Save and Burn: Reviews and interviews in English and French

Save and Burn, a documentary by Julian Samuel

Cinéma Parallèle (Ex-Centris) 26 – 29 September, 2005

3536, boul. Saint-Laurent, Montréal,

H2X 2V1

http://www.ex-centris.com/?s=piece&z=detail&i=4732

Rachad Antonius will introduce the documentary.

Rachad Antonius et professeur de sociologie l’UQAM. Mathématicien et sociologue, il est l’auteur de nombreux articles et rapports de recherche sur les sociétés arabes et sur les conflits dans la région, ainsi que de deux ouvrages de méthodologie quantitative.

SAVE AND BURN

JULIAN SAMUEL, CANADA, 2004, 81 MIN, V.O. ANGLAISE.

DISTRIBUTION. : JULIAN SAMUEL.

Save and Burn replace l’institution de la bibliothèque dans un contexte politique percutant. Généralement considérée comme un élément de préservation de la culture, elle est aux prises avec les idéologies de son temps. Le film aborde des thèmes tels que l’aspect commercial des bibliothèques, la gestion irresponsable et la fermeture de bibliothèques, les dérives des droits de reproduction, mais, surtout, souligne le fait que l’Occident ne reconnaît pas l’Orient pour la valeur de son patrimoine culturel.

Save and Burn puts the institution of the library within a startling political context. Generally considered a preserver of culture, the documentary points out how libraries are subject to the ideologies of their time and place. The film assays the commercialization of libraries, the irresponsible weeding and closing of libraries, the excesses of copyright law, but most of all, the fact that the West has not recognized the Orient for much of its cultural heritage.

FILMOGRAPHIE : THE LIBRARY IN CRISIS (2002), CITY OF THE DEAD AND THE WORLD EXHIBITIONS (1995), INTO THE EUROPEAN MIRROR (1994)

26 AU 29 SEPTEMBRE 2005: 15H, 21H.

English and French reviews of Save and Burn, 2005

Save and Burn: 80:34 minutes, NTSC; 2004

Save and Burn builds from The Library in Crisis (2002) by deepening an understanding of the history of civilization through the phenomenon of the library. From ancient China, India, Islam, and the Graeco Roman world, we see how the library radiated knowledge and spiritual values, and facilitated the cross fertilization of ideas from one culture to another.

Save and Burn puts the institution of the library within a startling political context. Generally considered a preserver of culture, the documentary points out how libraries are subject to the ideologies of their time and place – and not above them, as may have been assumed. The film assays the commercialization of libraries, the irresponsible weeding and closing of libraries, the excesses of copyright law, but most of all, the fact that the West has not recognized the Orient for much of its cultural heritage.

The film is provocative. Historically, libraries have been used to promote or inhibit democratic debate, with a nod to the Patriot Act. The filmmaker, who was born in Pakistan, combines exquisite footage of the

Alexandrian Library, the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, and Bromley House in Nottingham. Interviews include Tom Twiss, Government Information Librarian, University of Pittsburgh, who gives testimony on the destruction of Palestinian libraries by Israeli soldiers, accompanied with painful footage, as well as the fate of Iraqi libraries during the “liberation.”

List of people interviewed in Save and Burn:

Ross Shimmon, Secretary General, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions;

Isam al Khafaji, ex-advisor to USA forces in Iraq; (Holland)

Ambassador Taher Khalifa, Director, Bibliotheca Alexandria;

Robin Adams, Librarian and College Archivist, Trinity College, Dublin;

Bernard Meehan, Keeper of Manuscripts, Trinity College;

Charles Benson, Keeper of Early Printed Books and Special Collections, Trinity College;

Michael Ryan, Director, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin;

Declan Kiberd, author, Inventing Ireland, University of Dublin;

David Grattan, Manager, Canadian Conservation Institute, Ottawa;

Paul Bégan, Conservation Scientist, Canadian Conservation Institute, Ottawa;

John Feather, Professor of Library & Information Studies, Loughborough University, author of The Information Society, Royal Society of Arts, London;

Alistair Black, Professor of Library History, Leeds Metropolitan University, London;

Erling Bergan, Editor, Librarians Union of Norway, Olso;

Peter Hoare, library historian and adviser on historic libraries, Bromley House Library, Nottingham;

Tom Twiss, Government Information Librarian, University of Pittsburgh.

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Note: I transcribed these French reviews from the newspapers – you will notice errors.

Montreal Gazette Wednesday, September 21, 2005

By BERNARD PERUSSE

Books in the balance: Documentary looks at threats to libraries

We think of the library as a quasi-sacred institution – a shrine to the works of great thinkers, philosophers, writers and historians. As such, it offers comforting proof that knowledge and wisdom transcend politics and ideology. Or do they? In his latest documentary, Save and Burn, Montreal filmmaker Julian Samuel offers a sobering reflection on the baser forces that have threatened libraries over the years. An impressive group of experts – including Robin Adams, a librarian at Dublin’s Trinity College; Taher

Khalifa, director of Egypt’s Bibliotheca Alexandrina; and Tom Twiss, a

librarian at the University of Pittsburgh – face the camera. Together, they offer historical background and make the case that the beloved institution has been, and continues to be, jeopardized by commercialization, technology and the prejudices of global conflict and racism. The destruction of Palestinian libraries by Israeli soldiers and last year’s arson attack on the United Talmud Torahs school library in St. Laurent are but examples. The premise, which builds on Samuel’s 2002 film The Library in Crisis, is

novel and provocative – although the focus gets lost at points with

political commentary on such hot-button topics as Israeli policy in the

Middle East and the American invasion of Iraq. While political issues are

obviously crucial to the concept of “bibliocide” denounced by the film, we

sometimes feel far from the initial premise. It all works, however, during an examination of how the U.S. Patriot Act changed the landscape after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings by allowing the government to withold data about itself from library users while it gained greater powers to examine their personal records. In the end, Save and Burn makes its point most eloquently in scenes like one showing a young Arab man reading from James Joyce’s Dubliners in his native language. That’s when you realize how crucial it is to protect the unifying power of books from the forces of darkness.

Save and Burn opens Monday at Ex-Centris. For details, go to

www.ex-centris.com Save and Burn Rating 3 Playing at: Ex-Centris cinema from Monday to Sept. 29. Parents’ guide: for all.

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La presse, 24 Septembre, 2005, “Save and Burn Documentaire de Julian Samuel,” par Aleksi K. Lepage

Julian Samuel conviendra sans doute avec nous que son documentaire “Save and Burn,” par ailleurs fascinant, n’est pas des plus accessible et ne s’adresse pas au plus vaste public, qui préfère généralement apprendre en s’amusant (ou l’inverse, plutot). Vite dit: “Save and Burn” est un film pour professeurs, pour universitaires et pour tous ceux qui ont frolé de près ou de loin les classes d’histoire, de littérature ou de sciences politiques. Samuel ne nous prend pas pour des nuls (et pourtant, s il savait!).

Très mal informé, après une lecture trop rapid du communiqué de presse, nous nous attendions à un documentaire sur les grande bibliothèques du monde, un truc à  la fois touristique et intello comme on en voit à ARTV. Rien à voir. Julian Samuel est un homme politiquement très engagé. Son documentaire place la bibliothèque (l’institution, oh ! pas l’edifice !) dans ses contextes historique and politique.

Autrefois symbole de la victoire de la civilisation sur la barbarie (au jourd’hui, de la démocratie sur toute les dictatures), la bibliothèque est généralement considéree comme le temple de tous les savoirs, idéalement ouvert au bon croirait spontanément fortifée et imperméable aux aléas de l’Histoire, est en vérité d une extrême fragilité, sans cesse menacée par les guerres et les conflict politique, aussi par le commerce et par l avènement des nouvelles technologies, aujourd’hui par l’imposition dan nos vies d’Internet comme “bibliothèque ultime”.

Par les paroles de professeurs, de conservateurs, d’historiens et de bibliothècaires, Julian Samuel explore ce problème de la preservation des savoirs et des cultures. Il est étonnant de constater, si on l ignorait, qu’en temps de guerre, les bibliothèques ont, de tous temps, été des cibles de choix pour l’envahisseur : en Irak, pour ne citer que cet exemple, les troupes américaines les ont vandalisées avec autant de hargne et d’acharnement que si elles saccagenaient des églises.

En 80 minutes, Save and Burn en raconte et en apprend beaucoup plus que ce que nous, du monde ordinaire, pouvons en comprendre. Julian Samuel ne fait pas dans la vulgarisation systématique, tient pour acquis que ses spectateurs sont intéressés aux sujet qu il aborde. C’est un documentaire à revoir, un film à conserver dans ses archives, un film à “annoter” comme on annote un essai ou un ouvrage théorique. Enfin, c’est les érudits comme pour tous les autodidactes intéressés par l’histoire de la culture.

