René Viénet

Birth : 1944-01-01, Le Havre, France

History

René Viénet is a French sinologist who is famous as a situationist writer and filmmaker. Viénet used the situationist technique of détournement — the diversion of already existing cultural elements to new subversive purposes. After completing his studies in Sinology in Paris, he moved to China but he was expelled in 1966 for his critical approach towards the Maoist regime. In the 1970s, he worked at CNRS from where he was fired on two different occasions in 1971 and 1978 for heavily criticising those who defended Mao, particularly through the books from the publishing house Champ libre where he directed the series Bibliothèque asiatique. From 1974 to 1978, he also taught Chinese at the École polytechnique. After 20 years spent in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, he returned to France. He is the director of redaction for the review Monde chinois since 2007.

Movies

Autoportrait

Director

Chinois, encore un effort pour être révolutionnaires

Director

Unlike his earlier films "Can Dialectics Break Bricks?" and "The Girls of Kamare", which "detourned" drama films, in this one, Viénet uses a great variety of sources (particularly archive footage of People's Republic of China leaders) to compose a political documentary sharply critical of Mao's legacy in China. The title is a reference to the pamphlet "Français, encore un effort si vous voulez être républicains" featured in "Philosophy in the Bedroom" of Marquis de Sade.

Mao par Lui-même

Director

A film-détournement biography of Mao Tse-tung in which the life of the recently deceased Great Helmsman is told in his own words, using quotes culled from various Red Guard publications. The rise to power of the film's namesake appears as the inevitable outcome of a dialectical logical. Or so the voice-over might lead one to believe. If the usual practice of détourned films is for the soundtrack to undermine the image, here the reverse occasionally takes place. The images critique Mao's words. They show that which, even in the official visual record of the times, the narrative elides. The film is dedicated to Li Yhi Zhe, the nominal author of a famous Democracy Wall critique of the Maoist state.

Les filles de Kamare

Director

A Situationist film by Rene Vienet that juxtaposes musings on film, censorship, and society with Japanese pinky film Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom.

Can Dialectics Break Bricks?

Director

A Kong Kong martial arts movie redubbed by situationist René Viénet. The narrative focuses on a conflict between proletarians and bureaucrats within state capitalism. The proletarians enlist their grasp of dialectics in the fight against their oppressors, while the bureaucrats defend themselves using a combination of co-optation and violence.