"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

posted to www.marxmail.org on October 1, 2003

Last night, I had a chance to watch "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" on video (www.chavezthefilm.com), a documentary that is scheduled for theatrical release later this year. Depicting the abortive coup against Hugo Chavez, it is one of the most gripping 114 minutes of film I have seen this year, either fact or fiction. While making no attempt at technical or stylistic innovation, it allows the subject matter itself to galvanize the viewer's attention. The film crew, which was inside the Presidential palace immediately before, during and after the coup, captures the intense drama of a revolutionary movement defying all attempts to thwart it. Imagine a film crew alongside Allende when he takes up arms to defend his government against a military surrounding his offices. Further imagine that Allende and his supporters had been able to fight off that attack, and then you get an idea of what "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is all about.

Although most people are aware that all of the privately owned television stations in Venezuela supported the overthrow of Hugo Chavez, you can only appreciate how blatant this attempt was when you see the raw footage in Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain's film. No attempt is made by the pale-faced, blond-haired TV news "commentators" to distance themselves from the organized counter-revolution. They brazenly call for their middle-class viewers to join the street protests of April 2002 that culminated in a coup. These networks make Rupert Murdoch look like Pacifica Radio by comparison. After Chavez is arrested by the plotters, you can see these same television celebrities sitting on a sofa next to a Venezuelan general on a talk show congratulating each other. The documentary includes an interview with a TV reporter who refused to toe the line. After protesting that he was not being allowed to do his job properly and deliver unbiased coverage, he was fired.

Inside the palace, it is like a roller coaster ride as top government officials in the Chavez administration witness their removal and then their reinstatement as popular pressure forces the dictatorship to surrender. When a million or so supporters of Chavez take to the streets to declare that they do not respect the new government, it begins to melt away. As they ring the palace, you can see the lower ranks of the palace guard begin to change sides and raise their fists in solidarity with the masses on the other side of the fence. It gives you an inkling of what October 1917 was like as detachments of the Czar's army threw their support to the Soviets. When Chavez himself arrives by helicopter from his brief exile, jubilation breaks out in the streets of Caracas.

Although this film would be especially useful for high school or college classes that deal with how media, politics and class/race intersect in bourgeois society, it would also be just the sort of thing that might shake up thinking in anti-globalization ranks. One of the shortcomings of this new movement is its failure to theorize the state. As a function of the anarchist and autonomist roots of some of its leaders, it tends to see all such bodies as inimical to the sort of deeply egalitarian society they desire. This fails to take into account the actual yearnings of ordinary working people to democratically decide their own destiny in the here-and-now. When the film shows the deep commitment of dark-skinned, plebian Venezuelans to a state that they see as representing their own class interests, it challenges facile notions about how the state is always one's oppressor--including the most repressive component, the armed forces.

As I understand it, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" is scheduled to appear in New York City's Film Forum. Look for it in your own city as well. It is not to be missed.