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The McGill Daily, Issue 7 – 2005-09-26

It’s Dewey’s dream come to life

Save and Burn looks at libraries and the historians who love them

By Maddie Phillips

Julian Samuel is no newbie on the Montreal documentary scene. Whether it’s creating pieces of his own or critiquing the work of others, this Pakistan-born Montrealer has infiltrated the controversial documentary community. While he may not be exposing the tragic fate of all the books that seem to be mysteriously missing from the McLennan Stacks, he offers insight into an intriguing concept: libraries and their legacy.

His mission: to discover and document the spectrum of issues related to libraries in cultures around the world. From the historical merits of books, beginning in the Biblical times of Safed, to the relationship of the library with the Patriot Act of 2001, his documentary Save and Burn attempts to bring the library’s cultural role into focus.

Flash to footage of book bazaars in Baghdad, an insider’s look past CNN film crews that extols the importance of books and the institution of the library to Islamic culture. Panning to another shot, Samuel looks at libraries from a Euro-centric perspective as a means of recording and documenting history, a home for the legacies of great leaders. The two worlds seem to collide in Alexandria, the site of the legendary Library of Alexandria of the Roman Empire, from which modern scholarship derives most knowledge of Biblical and pivotal ancient texts (destroyed in the fifth century). Samuel then dichotomizes Ancient Alexandria with the modern Bibliotheque Alexandrina, the “jewel in the crown” of the Arab world.

Samuel’s examination of the collections in Alexandria, parts of England, and Trinity College, Scotland, illuminates the historically crucial role libraries have played in the circulation of information. Indeed, library politics have acted as litmus tests to the political climate. Who is chosen to write history? What is considered to be relevant history? I smell a second-year contextual history conference coming on….

Samuel pays brief lip-service to censorship; Save and Burn examines church-related censorship in a historical context, as well as the modern process of blacklisting in the elusive “banned books” list.

An interview with Tom Twiss, a Government Information Librarian of the University of Pittsburgh, places an Orwellian interpretation on the institution. Citing the use of library records to document the patterns of particular library users, Twiss warps the traditional conception of the library as a point of free information.

Far and away the most interesting segment of the movie, however, was Samuel’s discourse on the current status of libraries in Iraq. In the dwindling minutes of the piece, he exposes the lack of action of foreign forces in Iraq that lead to the demise of the National Archives and Koranic Library. Under Ba’athist rule, changes were made to the collection of the Iraqi library – a prime example of political efforts to alter historical perspectives, in this case of Iraq’s middle class. With the occupation followed the looting, and ultimately the burning of the remaining coveted chronicles of former Sumeria, “the cradle and core of settled life.”

Save and Burn will prove absolutely fascinating to the uber-historiographical Arts student and the film aficionado. Yet Samuel falls a little short in the film’s ability to relate to the audience; there is little reference to relevant local events, such as the fire bombing of the United Talmud Torah’s library in Montreal on April 8, 2004. Though the film’s concepts and questions provide enormous potential for an in-depth, fascinating look at our postmodern society, you may find yourself leaving the theatre without any substantial answers.

© The Daily Publication Society

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Letters: Contempt focused like a laser beam

Daily review off-base

Thanks for your review of my documentary Save and Burn (26 Sept 2005). Do you really think I should have spent more time than I did on the burning of the Talumd Torah Library in Montreal? This book burning was made into a cosomological issue by NBC, ABC, CBC, BBC, New Zealand TV, RDF, TV5, ITV, Thames TV, Channel 4, TV and radio in Israel, TV Greenland, and FOX. And, our very own slant-free CBC and CFCF mentioned it every single night for months. And a Hollywood luminary gave billions for its reconstruction; now, thankfully, this library has more volumes than than the Library of Congress.

You did not mention the fact that I offer detailed analysis of how Zionism and its discontents burn Palestinian libraries. Please tell me why you never mentioned this in your review?

Julian Samuel

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Issue 8 – 2005-09-29

Libraries on the front lines of democracy: Filmmaker

By Patricia Novakovska

News Writer

Books are important. This is the underlying message in Montreal documentary director’s Julian Samuel’s newest film.

In Save and Burn, Samuel contrasts the treatment of libraries in the Middle East with their treatment in the western world. The word ‘save’ in the title refers to the preservation of cultural literary artifacts in the West, while ‘burn’ refers to what often happens in countries on the so-called periphery.

In the film, Samuel explores the factors that lead people to continue the destruction of books, after such widely-condemned chapters of history as Nazi book burnings. His conclusion is that the reasons range from senseless vandalism in the throes of military violence to a “destructive euphoria.” But most damaging, he said, is the political atmosphere of the day.

“Libraries are extremely important when creating a doctrine; if you destroy [a culture’s] library you destroy the ability of [that] society,” said Samuel. “Nowadays, the orchestra is playing ‘terrorism,’ and when they play terrorism, anything can come under the conductor’s sword.”

The preservation of certain works, said Samuel, and the destruction of others is a brand of cultural Darwinism, in which the elite class decides which literary texts are fit for survival.

“What survived was what people at [a certain] time thought was the best. However, [the point of] a comprehensive universal library is that everything is there for the future generations to get access to it,” he said.

In this vein, Samuel does not dismiss the importance of works such as Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

“It’s absolutely essential to have these works with us, and they should be studied and criticized,” said Samuel. “How is one supposed to understand the Second World War without reading the primary documents? One of these would be Mein Kampf, wouldn’t it?”

Samuel believes that there is a cultural element to censorship that spreads beyond politics or ideological phobias. In the film, he supports the Second Protocol, a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization agreement from 1999 that provides for enhanced protection of cultural property in times of war.

He feels that such measures are important because the library consists of more than just shelves; it is instead a “metaphorical accumulation of knowledge, understanding, wisdom – a shared concept of society and a retrievable college of information that is essential to the informed population which underpins a functioning democracy.”

Save and Burn is playing this week at the Cinéma ExCentris at 3536 St. Laurent.

E-mail the editors

© The Daily Publication Society

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Le Devoir “La bibliothèque sur la ligne de feu,” par André Lavoie, 26 Septembre 2005

Titre VO : Save and Burn

Description : Réal.: Julian Samuel. Canada, 2004, 84 min. (v. o. ang.) Du 26 au 29 septembre à 15 h et 21 h au Cinéma Parallèle du Complexe Ex-Centris. Le film sera précédé d’une introduction par Rachad Antonius, professeur de sociologie à l’UQAM.

Surnommées «cathédrales du savoir» ou «sanctuaires de la mémoire», les grandes bibliothèques de ce monde bénéficient d’une aura de pureté, comme si leur présence dans la cité ne relevait que de l’altruisme d’État. Diffuser la connaissance au plus grand nombre; donner accès à la culture aux citoyens qui, pour des raisons sociales ou économiques, s’en sentent exclus; favoriser la lecture pour développer la curiosité et, pourquoi pas, la fibre citoyenne: autant de missions (certains diront: impossibles!) dévolues aux bibliothèques.

Le cinéaste Julian Samuel s’est donné comme mandat d’aller au delà de ces idées reçus, affichant un scepticisme parfois dévastateur doublé d’une perspective historique qui transcende aussi bien les époques que les civilisations. Après “The Library in Crisis,” Samuel poursuit sa réflection et alimente certaines polémiques dans Save and Burn; it tente de dépoussiérer le nobles principes qui guident les bibliothèques pour en révéler la face cachée, les dessous peu reluisant, leur défis sur le plan de la conservation de l’information et ultimement, son instrumentalisation au service du pouvoir. De plus, il souligne la contribution des sociétés arabes dans le développment de ces institutions, et leur apport dans l’enrichissement de la culture occidentale.

Non seulement porte-t-il à bout de bras, el la plupart du temps seul, sa caméra, mais le cinéaste le trimballe dans different coins du monde pour tisser cette histoire partielle, et certes partiale, de l’evolution chaotique des bibliothèques. Et surtout, il cherche à concilier les différentes composantes de son hértiage deux fois millénaire, où les traditions de l’Orient et celles de l’Occident se confondent, mais parfois s’affrontent ou s’ignorent copieusement. De l’incendie de la mythique bibliothèques d Alexandrie (détruite il y a plus de 1600 ans et qui contenait pas 700 000 documents, à une époque où, faut-il le rappler, l’imprimerie n’existant pas….) au Patriot Act, décréte en vitisse après les événements du 11 Septembre 2001, qui permet au gouvernement américain de fouiner dans les registres de prêt des bibliothèques publiques, “Save and Burn” montre à quel point le temple du livre n’est jamais un lieu désincarné.

Avec le participation de divers spécialistes en bibliothèconomie, principalement britanniques, et d’historiens, il  s’interroge sur les fonctions méconnues de la bibliothèque, entre autres celles de foyer de révolution sociales, mais aussi ses détournments de sens par des governments soucieux d’assurer le calme plutot que la démocratie. Par example, Alistair Black, historien à la Leeds Metropolitan University, rapplle que le government britanniques s’est servi des bibliothèques, pendant la Premiére Guerre mondiale, comme outil de propagande contre la révolution russe. Et le cinéaste s’appique également à denoucer, images de cendres à l’appui, les divers saccages ou “bibliocides”, de l’armèe amèricaine en Irak, ou israélienne dans les territoires occupés.

