You Say You Want a Revolution
Criterion Channel
https://www.criterionchannel.com/you-say-you-want-a-revolution
In a cinema letter to Jean Vigo, film essayist Lynne Sachs ponders the delicate resonances of the short-lived but mightily influential French director’s sublime, dynamically inventive 1933 classic ZÉRO DE CONDUITE, in which a group of schoolboys wage an anarchist rebellion against their authoritarian teachers. Thinking about the January 6 assault on the United States Capitol, Sachs contemplates how innocent play or calculated protest can turn so quickly into chaos and violence.
E•pis•to•lar•y: Letter to Jean Vigo
Directed by Lynne Sachs • 2021 • United States, Spain
In a cinema letter to French director Jean Vigo, filmmaker Lynne Sachs ponders the delicate resonances of his 1933 classic ZÉRO DE CONDUITE, in which a group of schoolboys wage an anarchist rebellion against their authoritarian teachers. Thinking about the assault on the United States Capitol of January 6, 2021, Sachs wonders how innocent play or calculated protest can turn so quickly into chaos and violence.
Zéro de conduite
Directed by Jean Vigo • 1933 • France
Starring Jean Dasté, Gérard de Bédarieux, Louis Lefebvre
So effervescent and charming that one can easily forget its importance in film history, Jean Vigo’s enormously influential portrait of prankish boarding-school students is one of cinema’s great acts of rebellion. Based on the director’s own experiences as a youth, ZÉRO DE CONDUITE presents childhood as a time of unfettered imagination and brazen rule-flouting. It’s a sweet-natured vision of sabotage made vivid by dynamic visual experiments—including the famous, blissful slow-motion pillow fight.