Abstract
The state of the art historiography of youth cultures in post-war Europe centres on ‘Americanization’ as a process of selective reception of American cultural products, including Hollywood cinema, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, this paradigm obscures the transnational appeal of French, Italian and Soviet cinema. By contrast, France and the USSR are presented in this article as significant points of reference, at least for young Greek Communists in the period from 1974 to 1981. The article also stresses the importance of Greek politically engaged films in the making of young Communists in the same period. In brief, this article argues that the relationship between the circulation and reception of films and the making of Communist youth identities in Greece in the initial post-dictatorship period (1974–1981) was connected with two intertwined processes: the construction and the challenging of a collective antifascist memory that revolved around left-wing partisan activity in Greece in the early 1940s, a memory that was also captured in the flourishing in the 1970s’ production of Greek politically engaged films, and the employment and subversion of the classification of Greek and non-Greek cinematic genres into ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ types in the cultural politics of the Greek Communist youth organizations.
Introduction
As the generally left-wing inclined magazine Anti maintained in 1975, a number of recent films such as Theodoros Angelopoulos’ Thiassos (The Travelling Players; 1975) constituted part of an ‘initiative to rewrite history because the official version of history satisfies nobody any longer since it is simply a case of distortion of the truth’. 1 This statement captures some of the concerns raised by left-wing voices in Greece after the collapse of the 1967–1974 dictatorship. Cinema would constitute a major battleground where competing models of social and political transformation fought it out in the context of the transition to democracy and of the late Cold-War era. As this article demonstrates, left-wing youth organizations played a major role in the relevant debates.
The historiography of youth cultures in post-war Europe usually centres on Hollywood cinema in the late 1950s and early 1960s and usually rests upon a nuanced version of the ‘Americanization’ paradigm. The latter paradigm deals with patterns, objects and symbols which emanated from the USA and which are presented as having deeply transformed attitudes in other parts of the globe. It correctly stresses that since the interwar period the United States has exported technologies that help increase productivity, such as Taylorism, as well as spread consumption, such as full-service advertising agencies. These patterns and objects mainly appeared in Western Europe in the post-World War II years. The same period witnessed the widespread popularity of American popular cultural products in Europe, such as jazz, rock ‘n’ roll music, ‘western’ movies and pulp fiction. A nuanced strand of the paradigm of ‘Americanization’ demonstrates the selective reception of American cultural products in post-World War II Europe, most notably Hollywood movies and rock music. It argues that this appropriation featured prominently in the making of youth cultures. As a number of historians and social scientists, such as Heide Fehrenbach, Karin Schmidlechner, Jean-François Sirinelli and Jackie Stacey have maintained, these movies allowed young people to place some distance between themselves and their parents. 2 Particularly in the case of West Germany and Austria, this process was also connected with an implicit critique of the potential links of adults with the National Socialist regime.
However, less is known about the impact of other cinema genres, such as the French Nouvelle Vague and Soviet socialist realism on young people in post-World War II Western Europe. I claim that primarily Greek cinema, but also its French, Italian and Soviet counterparts featured prominently in the making of Communist youth identities in post-dictatorship Greece. This article does not, however, argue that Greece constitutes a historical exception. Young filmmakers in West Germany in the 1960s were avid watchers of Soviet films and Nouvelle Vague. 3 Thus, my aim is to raise historical interest in cinematic genres that have remained neglected in relation to the forging of youth identities. In this vein, while I acknowledge that American cultural patterns played an important role in the identity making of diverse social groups in post-World War II Europe, especially the youth, I wish to argue that the paradigm of ‘Americanization’ as a selective reception of American cultural products, may prove to be insufficient and, thus, may require to be complemented by a more inclusive term. Glocalization, as has been employed by the sociologist Robert Robertson, could be an obvious alternative. Robertson refers to interactions on a global scale and in a broad variety of different directions. He also argues that ‘homogenizing and heterogenizing tendencies are mutually implicative’. 4 In this vein, the transnational appeal of certain cinematic genres may be explored in relation to varying ‘local’ interpretations.