Dans une forme parfois sèche et austère, reposant trop souvent sur la formule des têtes parlentes et mois sur la découverte de ces lieux magnifiques où Julian Samuel promène sa camera – la nouvelle bibliothèque d’Alexandrie, une splendeur architectural et un symbole puissant au coeur du Moyen-Orient, n’est que visuellement effleurée -, “Save and Burn” passe souvent du documentaire au réquisitoire militant. Et l’on ose croire qu’avec le cinéaste est loin d’en avoir terminé avec l’analyse de la mission politique de ces institutions.

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22 septembre 2005 – Voir calendrier Cinéma

 

Save and Burn

Bibliothèques, entre espoir et chaos

Carlo Mandolini

Malgré sa réflexion intéressante sur l’histoire des bibliothèques, ce documentaire adopte un style plutôt laborieux qui nuit à l’approfondissement du propos et ne facilite pas l’adhésion du spectateur.

Save and Burn, du Montréalais Julian Samuel, soulève d’intéressantes questions sur la place et le rôle de la bibliothèque dans l’histoire des civilisations. Un traitement plutôt brouillon et chaotique qui laisse pantois.

Après Library in Crisis (2002), le cinéaste montréalais Julian Samuel s’intéresse une fois de plus au rôle qu’a joué – et joue encore – la bibliothèque en tant qu’institution sociale, culturelle et politique dans l’histoire des civilisations. Dans cette réflexion très à-propos, on y apprend – en vrac et dans une structure ainsi que dans un style parfois déstabilisants – que la bibliothèque a toujours été au cœur de débats passionnés et qu’elle s’est révélée lieu de contrastes et de contradictions, comme l’évoque d’ailleurs le titre.

Les spécialistes américains, arabes et européens interviewés par Samuel nous rappellent que la bibliothèque, dans l’Histoire, a facilité l’apparition d’idées révolutionnaires, mais a aussi su se faire la gardienne d’une pensée institutionnelle. De tout temps victimes d’agressions, au sens figuré comme au sens propre (Alexandrie, la bibliothèque de Bagdad, les bibliothèques palestiniennes en territoires occupés, etc.), les bibliothèques doivent être valorisées, aimées et protégées. C’est cet appel désespéré, et l’espoir qu’il soit entendu, que Julian Samuel a voulu relayer.

Or son effort est presque complètement anéanti par un traitement filmique plutôt laborieux: cadrages très approximatifs (de gens assis et qui parlent!), caméra tatillonne qui cherche constamment quelque chose à filmer comme dans une vidéo de touristes, effets visuels intégrés de façon souvent malhabile, images d’archives de piètre qualité, redondance entre image et son… il n’est pas ici question de déconstruction filmique délibérée et provocatrice, mais bien de difficulté à maîtriser le médium.

On veut bien croire que le film a été produit avec un budget serré, mais tout de même! Un documentaire est aussi une œuvre artistique. Et à moins d’avoir été tourné dans des conditions particulièrement difficiles (ce qui n’est pas le cas ici), il exige une recherche esthétique et une qualité minimale dans l’exécution.

Dommage aussi que le film ne fasse nullement place au point de vue québécois (à part un graffiti hostile à la Grande Bibliothèque). Mais ce ne serait pas faute d’avoir essayé; le cinéaste se dit persona non grata dans l’entourage de la Grande Bibliothèque.

Un peu trop brouillon pour prétendre à un véritable approfondissement, Save and Burn n’arrive pas à convaincre complètement. Il propose par contre de nombreuses idées importantes qui alimenteront sans doute les débats sur la place des bibliothèques dans notre civilisation.

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Montreal Mirror, Sep 22-28.2005 Vol. 21 No. 14

Local filmmaker Julian Samuel is fascinated by libraries. They are repositories of knowledge, centres of learning and essential to a well-educated and democratic populace. His newest documentary, Save and Burn, screening next week at Ex-Centris, will look at how libraries are used worldwide, but also how they can be abused and destroyed. Samuel turns his lens to the situation in Iraq and Palestine, where libraries have suffered terribly in the chaos of war zones.

“If you want to train a doctor, you need some manuals and some books,” he says. “If you want to train a civil engineer, you need books. If a library is destroyed, where are you going to get the books you need to be able to transport water?”

Samuel says he wants to accentuate the links between a country’s libraries and its civil society.

“Libraries contain instrumental tools of knowledge and history,” he says. “If you can’t touch the past, you can’t bring about the fruition of democracy.”

The film runs from Sept. 26 to 29 at Ex-Centris (3536 St-Laurent). Consult listings for showtimes. » Patrick Lejtenyi

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La Presse, 27 April, 2005

Grande bibliothèque, petites considérations par Nathalie Petrowski

Parce qu’il y avait beaucoup de livres chez nous, je n’ai pas souvent fréquenté les bibliothèques. Plus tard, la pluie bienfaisante des livres tombant sur mon bureau, m’a évité de courir à tout bout de champ la bibliothèque la plus proche de chez nous. Si bien que j’ai mis du temps à m’intéresser au sort des petites comme des grandes bibliothèques. Ce serait encore  le cas si l’énorme champignon en forme de Rona dont la couleur oscille entre le vert hôpital, le vert fédéral et le vert CLSC, ne s’était pas mis à pousser rue Berri me poussant par la même occasion vers ses splendeurs à l’intérieur.

Aujourd’hui à quelques 48 heures de l’ouverture de la Grande bibliothèque  du Québec,voilà qu’enfin j’allume. J’imagine que mon éveil tardif est en partie dû au petit Saint-Thomas qui sommeille en moi et qui ne croit que ce qu’il voit.

Mais la vraie raison c’est que personne n’a réussi à m’expliquer intelligemment  l’importance de se doter collectivement d’une telle institution ni pourquoi on devrait non seulement s’en réjouir mais crier au miracle.

Depuis le début, le discours entourant la gestion de la Grande bibliothèque a  été monopolisé par des questions  de taille, de volume et d’argent. Ou bien la Grande Bibliothèque était trop grande. Ou bien elle coûtait trop cher. Ou bien elle était trop grande, trop chère et menaçait de cannibaliser le réseau agonisant des petites bibliothèques, présentées comme des victimes sacrifiées sur l’autel de la folie des grandeurs.

Dernier et ultime argument : c’est bien beau une Grande bibliothèque mais à quoi ça sert quand on vit à Chibougamau ? Et pourquoi devrait-on payer pour une bébelle qui ne  profitera en fin de compte qu’aux Montréalais.

Toutes ces objections, fondées  sur la peur (du changement ou de l’ambition, au choix) ont fini par contaminer le discours et par empêcher toute réflexion politique ou intellectuelle. Même Lise Bissonnette pourtant versée dans les grandes analyses universelles, n’a eu d’autre choix que de répondre aux objections sans pousser la réflexion publique plus loin.

Aujourd’hui on assiste au phénomène contraire mais c’est toujours la même chanson. Une fois de plus les chiffres ont la vedette comme si eux seuls justifiaient l’importance du beau gros joujou qu’on vient de se payer :  1.1 millions de livres, 1.2 millions de documents, 1.6 millions de microfiches et de microfilms, 33,000 mètres carrés d’espace,  400 postes internet, 1500 fauteuils dessinés par Michel Dallaire. En voulez-vous des chiffres ? On en a !

J’ai failli moi aussi succomber au vertige enivrant des chiffres. Mais j’ai été sauvée in extremis par <Save and burn> un documentaire, financé par le CALQ et le Conseil des arts  et signé par un trouble-fête  du nom de Julian Samuel.

Né à Lahore au Pakistan mais Montréalais depuis plus de 30 ans, Samuel a eu la bonne idée d’aller visiter les grandes bibliothèques, à Londres, Dublin et Oslo, sans oublier la spectaculaire grande bibliothèque d’Alexandrie.  Il n’a  pas entrepris ce périple pour se lancer dans des études comparatives stériles. Mais plutôt  pour fouiller la dimension politique et historique de ces grandes institutions nées du triomphe de la raison sur la barbarie.

A travers le parole d’historiens, de chercheurs et de bibliothécaires, son film nous explique comment les grandes bibliothèques arrachées à la nuit des temps sont devenus le symbole de la civilisation et de la démocratie, non sans certains heurts comme en témoigne le feu qui a ravagé la bibliothèque d’Alexandrie au septième siècle, et plus récemment le délabrement délibéré des bibliothèques en Palestine ou le pillage éhonté de la bibliothèque de Badgad pendant l’invasion américaine.

Au départ Julian Samuel voulait inclure la Grande Bibliothèque de la rue Berri mais assez tristement et pour d’obscures raisons  on l’a envoyé paître, lui refusant l’accès au chantier comme au bureau de sa directrice. C’est d’autant plus navrant que ce que son film dit du rôle des grandes bibliothèques à travers l’Histoire est fascinant.

