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Zero de Conduite: radical cinema.

Article Excerpt
CineAction was created to publish criticism that would address the political potential inherent in cinematic practice, particularly popular cinema. Vigo, Vertov, Bunuel and others understood this idea; they were actively involved in film culture and produced works that embraced social change. I chose to write about Zero de Conduite, a film about revolution, without realizing I would be celebrating Vigo's centenary at the same time--a coincidence a surrealist would value. Vigo isn't categorized a surrealist as, for example, Bunuel is, but his films were clearly influenced by the movement and its precepts. In many ways Vigo's seamless blending of Realism with an expressive interpretation of reality and magic to produce a poetic, ethereal form of cinema--a surreality--was precisely what many of the surrealist artists attempted. Zero de Conduite is both a politicized work about oppression and liberation and a personal film that uses memory as a means to unearth a state of being. Its ellipses, condensed structure, not perfectly coherent moments are attributable to the imperfect print that survives, budget restraints, limited studio time at Gaumont, non-professional young actors, Vigo's struggles with illness during filming, but they also reflect the vagaries of a memory piece, drawn from adolescence, imperfectly remembered in detail but perfectly recalled in terms of experience--what it feels like to be forced into a mould of behaviour that is unnatural and oppressive by way of reprimands, punishment, disempowerment. The film's very authentic representation of adolescence--that bridge between childhood and adult life that is a volatile period where one is finding one's identity, body and a personal voice--services a broader statement about social conformity and freedom. Ultimately, Vigo's commitment to rejecting what is considered successful socialization and his celebration of the energy sublimated and suppressed along the way forms the heart of the film. In this sense Vigo's film departs radically from other films of the period that use the setting of the same sex boarding school in a similar way, to make a statement about the conflicts between nature, instinct and containment, like Sternberg's The Blue Angel and Sagan's Madchen in Uniform. Vigo's film ventures furthest in its support of the overthrow of the dominant ideology represented in the school system and in its spirit of possibility.

I have always loved Zero de Conduite's gang of four 'delinquents', Caussat/Louis Lefebvre (who reappears as Pere Jules's cabin boy in L'Atalante), Colin/Gilbert Pruchon, Bruel/Coco Goldstein and the late joiner and ultimate revolutionary Tabard/Gerard...

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