artć + societate / arts + society #38, 2011 20 lei / 11 €, 14 USD - idea

intelectualii impasibili øi neatinøi de særæcie sau de amintiri dureroase comuniste, e
un motiv de nostalgie pentru næpæstuiflii sorflii de azi, særaci, pensionari [...] nici pe
departe o capodoperæ. E doar încæ un mic film de trei ore nesfîrøite cu imagini subliminale“.
Pot fi recunoscute în aceste reacflii încorporarea acelui imperativul al anticomunismului,
de punere a trecutului øi a vieflii oamenilor sub categoria ræului, a
„calvarului“, dar øi o presiune sinistræ, direcflionatæ chiar øi împotriva artiøtilor, un øantaj
menit sæ destrame orice rezistenflæ subiectivæ, orice deviere de la normativa conceperii
secolului douæzeci dupæ modelul neoconservator nord-american, colonizat
de anticomunismul instituflionalizat, ca poveste a mersului „normal“, liniar al civilizafliei,
întrerupt de cæderea din cer a unor monøtri ræi „totalitari“. Nu întîmplætor, acest film
a fost fæcut de un imigrant: cenzura informalæ a dreptei postcomuniste, prin comunitæfli
confidenfliale øi instituflii culturale, ar fi fæcut imposibilæ o asemenea întreprindere,
începînd chiar cu accesul la arhive.
Aøadar, miza lui Ujicæ e prezentarea unui alt mod de a scrie istoria, ce lasæ sæ vorbeascæ
fluxul de imagini în termenii sæi proprii. În teoria media germanæ, cæutarea
unei arheologii sau gramatici a vizualului a condus la scepticismul faflæ de comentariu,
interpretare øi hermeneuticæ; astfel, continuînd un fir depænat de Kittler,
Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht a început sæ promoveze din anii 1990 ideea unei reconceperi
a umanioarelor, bazatæ pe deconstrucflia rolului central al interpretærii. Pentru
Andrei Ujicæ, toate acestea s-au transpus în modul de prelucrare a imaginilor
de arhivæ. Astfel, iniflial, toate aceste filme fuseseræ difuzate originar cu un comentariu
narativ, ce completa imaginile øi oferea sensul propagandistic al materialului.
Ujicæ a eliminat complet aceste comentarii, sperînd sæ obflinæ un alt adevær din producerea
acestei absenfle, øi într-adevær, prin comparaflie, filmul sæu scoate în evidenflæ
tocmai abundenfla arbitraræ a comentariului asupra figurii lui Ceauøescu, însæ atît pe
cel predecembrist, cît øi pe cel postcomunist. Chiar dacæ interpretarea nu poate
lipsi, dupæ cum vom vedea imediat, marele merit al fluxului imaginilor scutite de
comentariu explicit nu e cel de a aræta ceva „nou“, ci de a demonstra, în context
românesc, necesitatea øi posibilitatea concretæ a unei ancoræri diferite a percepfliei
despre trecutul comunist, altfel decît cea propusæ de istoria anticomunistæ normativæ,
øi în acelaøi timp una lipsitæ de nostalgii.
Cu toate acestea, un efect colateral al rigorii de metodæ e alienarea spectatorului
de contextul istoric al evenimentelor. Lipsa informafliilor pe ecran – de la nume øi
date (întîlnirea dramaticæ cu Dubček la Praga în 1968, cu doar patru zile înaintea
invaziei) pînæ la detalii precum succesiunea vizitelor lui Nixon la Bucureøti øi a lui
Ceauøescu la Beijing, care nu fusese deloc întîmplætoare – produce o selecflie a spectatorilor:
filmul pare a fi menit tocmai celor care sînt familiari cu Ceauøescu. Iar opacizarea
contextului deschide pentru tofli ceilalfli portifla unei recepflii pur estetice,
evazive, al cærei efect e tocmai alienarea de propria istorie øi reîncadrarea filmului
în contextul experienflei subiective modelate de industria culturalæ, dupæ cum observa
Florin Poenaru: „Filmul a fost astfel integrat unei experienfle cotidiene, familiare,
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without doing anything.” 8 For other viewers, who perceive things
within the same anti-communist horizon of expectation, far from
“doing nothing”, Ujicæ is diabolical: “The editing is meant to tame this
image of stupidity and make us believe that Ceauøecu [sic!] was a professional
politician, as if professionalism would be an excuse”;
“this film is a frugal desert for impassible intellectuals untouched by
poverty or by painful memories from communism, a reason for nostalgia
for the unfortunate people of today, the poor, the pensioners . . .
hardly a masterpiece. It’s just another little movie of three endless
hours of subliminal images.” One can recognize in these reactions the
incorporation of the anti-communist imperative of placing the past
and the lives of people under the category of evil, of the “Calvary”,
but also a sinister pressure, directed even against artists. The latter is
a veritable blackmail designed to dissolve any subjective resistance,
directed against any deviation from the normative conception of the
twentieth century following the North American neoconservative
model, colonized by the institutionalized anti-communism, as the
story of the “normal”, lineal path of civilization, which was interrupted
by the fall from the sky of certain evil “totalitarian” monsters. Not incidentally,
this film was made by an immigrant: the informal censorship
of the post-communist right, through confidential communities and
cultural institutions, would have made impossible such an
undertaking, starting with the very access to the archives.
Ujicæ’s stake is to present another way of writing history, which lets
the flow of images speak in its own terms. In the German media theory,
the search for an archaeology or a grammar of the visual has led
to skepticism towards commentary, interpretation and hermeneutics;
thus, unfolding a thread reeling from Kittler, Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht
started from the 1990s to promote the idea of re-conceiving
the humanities, through the deconstruction of the central role of
interpretation. For Andrei Ujicæ, all these have been transposed in
his method of processing archival images. Thus, initially, all these
films were broadcasted with a narrative commentary, which complemented
the images and offered the propagandistic meaning of the
material. Ujicæ completely eliminated these commentaries, hoping
to obtain an other truth by producing this absence. And indeed, by
comparison, his film highlights the arbitrary abundance of commentaries
upon the figure of Ceauøescu, but both the pre-1989 and the
post-communist ones. Even if the interpretation cannot be absent,
as we shall see, the great merit of the flow of images devoid of
explicit commentary is not that of showing something “new”, but
demonstrating, in the Romanian context, the necessity and actual
possibility of a different anchoring of the perception of the communist
past, other than the regulatory anti-communist history and,
at the same time, without nostalgia.
However, a side effect of the strictness of method is the alienation of
the viewer from the historical context of the events. The lack of information
on the screen, from names and dates (the dramatic meeting
with Dubček in Prague in 1968, just four days before the invasion) to
details such as the sequence between Nixon’s visit to Bucharest and
Ceauøescu’s visit to Beijing, which was not accidental at all – produces
a selection of the viewers: the film seems to be intended pre-