A quoi et à qui les bibliothèques servent ? Quels intérêts défendent-elles ? Pourquoi tout au long de l’Histoire de l’humanité, a-t-on cherché  autant à les ériger qu’à les saccager et à les brûler ?  Les bibliothèques sont-elles des agents de changement où fermentent les révolutions ou au contraire des instruments de contrôle social ? Et puis comment envisager l’avènement des bibliothèques virtuelles qui se reproduisent à la vitesse grand V sans se soucier de l’évolution technologique qui d’ici 30 ou 50 ans risquent de rendre caduques leurs banques de données ?

Autant de questions essentielles et d’actualité  que posent le film de Julian Samuel et qui méritent qu’on s’y attarde.

Pour l’heure pourtant, nous avons complètement occulté ces questions à la faveur de considérations qui se réclament moins de l’Histoire que du service à la clientèle. Au lieu de se demander comment se fait-il que le Québec se soit doté d’un stade olympique et d’un casino avant de s’offrir  une Grande Bibliothèque, on veut savoir à quelle heure ça ouvre et ça ferme.

Au lieu de se rappeler que les grandes bibliothèques sont les sanctuaires de la mémoire du monde et le fondement-même de la démocratie et que c’est à travers elles que les sociétés assurent leur pérennité, on s’inquiète du confort des fauteuils et de l’absence d’un casse-croûte.  Un chausson aux pommes avec ça?

Heureusement il n’est jamais trop tard pour bien faire. Maintenant que le Grande Bibliothèque existe, profitons s’en pour élargir nos horizons. La présentation du film de Julian Samuel à la Grande Bibliothèque serait une excellente entrée en matière. La direction a déjà fait savoir au cinéaste qu’elle  n’était pas intéressée à présenter son film. Mais c’était il y a plusieurs mois dans le chaos de l’installation. Peut-être a-t-elle changé d’idée depuis, sinon il faudra se résoudre à faire appel au dernier recours : le service à la clientèle.

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Montreal Serai:

http://www.montrealserai.com/index.htm  May, 2005

“Save and Burn”, 80:34, NTSC, 2004.  A documentary by Julian Samuel.

Reviewed by Maya Khankhoje.

[Maya Khankhoje, when not busy exploring the world out there, can be found deep in contemplation in a library.]

Save and Burn is a compelling commentary on the world of   libraries as well as a  compressed history of their importance from the days of the ancient Sumerians -credited with inventing writing to save administrative records- to current day Iraq, where people, along with libraries, are the victims of  massive burning and destruction.  It is also a dispassionate analysis of  the role of  libraries as repositories of  historical notions of the self and a passionate  cri de coeur  against  the  systematic annihilation of such notions, such as the gradual strangulation of  Palestinian identity.   If the juxtaposition of placid images of libraries where silence reigns with images of armed conflict in Israel/Palestine and Iraq strikes the viewer as  jarring at first, upon reflection, one realizes that it is not the images that jar, but reality itself. Why burn books –alongside countless human beings – if not to reduce the truth to ashes? Moreover, such contrasting imagery speaks to the need for librarians to take to the streets to defend their privilege to continue to house the patrimony of humanity.

The film opens up with the following quote from Carl Sagan (Cosmos):

“Only once before in our history was there the promise of a brilliant scientific civilization. Beneficiary of the Ionian Awakening it had its citadel at the Library of Alexandria, where 2,000 years ago the best minds of antiquity established the foundations for the systematic study of mathematics, physics, biology, astronomy, literature, geography and medicine. We build on that foundation still.”

Who would want to destroy such a foundation? The culprits, say multiple voices,   are the forces that would replace civilization with barbarism. Take the wanton destruction inflicted on Palestinian libraries and cultural centres by the Israeli government.  Or the fire set to the United Talmud Torah Library in Montreal in 2004.  Or the appropriation, by the Israeli government, of  books ordered by Palestinians, and their subsequent delivery to the Hebrew University library, proving that the powers that be fear, not knowledge per se, but knowledge in the “wrong”  hands, that is, in the hands of “others”.

Such destruction is not achieved by means of brimstone and fire alone. The closure of libraries due to “lack of funding” is an obvious device. Legislation is another powerful weapon for  the mass destruction of knowledge. For example, the USA Patriot Act of   2001, allows the government to peer over the shoulders of its citizens as they read while increasingly denying them the information they  seek. The gradual disappearance of library catalogues is a stratagem to control what people read. The digitalization of knowledge, while contributing to its speedy dissemination over the ether, is also contributing to its ethereal and ephemeral nature. The privatization of human knowledge, of course, is the most insidious version of this onslaught.

Libraries, says Irish author Declan Kiberd, are utopian spaces for the disenfranchised Irish,  and hence promote democracy, but they can also be used for state control. Libraries, says Julian Samuel’s off-camera voice,   produce knowledge about democracy at home and export terror abroad.  Libraries are also beautiful, says the director’s camera.  Samuel,  a painter,  filmmaker and  writer, lets our eyes lovingly linger over the long hall of Trinity College Library. He also treats us to a panoramic view of  The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, arisen from the ashes of  its illustrious predecessor.  Its director, Ambassador Taher Khalifa, tells us that this library, partially funded by several Arab countries, is shaped like an incomplete sun disk symbolizing  the incomplete nature of knowledge – and presumably its illuminating attributes.

Save and Burn is a follow-up on The Library in Crisis,  2002 (cf. www.montrealserai.com/2002_Volume15/15_4Article_9.htm)   in which the author traces the history of libraries and libricides while allowing us a glimpse into the multicultural world of libraries in 5th century India. It is also a fervent plea for us, as free and independent thinkers, to unite in defence of our right of access to the knowledge that we have accumulated as a species. Most importantly, it is an aesthetically pleasing and lyrical reminder  of the links between the contemplative space of reading rooms and the hustle and bustle of life out there.

for more  information on “Burn and Save”  please contact:

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Le Devoir, 4 June 2005

Save and Burn

Jean-François Nadeau

Ces dernières semaines, impossible de passer une journée dans ce journal sans tomber à tout moment au téléphone sur un certain Julian Samuel. Vous le connaissez? Ce monsieur s’est donné beaucoup de mal pour produire Save and Burn, un documentaire sur l’univers des grandes bibliothèques de monde et sur la place qu’elle jouent dans l’édification des consciences culturelles. Il a interrogé et mis en scène différent acteurs de ces lieux souvent feutrés. La narration est un peu lourde et la dynamique globale de l’ensemble manque quelque pue d’huile et de fini. On découvre cependant dans ce documentaire certain aspects de la vie culturelle le dont les bibliothèques se sont fait le gage au fils des siècles.

Vous ne verrez sans doute pas ce petit film. Les réseaux de distribution étant ce qu’il sont, la place pour des réalisations de ce genre demeure à peu près inexistante.

Le film aurait-il pu être projeté dans un espace alternatif tel qu la Grande bibliothèque du Québec? Peut-être, mais l’institution affirme avoir déjà programmé ses activité pour les mois à venir.

Ce qui n’empêche pas Julian Samuel de partir en croisade contre la Grande bibliothèque et contre sa directrice, Lise Bissonnette. Motif? Si son film n’est pas diffusé dans la Grande bibliothèque, dit-il, c’est que l’institution ne supporte ni les anglophones ni les gens de couleur. Bref, il y aurait du racisme dans l’air qui clouerait davance son film plancher. Et pourquoi ne parle-t-on pas ou ne diffuse-t-on pas son film ailleurs? Pour la même raision, clame-t-il. Evidemment….

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18th Singapore International Film Festival, 2005

( http://www.filmfest.org.sg/main_js-int.php )

March 20, 2005 – Vinita Ramani and Julian Samuel discuss Save and Burn.

VR: Broadly-speaking, ‘The Library in Crisis’ dealt with bibliocide (a term used by Ian McLachlan) and the increasing digitisation of texts – in a sense, the “crises” referred to in the title. ‘Save and Burn’ has honed in on a more specific issue: the systematic preservation and destruction of knowledge/texts. What do you see as the trajectory from the first documentary to the second?

JS: I didn’t plan a trajectory, but there is a trajectory which I’ll tell you about a few lines down…I write a documentary treatment after reading many books on a particular subject and then approach funders. After a few rejections I get a tiny budget on which to live and produce.

VR: So then do you at see documentary films having some effect on our understanding of history and politics?

JS: Documentaries, on their own, accomplish nothing politically; they record symptoms. If they could change an understanding of reality, and how to act, then why haven’t they had any large-scale progressive effect on society? Despite the making of many critical documentaries, the economic right and the religious right are hitting us in coercive ways. Rent control and the Magna Carta all down the drain, and it’s all Michael Moore’s fault.

VR: There’s an intellectual density in both your documentaries that is quite different or lacking in the new wave of “activist” films that have emerged off-late (since 2000 and the WTO protests, in particular).

JS: Someone has to make dense documentaries – otherwise we’d all be making documentaries like The Corporation, Bowling for Columbine et al ad naseum which are visually fun, easy and comic, but analytically as deep as a fried Mars Bar. The directors offers no criticism of Caterpillar Corp and its support of Israel, for instance.

VR: While you hint at the great intellectual traditions of Asia and Africa, the documentary is very much focused on libraries in Europe, or the “west”.

