- Winston Sill
Raoul Peck, left, receives his 'Special Caribbean Doctor Bird Award' from Lennie Little-White last Tuesday.
Tanya Batson, Staff Reporter
"Why make films? Because it is better than burning cars."
Raoul Peck -Profit and Nothing But! Or Impolite Thoughts on the Class Struggle
THE IDEA that a film can be equated to burning a car is an interesting one. It becomes even more intriguing when it is realised that one form of protest belongs to the 'First World', while the latter belongs to the 'Third'. Those who cannot write their own tales burn cars to make themselves heard. Reason?
History belongs to the victor!
This idea rests on the notion that it is the victor who will record and pass on history. Interestingly, the film industry has proven that one needs not be the victor to own history. In the now defunct television series, Dinosaurs, Earl (more popularly known as 'Not the Mama') stated: "He who has the remote (TV) controls the world!" To take this seemingly ludicrous image one step further, it can be noted that he who sits in the director's chair controls the world or at least the lasting image of it.
This is why, despite what may have actually occurred in Vietnam, the United States won the Vietnam War. If you doubt this, simply take a look at We Were Soldiers. In the main, the United States has won the copyright and royalties to human history. Many stories are now told according to Hollywood, and often (more tragically) according to Disney.
It is this concept, that stories, in fact all stories from all over the world need to be told, that drives the films Raoul Peck has chosen to make. The director, writer, producer and editor was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1953. He, however, had a rather international upbringing and education. Peck grew up in Zaire (Congo) and France and was educated in Zaire, France and Germany.
The 2002 winner of the 'Special Caribbean Doctor Bird Award', Peck told the audience gathered for the Doctor Bird Awards ceremony at the Hilton Kingston last Tuesday that the job of the film practitioner from the Third World is to make the rest of the world aware that "We are people too."
From the earliest days of his film-making career, Peck has been busy telling this story. His first feature film, The Man By The Shore, maps some of the atrocities which took place at the hands of the Tonton Macoutes during Francois 'Papa Doc' Duvalier's rule of Haiti. The film, an intense, painful look at horror in its shiniest moment, was the first Caribbean film to be selected for the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.
Peck has been successful in creating evocative feature films and documentaries. Both genres, however, are guided by what he perceives as a reality that needs to be told. This approach to his films, coupled with his skills, have earned him several awards. These include two from the Human Rights Watch Organisation in New York, namely the 1994 'Nestor Alemendros' and the 2001 'Irene Diamond Lifetime Achievement' awards. Peck has also been decorated with the Honour and Merit Order (Knight) in Haiti and the Order of Arts and Literature (Knight) in France.
Although he has won several awards for his work, one of his most successful is Peck's biography of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The full length feature film, Lumumba, produced in 2000, won over six awards in 2001. It received the award for 'Best Film' (Pan African Film Festival, Los Angeles); the 'Paul Robeson Award', at the Fespaco festival in Brukins Faso, Africa; the award for 'Best Film' at the Santo Domingo International Film Festival; the 'Audience Prize', 'Best Actor', 'Jury Prize' and 'Grand Prize OCIC' at the 11th African Film Festival in Milan, Italy; and the award for 'Best Film by A Foreign Director' at the Acapulco Black Film Festival.
When The Sunday Gleaner asked if it were really better to make films rather than burn cars, Peck said: "Some days I feel like burning cars. Some days, maybe not." He explains that on the days when he puts himself in the skin of the suffering masses, the wretched of the earth, burning a car seems like nothing.
For Peck, his films help to tell the tales of those who cannot tell their stories themselves. "You can't join the fight just because you hope you will win," he explains. "This kind of choice doesn't exist for me."
Peck explains that film-making was a constant part of his expression, as he grew up with the family owning a camera. "It's not something that I decided, like just one day. It's just something that came to me," he said. Much later, he realised that film was something that could become a profession, but only after he started attending the film academy in Berlin did it become a real choice. "I think I was always some sort of an artiste," he explained. "If it wasn't film... I did photography for a long time and today I like to write much more. It's more about expressing yourself and to give to others what you feel about the world around you. And maybe to contribute, as modestly as possible, to a change."
Peck notes that he does not wish to make movies that are mere 'consumer goods'. Rather than simply lull the audience into eating their popcorn and watching passively, he wants them to think. "I think of film as a voyage. And there are contradictions in that voyage and it's good too, because I'm trying to catch you and provoke you with your own thoughts. That's all I want to do," he said.
"We are living in a world where the images are so strong, where we believe, this is the world. This is not the world. This is a very small part of the happy world. The rest of the world is struggling. Struggling for water. Struggling for schools. Struggling for medicine. Everything," Peck said.
He notes that though he could forget these trials the world faces, it simply is something that he must do.
Even so, Peck hopes to still entertain with his films. He wishes to inspire laughter and irony in the midst of the drama.
