andersen today? How great that “The Protester” was named Person of the Year for 2011! And how great that an Arab woman is the featured icon! Yet, as much as I applaud the thousands of people who swept through Tahrir Square in January and who continue to help move the revolution into permanent democratic reform in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, I feel obliged to go on the record about a different kind of encounter with The Arab Protester that I witnessed this year, and which did not turn out so well. I’m not sure why, exactly, it failed. But two things are sure: the videoconference held between students of the University of Notre Dame and the American University of Cairo was a dismal flop. And I’d willingly do it again.

In preparation for our session in early November, students of both classes (my class on the French Revolution at ND, and a political science class at AUC) agreed on texts to prepare: chapter one of Samuel Moyn’s The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History and the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The idea was to discuss the origins and importance of human rights for democratic political progress. When the class convened, however, what ensued were mainly ad hominem attacks on American foreign policy uttered by classmates in Cairo who were visibly upset by the rise of military presence in their city streets, anxious about the potential for fraud in their imminent elections, and assumed that both were caused by a meddling superpower, namely the United States. They were seeking a target for their anger, and the eight Americas in my class were apparently good game. We got an earful. Although some of my students joined in the spirited discussion and appreciated the emotional tenor of this exchange which was truly “revolutionary,” others were unnerved by the anger it incited. One timid soul in my class was almost in tears, and later complained about the “unprofessionalism” of the event, saying that she wished she had never been there.

So why rehash this fiasco?

Because I think it is a good reminder that: 1) revolutionary groups are often violent; they need a target, and they may act in irrational ways. 2) revolutionaries may act irrationally even toward those people who are sympathetic to their feelings, if they are deemed insufficiently fervent in their support. Supporters need to do more than just voice their feelings; some kind of action is called for. 3) in order to be successful, revolutionaries need more than the infrastructure and communication skills outlined in the Time magazine article (p. 61), they also some human skills, e.g. an appreciation for history, an awareness of crowd behavior, and especially, mature leadership. 4) protesters may make for exciting viewing, and participating in a protest itself is good for the soul of any democratically-minded citizen. But it is exasperating to dialogue with a revolution-in-progress in the classroom. The calm, the ability to step back and seek perspective, are really difficult to achieve when a battle is raging outside.

Maybe I should lay off videoconferencing with AUC for a while. Teaching flesh-and-blood students in person feels hard enough on most days. But the memory of this event, as flawed as it was, remains the most powerful image of my past semester in the classroom. I suspect that a little anger and “unprofessionalism” are just what we need to bring human rights into living color… and incite some indignation right here at home.

New work on Revolutionary literature, a field to watch!

Check out the latest book in the up-and-coming field of revolutionary literature: Débat et écritures sous la révolution, eds. Huguette Krief and Jean-Noël Pascal (Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters, 2011).