JS: Sadly, much is missing from Save and Burn (2004). My excuse is that they didn’t give me much money. It would have been useful to have included in-depth discussions from other parts of the world such as Africa, Asia, libraries in the Arctic and Antarctica. This would have filled in all the geo-bibliographic holes. And, it would have been great to shoot all the pretty books in grain-less 35mm. A visual exploration (in IMAX) of the 13th century wood printing blocks at the The Temple of Haeinsa would have been enriching.

However, I think that with Save and Burn I have provided classical linkages between the master races and the others: England and Ireland; Palestine and America; America and Iraq. I have not explored the role between libraries in the Mediterranean region and their impact on the development of this one-sided democracy in Europe. The documentary makes the links between empire and knowledge institutions apparent. The trajectory from Save and Burn is now a documentary on Atheism. Will George Soras please help me? I only want a millionth of his wealth.

VR: Alistair Black (Leeds Metropolitan University) and John Feather identify the specific relationship between libraries and the advent of modernity, in how the growth of the individual or “self” was integral to the Enlightenment project. But Black identifies the controlling aspects of libraries as well: they are bureaucracies par excellence. This is a tension present throughout the film (freedom and control in relation to knowledge). Is this a specifically western experience?

JS: Modernity? What’s that? Save and Burn’s slowly leads us to the following kinds of question: Is western democracy falling apart in the eyes of everyone else? Western democracy – with its legal trade rules and legally sanctioned moral values in place – is transparently terrorizing resources out of vast areas of the world.

Lefty documentary film-makers try to get answers from experts in order to produce an abridged yet wide version of history and politics. And, unfortunately, documentaries produce culturalists who know the world’s problems but can only vote in a certain way; go to demonstrations; have political discussions at supper time, and buy samosas on solidarity nights. I won’t put you in a cultural studies coma by doing a Chomskian repetition of what’s wrong with the world, don’t worry.

VR: Save and Burn also touches upon contrasts/tensions in relation to perceptions of class and access to knowledge. Alistair Black is sceptical of the claim that the working classes benefited from libraries: he says they were rarely the constituency that used libraries. You juxtapose this with Irish author Declan Kiberd’s resoundingly positive perception that libraries for the Irish, were and are almost utopian spaces, following the 19th century reading room tradition, where issues in the community can be debated, read about, shared. What is the intention of these juxtapositions?

JS: It would appear that I have a sociological reflex – inducted during schooling.

VR: Nevertheless, the humour aside, you are suggesting something with these recurring discussions on freedom, democracy and accesss to knowledge.

JS: What’s the conclusion? Libraries actually produce a knowledge of how to practice democracy at home and export terror abroad; this is one obvious, preliminary conclusion. The current-day British labour party members all have a knowledge of social democracy because of the libraries they used – packed to the gills with English Marxism and even more flashy Euro-Marxism. Many of them were arrested for protesting during the last century.

The center of the documentary are the comments on the catalogue. The library catalogue controls access to sections of knowledge. The techno-culturalist and historical discussion in the beginning of Save and Burn takes us to the destruction of the library catalogue in Palestine. Here, western democracy falls to bits. The Palestinians, as people everywhere, see through western democracy’s terror-laden values.

VR: Save and Burn also reveals a strong relationship between history and libraries. Alarmingly, we can no longer speak of historiography if, as Tom Twiss (Govt. Information Librarian, Pittsburgh), Isam al Khafaji (ex-advisor to US forces in Iraq) and Erling Bergan collectively identify how Iraqi libraries/museums are being systematically burnt and destroyed, books are not reaching Palestinian libraries. History is being altered by what is saved and what is burnt. What is the future then, from your perspective? How does one respond to these “cultural war crimes” as Ross Shimmon points out?

JS: The future? Most documentary film-makers are non-experts who are in one way or another looking for answers to advance a general knowledge which will lead to criticism, action, Eden. Viewers should understand that film-makers put viewers in the precarious position of trusting the film-maker who usually are non-experts in the areas they are documenting. The questions encompassed by Save and Burn are posed by a non-expert. I have tried to offer in-depth knowledge of libraries across many voices.

The conclusion of the documentary asks: Western democracies are encouraging Israel and other places (via innocent tax payers in Austin, Warlingham, and Canberra) to do one illegal thing after the next. The mad search for weapons of mass hypnosis is like the search for God itself. Many people at the other end of American foreign policy see nothing “western” nor “democratic” but see hypocrisy personified in various heads of states. You should have heard the analysis the shoe-shine man in Cairo gave me about 911.

So what political models can ‘they’ out there look for? Can they make an economically competitive state via an investment in Islamic or non-western values? More questions for an expert. The idea of investing in western democratic values is exhausted, not simply because western democracy is so easy to see through but because democracy, give or take a Patriot Act or two, is structured fundamentally to supply a bit of democracy at home while fully financing dictators and their armies the world over.

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Save and Burn – a documentary by Julian Samuel (2004)

A film review by Steve Fesenmaier

published: http://www.counterpunch.org/fesenmaier10022004.html

There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was transmitted from one owner to another.

Walter Benjamin

Theses on the Philosophy of History, 1940

“Ueber den Begriff der Geschichte”, used at the beginning of this film

Julian Samuel, a Montreal-based filmmaker born in Pakistan, continues his exploration of the contemporary world of libraries in this 80-minute documentary. He first investigated libraries in his instant library classic, “The Library in Crisis.” Here is the description from the distributor’s website – Filmakers Library –

Dense with the informed commentary of notable scholars, this documentary in effect traces the history of civilization through the phenomenon of the library. From ancient China, India, Islam, and the Graeco Roman world, we see how the library radiated knowledge and spiritual values, and facilitated the cross fertilization of ideas from one culture to another.

http://filmakers.com/indivs/LibraryCrisis.htm

“Crisis” was made before 9/11 and focuses on the hottest crises at that time – the effects the WTO may have on libraries, the commercialization of libraries, mindless weeding and closing of libraries, expansion of copyright by computer corporations, and much more. No film I have ever seen on libraries comes close in exploring so much in such a short period of time – 46 minutes.

I contacted the filmmaker in Canada, and sent him videotapes of interviews with leading American library activist Sanford Berman. Originally, he was going to interview Sandy and other American library leaders, but after the draconian war against people from Pakistan and other East Asian countries by the Bush Administration after 9/11, Samuel took the official Canadian advice to NOT cross the border. Thus this film did not include these voices – but rather focused on Irish and English libraries plus the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Unlike “The Library in Crisis,” this film looks at race and class. Various library historians including John Feather, Professor of Library & Information Studies, Loughborough University, author of “The Information Society,” Royal Society of Arts, London and Alistair Black, Professor of Library History, Leeds Metropolitan  University, London discuss how public libraries were used both to stop the locals from contemplating revolution a la Russian Communism during and after WWI and to serve as a place for debate. By cutting back and forth from Irish and English library events to the history of the Library of Alexandria, Egyptian public libraries, and current programs in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, like one on unemployment and youth, the viewer is counter-conditioned to reject Western racism. Samuel wants to show the West that we are the inheritors of the great Arab-Asian tradition of libraries going back thousands of years – not its enemy.

The facts are piled on, not using the standard Ken Burns-style of slow discourse, but rather throwing the facts at us, using optical printing, aiming to create a much more complicated GESTALT in our minds. This is extremely refreshing to someone who has watched a thousand such films, and found them boring. His style is more like the Hong Kong master Wong Kar-wai or Godard, demanding that the viewer has a universe of images already in his mind, waiting for someone to link them together in new ways.

Like all serious intellectuals, Samuel begins with Walter Benjamin, the cornerstone of post-WWII global analysis. By doing this he shows right from the beginning that he is not guilty of anti-Semitism and Arab fanaticism. He shows that he really wants truth and justice, at whatever cost. He wants to show that libraries have been one of the few places of truth and justice for a long time, and that there are really only two kinds of people – those who respect such sacred places and those who do not.

The visual images of the libraries he shows are exquisite, lingering on the walls, the books, the people, and the spaces that libraries have used over the centuries. He is a painter, an artist – as well as a philosopher, historian, and freedom fighter. Ambassador  Taher Khalifa, Director of The Bibliotheca Alexandrina talks about the shapes of the library – using an incomplete sun disk, the earth, a moon, the sea, and alphabets from all over the world, none making a single sentence.

I found one scene particularly positive, given the ocean of negative images flooding us now. A young Arab man reads from “Dubliners” in front of the James Joyce Wall in Dublin -in his native tongue. This brief scene may be the clearest direct message Samuel is trying to make – we are all one people, friends, not enemies.

This film notes a key historical possibility that I very much believe in – and that is that if the great world of the original Alexandrine Library had been allowed to continue, our world would have been much better, and mankind would have landed on the moon by 1000 AD. There is a new field of alternative histories, including Philip Roth’s new book, “The Plot Against America,” about a US with a Nazi Charles Lindbergh as president. Samuel has a text crawl that states that there was one other time when there was a possibility of a “brilliant scientific civilization” – the 700 years of the first Alexandrine Library under the Greeks, and he notes that most of the Old Testament comes to us from items once found in that library. Apparently he believes, as I do, that if mankind had channeled its energy into the arts and sciences rather than war at the time of the world’s greatest library, our world would now be a humanistic paradise rather than a toxic corporate American hell.