A case-study in Greece is historically interesting, mainly due to the country’s political condition. A bloody Civil War resumed in the 1940s and ended in 1949 with the crushing defeat of the Left. Subsequently, anticommunism became the official ideology of the Greek state. Conservative parties governed the country until 1967, apart from two short intervals of centrist administration in 1950–52 and 1963–65. Although some of the rules of parliamentary democracy, such as the holding of elections, were followed, the royal court and the army played a major role in decision-making. In addition, a set of decrees, introduced during the Civil War, oversaw the persecution of left-wingers until 1974. The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) was outlawed in 1947 and its members participated in an umbrella group, the United Democratic Left (Eniaia Dimokratiki Aristera, EDA), which existed from 1951 to 1967. As described by many political scientists, the regime was a ‘weak’ democracy, which was followed by the imposition of a militaristic regime from 1967 to 1974, during which the status of left-wingers deteriorated. 5 After the collapse of the dictatorship, anticommunism was delegitimized and no longer functioned as the official ideology.
In particular, this article, while encompassing the entire politicized youth in Greece in the period from 1974 to 1981 in its analysis, focuses on the members of three Communist youth organizations which were very popular in the examined period: the pro-Soviet Communist Youth of Greece (KNE), the Eurocommunist 6 Rigas Feraios (RF), and Choros, a loose network that emerged after a series of splits in left-wing youth groups in the late 1970s. Although the latter did not attract only young Communists, the majority of its participants 7 belonged to a RF splinter group called the Greek Communist Youth RF Second Panhellenic (EKON RF B Panelladiki). As is shown below in detail, these were not the only Communist youth groups in Greece during the period in question; however, they were by far the strongest.
The principal concern of this article is to explore the stance of young Communists towards a broad range of cinematic genres. Although it does not follow a particular theoretical framework, it resonates with the recent shift in film history to the audience. As Potamianos argues, ‘film scholars have viewed spectator responses to motion pictures as the products of tendencies intrinsic to the film texts themselves. They have sutured, interpellated, and subject-positioned audiences, but only recently have they allowed these spectators to speak for themselves’. 8 Since the 1980s, under the influence of Saussurean semiotics and Lacanian psychoanalysis, approaches towards the filmic text began to be reconsidered. A very important factor contributing to this trend was the rise of British cultural studies, the publication of Stuart Hall’s essay on ‘Encoding/Decoding’ in 1980 being particularly significant. 9 In addition, in the same decade, several feminist scholars began embracing an ‘active’ spectatorship approach. 10 Since then, numerous publications examining the varying receptions of TV shows and cinema movies by spectators of different class, gender, race and age have appeared. 11
In order to capture the make-up of these viewers, this article utilizes various historical sources. It closely examines the language of cinema reviews in Communist youth publications. It also considers the impact of certain magazines that were very popular among young Communists in this period but which were not the official mouthpiece of any organization. Finally, through semi-guided interviews, it explores the varying reception of both films and their reviews by young Communists of different social origins, gender and rank. The article resonates with post-positivist oral historians, such as Alessandro Portelli and Luisa Passerini, who have investigated the relationship between the interviewer and the interviewee as well as the way in which the various levels of memory of the interviewee appear in the content and form of his/her narrative. 12
‘Old’ and ‘New Greek Cinema’: Uneasy Relations in Post-war Greece
During the 1960s, Greece began experiencing the dissemination of mass consumption patterns. Middle-class people in the urban centres functioned as the prime proponent of change within society, displaying a ‘diminishing toleration of material deprivation’; according to Vassilis Karapostolis, they strove to purchase goods, such as cars and fridges. 13 This trend gradually spread to the lower strata in the urban centres as well as to the rural areas – in the latter mainly from the mid-1970s and especially the 1980s. In addition, the period from the 1950s to the early 1970s may certainly be described as the ‘golden age’ of Greek popular cinema. The latter tracked and shaped the dissemination of mass consumption patterns. A broad array of movies, ranging from comedies to melodramas, contributed to the construction of a fantasy of material abundance, while usually abstaining from any overt political comment. 14 Meanwhile, television made its first appearance in Greece. Its arrival was belated in relation to other Western European countries: a single state channel started operating in 1966, with a very limited initial audience. In 1968, its transmission was confined to Athens and its suburbs and its viewers were estimated to number approximately 60,000. 15 Nevertheless, the electrification of rural areas, which was actively supported by the dictatorship, resulted in a rapid increase in the size of TV audiences. In 1976–77, according to Karapostolis, 12.5 per cent of urban residents owned a TV set, compared to 20.8 per cent in Italy and 11.8 per cent in Portugal in the same period. 16 The spread of television came at the expense of Greek non-political cinema, which did not bounce back until the 1980s. Greek popular cinema reached its heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s; in 1970 Lieutenant Colonel Natasha (1970) sold a record 751,117 tickets. 17 However, over the course of the 1970s a significant segment of the Greek cinema audience abandoned the cinemas for television. As a result, Greek film production companies such as Finos Films faced plummeting revenues, with the result that many of them closed. 18
