I s00 Workers"
Wednasday. 2 30pm. Speakers:
workers (Lenin), ical committee, York Socialist WOOL YOU SLADE meete Greet SOC SHRI Protestants of THE DEBATE on the furure of Socialist Challenge has raised a crucial question for so. cialists: how do we utilise our resources in the most elfective way to get our ideas across to the working class and its allies, in order lo intervene in the struggle for socialism?
several dangers in the approaches mooted so far. Comrade Mellings sets everything is quanticative lerms — 10-12,000 sales WhO have experienced the worst kind of manie-activism (Healy s Revolutionary Party) know how meaningless are paper sales, woen divorcel from a consisteut political struggle More than this, the paper should be a resonant sounding board in the class struggle: a two-way tribal com-tom, a bridge with a doubleNow of traffic, not just a bleak sign shouting its messages from a spray-canned hoarding.
If the puper is the organiser' of the Party forces around l clarifies ideas through discussion — renuine debate is not a concession le liberalism, and it mobilises within you and I do not believe that the choice is between a "revolutionary' Mirror or a militant Vangward. ian, as Comrade Cantell argues. It is nonsense to suggest as does this comrade, that SC is simply a newsified version of a theoretical Journal Like New Left Review If it has a fault, then the tailure lies in the Inability to bring theory Into issues in consistent educative way 1 agree with Rig Flame that che ideal socialist paper would be an agitational weapon in the working class, and
the urban observer.... The violence inflicted on them has often been far more individualised OMERO ANTONUTTI as Gavino's father: 'cruel and tyrennical, obstinate and vengeful, but also the human pivot ofa word.
Sardinia, Padre Padrone is th story of a shepherd from school at the age of five by his satber who already need him in the mountains to look after the family's sheep and Thus, denied literacy and tyrannized by his father, thr son finally revolts, and his revolt takes the form of his beeventuaily be takes a degree in linguistics, The story, however, is not the conventional one of the bright peasant boy who, good and becomes a bourPADRONE...
For the son's acute awareness of language and its relation to experience forces him to return to study the Sardinian dialect in the village where he was born, where he was taken away from school, and where nevertheless the meaning of his life remains.
The him. based on an 8900biographical book by Cavino was inadeDy ine Tavians brothers for Italian television. A bize WInner n the 1977 Cannes Festival, it was heralded by Roberto Rossellini, just before his death, as a masterpiece. And in my apinIon Rossellini was right.
Having himself contributed so much to the creation authentic cinema made to be faithful to the lives of those they brothers had made what it perhaps the first authentic film about peasants.
Most comments on this tilm have concentrated on the individual story of the son. This may. come from ab understandable urban bias of the cities. (Concerning the big London critics one cannot facetiousness and ignorance.)
PEASANT CRUELTY What interested me more than Gavino. the son, were the mother and father. In an unauthentic film the father would have been cast as a villain. We see him as cruel and tyrannical, obstinate and vengeful, and yet the film also allows us to soe bim as human pivot of a worki. He is not guilty, Films he narrative is epic and therefore cool.
As for psycbological interpretations, they do nor exist as such in peasant culture for they the presuppose a certain space cicarca Dy leisure. spaoe is never there: questions to kill two lambs and celebrate by feasting.
family stuns the lamb; when, in turn, the shepherd bolds the second lamb, he himself is murdered — with a blow from the same sledge hammer.
Nothing is served by defend The son of the first the generations of peasants appear too passive. Whereas in truth to your life.
impulse towards crucity usually stems, in the case of peasanta, from a frustrated desire This frustration has little to de with what is now called trustramon in too canes Halury at the immediate and inexortween event and consequence.
term tion. be GENER fered which, unchosen, now belongs (1 say commens because 1 hesitate to use the word appen yet in a world where, as I have said, there is no space for apSOCIALISTCHALLENGE19January1978 page15 pesis, an act of cruelty is a black appeal; each murder in a thar vendetta.) Except to the denier or justified; instead it is assumed -- in the scose of boing taken upon oneself ABSTRACT The evil of such cruelty (a ARICA WADESSED would accept) needs to be dis tinguished from another kind of cruelty which, far from TICLE CABLESSED CLOSETI mous, denied and systematic. A cruelty which operates Trom those who inflict it and derives, not from any situ but from an abstract principle The latter cruelty is implici in most penal systems, forced labour, racist policies, tortur practices which many govern ments endorse without ques Ibe good citinen Jieves that he or she anyway will exempt from institution alised cruelty casanis are cruel becau ey have never been able t gain exemption from their own au pain. Their acts of cruelty and they can beat t Save monuments. Lo Loc pau - both their own and chat of - whuch they bave sufWHERETOSEEIT I6mer prints of Padre Padrone, suitable for swine by film so cieties, will be armiable by the end of March from the distributors. Artificial Eje, 3 Torterham Street, London WI Tel 01-637 2532) The Talm (certificare X) wit be showing if the following cinemas:
Camden Plaza North London, until 9 Feb. Aaben, Manchester, 22-28 Jan. Arnol Feb.
Syneride Fim Theatr castle, 7-li Feb. Arts, COm bridge, 9-11 Feb. Edinburg! Film Theatre, 13-18 Feb, Steki Film Teste 2 Featre, Queens Belfasr, 27 Feb. 4 Mar. Stirling Film Theatre, S Mar. Arts Centre, Warwick University 13.14 March Norwich Film Theatre, 20-22 Mar. Doncaster Pilm Theatre, 20-21 Mar. Sherman Flien Thearre, Car dits, 16-19 May.