During the last half of the film he interviews Tom Twiss, Government Information Librarian, University of Pittsburgh, who has flown to Canada for the interview. During the next 30 minutes Twiss discusses the war against people’s access to federal government information, pointing out that as our government has limited our access to them, they have increased their access to us – library patrons- under the Patriot Act. Twiss is also an expert on the destruction of Palestinian libraries. He talks about what happened to Palestinian libraries during an Israeli invasion of the West Bank. He points out that Lutheran libraries were also attacked without any reaction worldwide – but that there is ample proof of the events. He notes that some Israeli newspapers even ran editorials about the “cultural cleansing” but many Israelis deny it even happened. One gruesome story he gives is about the Israelis taking books ordered by Palestinian libraries being shipped to Palestinian libraries  being seized and shipped to Israeli libraries instead.

Another expert on the reality of libraries in Palestine is Erling Bergan, Editor, Librarians Union of Norway, Oslo, who talks about the destruction of their libraries, and a tour by international librarians to these libraries, seeing first hand how much the children use them. He discusses one particular act of destruction involving The Orient House. Bergan is like one of the thousands of Jewish Holocaust  survivors one has seen in films about Nazi Germany. (I have programmed the local Jewish film series for 25 years), shaking his head in disbelief. Sanford Berman is the inventor of a word that should have been uttered – bibliocide. ( Ian McLachlan uses this word  in Samuel’s earlier film, “The Library in Crisis.)  Some librarians even use the term “biblio-holocaust” for the destruction of books in our modern age.

Finally, the destruction of Iraqi libraries is discussed, mainly by Ross Shimmon, Secretary General, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and Isam al Khafaji, ex-advisor to USA forces in Iraq. Khafaji discusses who destroyed the books, and how important they still are in the life of war-worn Iraqis. Shimmon talks about writing letters to Saddam and Blair requesting that they protect Iraqi libraries during the coming war.

The final comments in the film are by   Khafaji. Earlier in the film pictures of Iraqi libraries that have been burned are shown, giving the viewer the reason why this film is called “Save and Burn.” It’s horrific to see the rooms of ashes, and reflect on the eternal loss the millions of Iraqis have endured as pawns in the game between the Arab fanatics and the America extremists – now in control. I had to recall the ashes from “The Day After,” showing a world incinerated by men of equal sadism.

Samuel has again created a masterpiece about the contemporary library. I suggest that it be included with the many Arab Film Festivals that have been created by thoughtful people around the world since 9/11. As always, non-Arabs and Arabs will discover that they have much more in common than they realize – and that they are brothers and sisters, not enemies. All librarians should see this film, and I am sure they will feel like I do that librarians must leave their beautiful houses of culture, and join the fight to protect them from the despots East and West who will eventually destroy them. One librarian talks about how the Book of Kells was protected from the invading English, being moved from site to site, even in a building used by the invaders as a headquarters.

A very good companion book to read is Matthew Battles recent, “Libraries  -An Unquiet History.” I read it two summers ago on a porch near Wilmington, North Carolina, smoking and sitting under a semi-functioning ceiling fan with my dog. I took my time and savored the amazing history Mr. Battles has written, taking a global perspective somewhat akin to Mr. Samuel’s. I was very impressed with his brief history of libraries in China and England, and consider his account of the war against my friend Sanford Berman to be the best in any book I have read so far.

There is a brief discussion of “libricide” in this film – and now there is an excellent book on the subject – and now there is an excellent book on the subject – “Libricide: The Regime-Sponsored Destruction of Books and Libraries in the Twentieth Century” by Rebecca Knuth. It looks at five particular cases  – Germany, Bosnia, Kuwait, China and Tibet. Of course it doesn’t mention the uncontrolled “weeding” of American libraries during the last decade, most famously in San Francisco where thousands of books were buried in a landfill.

Read together, “An Unquiet History” and “Libricide,”” along with “Save and Burn” would make an excellent introduction for beginning MLS students anywhere in the world. Or as a “Continuing Education” course for working MLS librarians. Hopefully I will be able to show “Save and Burn” at the spring West Virginia Library Association conference in April 2005.

Steve Fesenmaier is the film reviewer for Graffiti magazine, the largest monthly in West Virginia. He was director of The West Virginia Library Commission Film Services 1978-1999, receiving his Masters of Library Science in 1979. He was previously the chairman of the University Film Society, University of Minnesota, 1972-78. He is the co-founder of the West Virginia International Film Festival (1984), The West Virginia Filmmakers Film Festival, (2001) and the WV Filmmakers Guild (1979). He has worked on many films including John Sayles’ “Matewan”(1987) and presented a week of films made in WV in March 2004 at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in NYC. He is the associate producer of an indie feature film, “Correct Change”(2002) and the executive producer for “Green Bank – The Center of the Universe.” He provided research information for Mr. Samuel.

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Septembre 2005 Vol 13 No 1

Plein cadre: Julian Samuel

Culture

Karolyne MARENGO

Plein cadre – Julian Samuel

De Londres à Dublin, d’Oslo à Alexandrie, Julian Samuel fouille les dimensions historiques et politiques des grandes bibliothèques tout en analysant les relations conflictuelles qui ont composé l’histoire.

PRÉSERVER LE SAVOIR

Documentariste trouble-fête, Julian Samuel provoque du scepticisme et dépeint de manière habile des sujets qui font réfléchir. Ses dernières réalisations cinématographiques à caractères politique et historique mettent en scène les relations entre la démocratie et le savoir. Portrait d’un cinéaste engagé dans l’art dit minimaliste.

Julian Samuel, cinéaste montréalais, s’amuse à aller au-delà de la censure en réalisant des films sur les sujets qui le minent. « Le cinéma est défini par la menace qu’il amène directement à la démocratie. Tout le long de son histoire, le cinéma a été sujet à la censure et il l’a tolérée. Les documentaires progressistes sont définis par leur combat contre ce conservatisme : nous, les documentaristes, nous existons parce que le conservatisme existe. »

Intellectuel averti, il valorise les documentaires qui vont au fond des choses, qui analysent en profondeur, ceux qui vont au-delà du divertissement tout en provocant du scepticisme. « Veut-on ou pas que des questions profondément controversées soient divulguées au public? Les bons documentaristes s’amusent à la confrontation alors que les mauvais cinéastes sont lâches et s’efforcent continuellement de plaire aux producteurs, au public et aux journalistes. » Son objectif : exposer l’injustice, réaliser des documentaires qui sont engagés politiquement et qui suscitent des polémiques. Amener l’auditoire à entretenir des discussions à matière historique le stimule en tant que réalisateur. « C’est par la discussion de faits historiques que les gens peuvent comprendre et savoir comment agir dans la société contemporaine. »

RETOUR AUX SOURCES

Le 7e art minimaliste de Julian Samuel trahit l’admiration qu’il voue à Michael Snow. « Le travail des cinéastes canadiens n’expose pas, en général, une vision provocatrice de la politique internationale. Je n’ai pas été influencé par des soi-disant cinéastes canadiens à l’exception de Michael Snow. Dans Wavelenght, un film de quarante-cinq minutes, il utilise simplement deux ou trois images. C’était très courageux et minimaliste à l’époque. » Dans ses films, Julian Samuel mise avant tout sur l’information verbale plutôt que sur l’information visuelle. Les arguments soulevés dans Save and Burn et Library in Crisis sont rapportés par les interviewés, sans narration. Des images de livres et de bibliothèques accompagnent leurs paroles sans plus; l’attrait se situe au niveau du contenu.

Le travail d’Américains gauchistes comme Emile Antonio et Fredrick Wiseman a aussi influencé Julian Samuel. Parmi ses inspirateurs, Joan Harvey, qui a fait des films soulevant du scepticisme, et le cubain Santiago Alvarez qui, malgré de maigres budgets, a tout de même réussi à réaliser des films intelligents. Les documentaristes provocateurs stimulaient le cinéaste montréalais alors qu’il n’était encore qu’un jeune étudiant. « J’ai étudié les brillantes oeuvres de D.W. Griffiths dont les films sont immensément apeurants parce que les racistes nordaméricains montrés dans le film The Birth of a Nation existent toujours en 2005. »

INJUSTICE ET CURIOSITÉ

Le racisme déchaîne Julian Samuel. D’origine pakistanaise, il se sent brimé au Québec à cause de ses souches orientales. La question identitaire et le thème du nationalisme imprégnant sa trilogie The Raft of the Medusa, Into the European Mirror et City of the Dead and the World Exhibitions reflètent indirectement le combat auquel se livre quotidiennement le cinéaste. L’absence des minorités dans le paysage médiatique québécois révolte Julian qui déplore le nationalisme de la province. Son court métrage Visible Minorities Hired by the Media montre l’injustice qu’il perçoit.

