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Guy Debord made six films between 1952 and 1978. Following the still-unsolved assassination of the films’ producer in 1984, all of them were withdrawn from circulation for nearly twenty years.
In 2001 Debord’s widow Alice (Becker-Ho) Debord began the process of rereleasing them with a complete retrospective at the Venice Film Festival, and asked Ken Knabb to make a new English translation of Debord’s complete film scripts, both for publication and for subtitling the films. He agreed and worked on the project for the next year and a half. The book, entitled Complete Cinematic Works, was published in 2003 by AK Press. Click here for information on ordering it.
In October 2005 there was a three-week showing of all the films (a complete retrospective each day) in Paris, followed by similar retrospectives in several other French cities. Meanwhile a 3-DVD set of all six films plus the video documentary Guy Debord, son art et son temps (all in the original French) was released in November 2005. This boxed set, entitled Guy Debord—L’Intégral or Guy Debord contre le cinéma, includes a 138-page booklet of texts and illustrations and is available from Gaumont. Used copies may also be available at various Internet sites. Note, however, that these Gaumont DVDs are coded for Zone 2 (Europe) and will not play on Zone 1 (North American) machines. There are ways of getting around this coding, but they may involve downloading a special software program or getting an “all-region” DVD player. Be sure that you know how to deal with this problem before ordering the Gaumont DVDs.
The first “official” American screening of a Debord film with the authorized subtitling took place October 3, 2008, at the New York Film Festival (In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni). A complete retrospective of all six of Debord’s films with the authorized subtitling took place March 1, 2009, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center (New York).
There are as yet no authorized English versions of Debord’s films. Meanwhile, however, all of his films can be directly viewed or downloaded at www.ubu.com/film/debord.html, at http://situationistfilm.wordpress.com, and on YouTube, and various subtitled bootleg versions are circulating.
UPDATE (September 2015): A fine English-dubbed version of The Society of the Spectacle (produced by Konrad Steiner and read by Dore Bowen) is now online at https://vimeo.com/139772287. The same collaborators have produced a similar dubbed version of In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, which will hopefully also be posted online soon.
SCRIPTS*
Howls for Sade (1952)
On the Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Unity
of Time (1959)
Critique of Separation (1961)
The Society of the Spectacle (1973)
Refutation of All the Judgments, Pro or Con, Thus Far Rendered on the Film
The Society of the Spectacle
(1975)
In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (1978)
DOCUMENTS
A User’s Guide to Détournement
Technical Notes on the First Three Films
Letter about On the Passage...
For a Revolutionary Judgment of Art
On The Society of the Spectacle (reply to a critic of the book)
Cinema and Revolution
On The Society of the Spectacle (announcement of the film)
The Use of Stolen Films
The Themes of In girum imus nocte...
Instructions to the In girum Sound Engineer
NOTES [not online]
CHRONOLOGY
FILMOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX [not online]
*The scripts published in Complete Cinematic Works
include the voice-over soundtracks plus detailed descriptions of each image, 62
illustrations, and numerous annotations. The above online excerpts reproduce the
voice-over soundtracks only.
Copyright. Unlike most of the other material that Ken Knabb has published or
put online at this website, the Debord film scripts are copyrighted (as
are the films themselves). The translations in
Complete Cinematic Works are copyright 2003 by Ken Knabb. Neither Knabb nor AK
Press
will enforce this copyright against personal or noncommercial
use. Commercial reproduction of any significant portion of those
translations, however, is prohibited without prior written
permission from Ken Knabb. For further information,
please contact knabb@bopsecrets.org.
Of related interest at this website:
The Role of Godard (SI)
New Forms of Action Against Politics and Art (Viénet)
On René Viénet’s Film Can Dialectics Break Bricks? (Knabb)
On Guy Debord’s Film The Society of the Spectacle (Knabb)
Radical Film (Knabb)
Designing Pacifist Films (Paul Goodman)
Situationist Bibliography
Bureau of Public Secrets, PO Box 1044, Berkeley CA 94701, USA
www.bopsecrets.org knabb@bopsecrets.org