La grande curiosité de Julian Samuel l’amène à dénicher l’objet de ses films. Par l’entremise de la lecture, il découvre des thèmes qui le motivent à creuser davantage. « Tu cherches plus profondément sur un sujet et avant que tu ne le saches, tu es pris dans ses engrenages. Tu pousses plus loin, tu parles avec des gens, tu fais des recherches pour finalement en faire un traitement. » L’étape cruciale : amasser les fonds pour réaliser les documentaires. Une collecte souvent trop modeste qui le résigne à l’art minimaliste.

FILMOGRAPHIE

L’un des récents sujets qui a piqué la curiosité de Julian Samuel est l’idée selon laquelle la démocratie et la lutte pour celle-ci dépendent de l’accès à la connaissance. Ses derniers documentaires, Library In Crisis et Save and Burn, illustrent cette pensée. De Londres à Dublin, d’Oslo à Alexandrie, Julian Samuel fouille les dimensions historiques et politiques des grandes bibliothèques tout en analysant les relations conflictuelles qui ont composé l’histoire. Save and Burn pose un regard sur la démocratie et l’actuelle destruction des livres en Irak; les bibliothèques y sont définies comme sources de changements sociaux, mais également comme instruments de contrôle social. Pendant les quatre-vingts minutes que dure le film, Julian Samuel insiste principalement sur le fait que l’Occident ne reconnaît pas le patrimoine culturel de l’Orient à sa juste valeur.

The Library in Crisis précède Save and Burn et se concentre, entre autres, sur les «bibliocides» historiques et contemporains, l’alphabétisation, la Révolution française et la métamorphose des bibliothèques en instances commerciales. Le cinéaste y déplore la numérisation des textes, l’évolution technologique qui réduit le savoir à des bribes d’informations numériques risquant de se désagréger au fil du temps.

Actuellement, Julian Samuel a à son actif cinq livres et quelques autres documentaires dont une trilogie examinant la relation politique et historique entre l’Occident, le Moyen-Orient et l’Asie. The Raft of the Medusa, Into the European Mirror et City of the Dead and the World Exhibitions, tels que mentionnés précédemment, mettent en scène les enjeux du nationalisme tout en traitant de divers sujets comme le fondamentalisme islamique et le modernisme occidental. Le cinéaste réalise présentement un documentaire sur la croyance religieuse et l’athéisme, dont le titre provisoire est Against the Incantations of False Prophets. La lecture d’un livre traitant de l’athéisme et du fanatisme religieux l’a poussé à creuser davantage le sujet. Son dernier documentaire Save and Burn sera présenté à l’Ex-Centris du 26 au 29 septembre prochain.

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unpublished research interview for Quartier Libre article (Septembre 2005 Vol 13 No 1), circulated on web:

Karolyne Marengo interviews Julian Samuel, August 2005

KM: Why are you – or were you – so interested by Imperialism?

JS: Imperialism is a continuum that deserves exposure in documentaries. Imperialism not only transforms world trade, but also transforms the very way in which one sees the world and relations within it. Historically, this force expropriated cotton grown by bonded labour in India, shipped it to shirt-making factories in Manchester which then sold finished shirts back to India for profits. Imperialism transforms oil from the middle-east into condoms; toothbrushes; DVDs or videotape which is used to archive our collective memories of the war in Vietnam; the Intifada; Britney Spears singing in an airplane powered by refined oil; Martin Luther King speaking in Washington, being killed in Montgomery; Space Shuttles blowing up; the World Trade Towers collapsing. The goal of Christian imperialism, internally, is the same as its foreign policy projections: to convince a chubby, television-addicted population to purchase meaningless glitter made by slaves who ‘earn’ two dollars a day.

KM: How would you define cinema?

JS: Cinema is defined by the direct threat it poses to a conservative understanding of the term “democracy”. Throughout its history, cinema has been subjected to and has tolerated censorship; its transformative potential is so great that the people who fund its production and those who distribute it are inexorably censorial and so controlling that many accusatory human-rights stories are ruthlessly suppressed. Only politically suitable and safe stories make it to the production and distribution stages.

Elia Suleiman’s ‘Divine Intervention,’ a film about Palestine, was subjected to hardcore American censorship: On 20 December 2002, ABC News reported, that: “Academy Executive Director Bruce Davis informed Balsan (producer – my note) that the film was ineligible for consideration in next year’s Best Foreign Language Film category because Divine Intervention emerges from a country not formally recognized by the United Nations.

( http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79485&page=1 ).

KM: What’s your defination of documentary cinema?

JS: Our national definer of the documentary, The National Film Board of Canada, produces meek, inconsequential works and ought not to get public funding. Writers and film-makers have learnt to use the tool of allegory to cut the noose of the censor. Progressive documentaries are defined by their fight against conservatism: We exist because conservatism exists.

Film-makers can now easily made fiction or documentaries with digital cameras and computers. Although small distribution networks for independent documentaries exist, there isn’t large scale distribution for these documentaries. Large-scale distribution or TV is controlled by the same mentally ill, wretched money hungry individuals who inflict cinema.

KM: What is the importance of documentary?

JS: Certain documentaries encourage sceptical thinking. Do you or do you not want deeply antagonistic questions posed in public?

KM: Why do you make documentaries rather fiction?

JS: Fiction requires big political money, therefore it is impossible for minorities living in Quebec to fully tell their stories in cinema. Bien sur, inoffensive, uncle tom works do get produced, but who gives a shit about these?

KM: What inspires you?

JS: Making a film is like stepping into a battlefield where the wings of inspirational angels are napalmed. Documentary film-makers don’t have a patron saint who comes down from St. Joseph’s Oratory to give them inspiration.

KM: What motivates you to make films?

JS: To expose injustice. Noble cause n’est pas?

KM: Which film-makers have inspired you and how?

JS: The works of Canadian film-makers do not, generally, contain any challenging expository international politics. I have not been influenced *whatsoever* by Canadian film-makers except one: Michael Snow. European and Third World cinema are more cogent than Canadian cinema. This is not a vain attempt at snobbery. Canadian cinema, especially Atom Egoyan’s is infinitely inane. Deny Arcand’s films are boring. Pierre Falardeau leftwingism 101 can be goofy and comic – he gets major funding – guess why? Pierre Perrault has made wide ranging kinds work which are well-researched and well-structured: “Un pays sans bon sens!” (1970) is very good.

I have studied and admire the works of Americans such as Emile de Antonio and Fredrick Wiseman. Joan Harvey has made sceptical films. Cuban Santiago Alvarez has made brilliant films with small budgets; Gillo Pontocorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1965) is as relevant today as when it was made. It wouldn’t surprise me if Tony Blair bans screenings of this work.

My early influences were James Joyce; American musicians such as Little Walter; Abstract Expressionists; Stan Brakhage; and, bien sur, the Russian classics. I studied the brilliant works of D.W. Griffiths whose films are immensely frightening because the North American racists shown in ‘The Birth of a Nation’ (1915) are still here in 2005.

Cinema is an international medium and so one’s influences can come from all over (call it a cinematic collectivity if you want to be a cultural studies type). In Quebec, one is punished for not caressing the local heros. Quebec’s ethnic nationalists, like the crackers in ‘The Birth of a Nation’ fear that the WOG WITHIN will make a better work than the whites who live off hereditary privilege. Quebec’s cultural elites thwart les autres.

KM: What is your style and what distinguishes it from the works of other directors?

JS: Canadian documentaries such as The Corporation and Manufacturing Consent are sound-bite works that are comfortable enough for prostitutional TV producers who buy BMWs with our tax contributions. My documentaries are not as popular as these films. Save and Burn is a multi-thematic work which projects arguments without voice-of-god narration; my documentaries don’t spoon-feed the viewers. Noam Chomsky the star of Manufacturing Consent incessantly exposes Israel and its kissing cousin America. Peter Wintonic and Mark Acbar, the directors of Manufacturing Consent, do not include his commentary on Israel.

KM: What is the message you are trying to send with your trilogy: The Raft of the Medusa, Into the European Mirror, and City of the Dead?

JS: I offer hard evidence on the imperial game.

KM: And The Library In Crisis and Save and Burn?

JS: To show that democracy and the fight for it depends on access to books and libraries.

KM: The future of the book and learning pre-occupy you. You have made two films that look at knowledge and democracy. Why such a marked interest in these areas?

JS: Without democracy we will never have single malt scotch. Documentary film-makers offer the opposite of Prozac – that’s our job.

KM: Save and Burn produced a small controversy – what was all this about?

JS: In Save and Burn I’ve proven that Israelis are not only destroying the libraries of Palestinians, but are also stealing their books to enrich their own collections. I remind people that this pillage could not happen without the support of democratic America. Showing this connection is enough to hamper screenings at festivals and academic conferences. However, one ought to keep in mind that parts of religious America are progressive especially when compared to India, the largest caste-ridden democracy in the world.

In Montreal, the Bibliothetque National du Quebec will not show The Library in Crisis and Save and Burn. I do not think, in principal, that this is rejection is race-related. Lise Bissonnette, the head provincial librarian, is not a racist. I am confident that given her august and inflated stature as an local intellectual, she is nimble enough to connect the dots between D W Griffiths and Jacques Parizeau (George Wallace of Quebec) to George Bush’s war on the Arabs. The BNQ has commissioned a documentary on itself, and in the near future, this work will be broadcast. Mirror, mirror on the wall. It cruel and ruthless for Bissonnette to not tell me why The Library in Crisis and Save and Burn are unworthy of a screening at the BNQ. Furthermore, I published a translation of the following letter in La presse, 16 may 2005:

“Lise Bissonnette director of the Grande bibliothèque du Québec promotes her dedication to reflecting the racial diversity of Quebec within her library. However, she and her collegues, Ghislain Roussel, Secrétaire général et directeur des affaires juridiques, in particular are dead silent on following question: Do ‘visible minorities’ have jobs in key positions within the BNQ?

All the commissioned art works in the BNQ are made by white quebecois francophones. Is there an undeclared policy of favoritism? Julian Samuel”

KM: Is it necessary for documentaries to be polemical?

JS: Yes.

KM: What are your current struggles? And which do you consider important?

JS: The struggle for funding is continual. It would be nice to get the same level of funding as French-Canadian directors or white Anglo Canadian directors. I made my documentaries with a budget seven times *smaller* than the average film made at the ONF. And my income is *five times less* than the average professor of cinema at U de M. I live near the poverty line. Would a cradle-to-the-grave corporate welfare job at the CBC or the NFB have encouraged intellectual suicide?

KM: In varying degrees your works look at the Middle East – why this interest?

Does the fact that you are a Montrealer of Pakistani origin determine the themes you develop in your work?

JS: Pakistan does not determine the subjects of my documentaries. I am a Canadian citizen. I don’t normally revert to being a Pakistani national until I enter Pakistani airspace which is where my acquired nationalities – Canadian and British – are temporarily over ridden. Except in my novel Passage to Lahore (De Lahore a Montreal), my works are not connected with where I was born.

KM: Can you distinguish between a good documentary film-maker and a bad one?

JS: Good documentary film-makers find confrontation amusing. Bad documentary film-makers are craven and always find ways to please producers, audiences, journalists.

KM: What is your next documentary or book?

JS: My next documentary is about belief, unbelief and atheism; working title, ‘Against the incantations of false prophets.’ And a novel, working title, ‘Dark Interloper of the Eastern Trade’ – a comedy set in Charles De Gaulle airport. Also, I might make a documentary about mangoes – I an expert on Pakistani mangoes.

KM: What do you try to reveal in your 60 second clip Visible Minorities Hired by the Media ?

JS: This short clip laughs at the ‘visible minorities’  hired by the Canadian state. American Republican senator Jesse Helms must love our Governor General Michaëlle Jean’s documentary which trashes Fidel Castro and Cuba.

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The Mirror, Sept. 22 2005

FRONT-LINE LIBRARIES

Local filmmaker Julian Samuel is fascinated by libraries. They are

repositories of knowledge, centres of learning and essential to a

well-educated and democratic populace. His newest documentary, SAVE AND BURN, screening next week at Ex-Centris, will look at how libraries are used worldwide, but also how they can be abused and destroyed. Samuel turns his lens to the situation in Iraq and Palestine, where libraries have suffered terribly in the chaos of war zones. “If you want to train a doctor, you need some manuals and some books,” he says. “If you want to train a civil engineer, you need books. If a library is destroyed, where are you going to get the books you need to be able to transport water?”

Samuel says he wants to accentuate the links between a country’s libraries

and its civil society. “Libraries contain instrumental tools of knowledge and history,” he says. “If you can’t touch the past, you can’t bring about the fruition of democracy.”

The film runs from Sept. 26 to 29 at Ex-Centris (3536 St-Laurent). Consult

listings for showtimes. »  Patrick Lejtenyi

26-29 septembre 2005 15h00 – 21h00

Ex-Centris 3536 St-Laurent, north of Sherbrooke

10$ (7.50$ before 6 pm mon-fri)

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Save and Burn

Reviewed by Sheila Intner, Professor Emerita, Graduate School of Library & Information Science, Simmons College GSLIS at Mt. Holyoke, South Hadley, MA

http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/emro/emroDetail.asp?Number=2443

Not Recommended

Date Entered: 7/14/2006

Ostensibly this is a documentary film about libraries and the roles they have played in various socio-political settings from early times to the present. In reality, however, the film is an expression of opinions and attitudes held by a group of librarians about Middle East politics, mainly anti-Israel and anti-U.S. policy, carefully disguised as a piece about libraries and the preservation of library materials.

First, a word about the technical aspects of the piece: The visuals are good for the most part, especially the well-shot footage of the newly completed library at Alexandria, Egypt, early in the film and, later, the well-paced interviews. Too many scenes, however, display in slow motion. One slo-mo circumnavigation of the Alexandrian library’s new buildings is appealing, but repetitions and slo-mo scenes of library users and other activities are not. The editing is odd. Strange images interrupt the film. Unrelated, unidentified documents, people, and scenes flash on the screen as if the original material was inadvertently filmed over, and special effects are added that do nothing to enhance the material. The audio is less successful. Several interviewees are difficult to comprehend although they speak English, because they speak too softly and swallow their words, or because of strong, unfamiliar accents.

Filmakers’ advertising says, “The film is packed with provocative ideas.” That is an understatement. For instance, Norwegian librarian Erling Bergan says that the establishment of the state of Israel was a bad idea, even if it was prompted by good intentions. Talking about the ineffectiveness of taking up a collection to help rebuild Palestinian libraries, allegedly destroyed in wanton fashion by the Israeli military, he says it would be far better to persuade the United States to stop aiding Israel. Isam al Khafaji, an Iraqi ex-official, intimates that devastation of Iraqi libraries is the fault of the U.S. military, who failed to protect them and still aren’t protecting them.

At the end of the day, the film is neither about libraries nor Middle East politics. It offers bits and pieces about preservation of rare books and manuscripts; about the new Alexandrian library; and about the terrible treatment of Iraqi and Palestinian libraries by the U.S. and Israel, respectively. Biased comments about Middle East politics are generally framed in a library context. Israel and the United States are cast as villains who would, at best, ignore, or, at worst, destroy, painstakingly built repositories of Arab culture.

Save and Burn teaches very little about libraries and librarianship, even about Arabic libraries. It is, however, a good example of how positional arguments can be framed as objective, socially responsible scholarship.

Not recommended.

2004

Distributed by Filmakers Library, 124 East 40th Street, New York, NY 10016; 202-808-4980

Produced by Julian Samuel

Directed by Julian Samuel

DVD,  color, 80 min.

College – Adult

Middle Eastern Studies

Copyright 2006. All Rights Reserved. Distributors may use select segments for promotional purposes with full credit given to Educational Media Reviews Online.

Educational Media Reviews Online – http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/emro/search.html

Contact Information

Revised January 20, 2006

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Mots-clés: Multiculturalisme, Culture

Save and burn [enregistrement vidéo] / by Julian Samuel. [Montréal, Qué.] : Julian Samuel, c2004. 1 vidéodisque : son., coul. ; 12 cm. MEDIA / AVDOC DVD 0662 vidéodisque

L’histoire des bibliothèques détruites ou saccagées par les guerres et les envahisseurs vue par Julian Samuel. Des images superbes de la bibliothèque d’Alexandrie, des entrevues avec des bibliothécaires de différents pays qui ont assisté souvent impuissants à la destruction de leur patrimoine culturel que sont les bibliothèques. Depuis les débuts de l’histoire de l’humanité , brûler les bibliothèques est l’acte premier de tout envahisseur et le 20 è siècle, vu par certains historiens comme le “siècle du saccage de ces institutions du savoir” n’est pas de reste, avec l’Allemagne nazie. La guerre en Irak, en est un autre témoignage.

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Screening: London: 3 May, 2007

http://www.palestinefilm.org/resources.asp?aqu_sect=fil&film_type=y&aqu_id=92

Title: Save and Burn

Director: Julian Samuel

Year: 2004

Language: English

Duration: 80 min

About the Documentary:

Generally considered guardians of culture, Save and Burn reveals how libraries are subject to the ideologies of their time and place – and not above them, as might be assumed. The film assays the commercialization of libraries, the irresponsible weeding and closing of libraries, the excesses of copyright law, but most of all, the fact that the West has not recognized the Orient for much of its cultural heritage. Historically, libraries have been used to promote or inhibit democratic debate, and Samuel’s extraordinary interviews with an immense range of senior librarians and collectors extends here to a discussion of the impact of the Patriot Act on the politics and surveillance which inflect libraries in the US today. This strikingly shot and intellectually commanding work includes exquisite footage of the Alexandrian Library, the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, and Bromley House in Nottingham. The second half of the film includes painful and expert accounts of the calculated destruction of libraries and cultural infrastructure in Palestine and Iraq in recent years by Israeli and US-led occupying forces.

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