Nevertheless, there was an exception to this pattern of decline. The 1960s witnessed the emergence of a politically engaged cinematic genre, known as ‘New Greek Cinema’ (Neos Ellinikos Kinimatografos, ‘NEK’). In stark contrast to the dwindling popularity of Greek popular cinema in this period, ‘NEK’ outlived the 1960s. Its title was meant to distinguish it from the former ‘Old Greek Cinema’ (Paleos Ellinikos Kinimatografos, ‘PEK’), which was accused of lacking any direct political references. The advocates of the ‘New Greek Cinema’ lambasted the latter’s ‘simplistic’ plots, preferring less sensational narratives and experimental forms, including photomontage. Lizianna Delveroudi has shown that many ‘New Greek Cinema’ filmmakers, such as the directors Dimos Theos and Fotos Labrinos, were actively involved in politics, especially in the left-wing United Democratic Left. 19
The 1960s also saw the establishment of the ‘Greek Cinema Week’, which was renamed in 1966 the ‘Greek Film Festival’. The latter takes place annually in Thessaloniki. The festival was under the auspices of the ministry of industry, as cinema was regarded in financial terms as a motor of economic development. However, the content of much of Greek film production was starkly at odds with the ideological orientation of the state; this gave rise to a great deal of friction, especially in the 1970s, between the state and left-wing film directors.
The Early 1970s: Rebels with Many Causes
The early 1970s in Greece can certainly be described as an era of fluidity. Although there was a significant element of politicized left-leaning youth in the country, only a tiny minority was affiliated to clandestine parties. The main concern of the left-leaning youth, consisting mainly of university students, was opposition to the dictatorship, which was established in 1967. Radical student opposition to the regime culminated in 1973, particularly in the Law School and the Polytechnic Occupations (the latter also called the ‘Polytechnic Uprising’) in Athens. As Kostis Kornetis describes, some cultural practices, among which cinema featured prominently, contributed to the identification of left-leaning students. 20 They frequented a number of cinemas in Athens and Thessaloniki which screened movies connected to the so-called ‘New Greek Cinema’, Italian neo-realism or French Nouvelle Vague. The cine club of the Alkyonida cinema in Athens was one of the most prominent meeting venues for left-leaning students. Concomitantly, what emerged in the early 1970s was a radical youth audience that attended the film festival in Thessaloniki every year, where ‘New Greek Cinema’ films were usually premiered. This trend was facilitated by the dictatorship’s shift towards a so-called ‘controlled liberalization’, which lasted from 1971 to 1973 and entailed the lifting of martial law in most parts of the country and the easing of censorship. The young spectators usually gathered in the Upper Circle of the Society of Macedonian Studies, where the festival took place, engaging in active dialogue with the movies and commenting loudly on their content. This behaviour reinforced a strictly message-centred approach to cinema: left-leaning students assessed the films they watched according to what they considered to be their ‘political message’. 21 It should be noted, however, that their freedom to express themselves was limited: a widespread system of pro-regime agents existed, which reported systematically on the activities of dissidents.
The most important development in the early 1970s was the increasing production of politically engaged Greek movies. Despite the fact that Greece was under the grip of a military dictatorship, these films usually made their debut in the state-sponsored film festival. The softening of censorship from 1970 and the rise of youth radicalism facilitated this trend, and politically charged Greek cinema made its first efforts to construct a counter-narrative to the dominant anticommunist version of Greek history. One of the earliest examples was Theodoros Angelopoulos’ film Meres tou ‘36 (Days of 36), first screened in 1972. This movie was the first of Angelopoulos’ so-called history trilogy, which would continue with the films Thiassos (The Travelling Players, 1975) and Kynigoi (Hunters, 1977), which were screened after the collapse of the dictatorship. The trilogy was meant to describe the period extending from the 1930s to the 1970s with its first part referring to the dictatorial regime of Ioannis Metaxas, which was established in 1936.
While being avid viewers of ‘New Greek Cinema’ movies, young left-leaning students also responded enthusiastically to non-Greek movies portraying American counterculture as well as student activism. As L.M., a male high-school pupil in this period, narrated: ‘We watched Woodstock and The Strawberry Statement. In my mind there was an image of youth as a force that would change the world.’ 22 Kornetis notes that cinema served to ‘transmit experiences’ that Greek students lacked. 23 Various young people, ranging from left-leaning students to non-politicized rockers, were inspired by these movies to express their opposition to the regime. It was no coincidence that screenings were frequently followed by spontaneous demonstrations against the dictatorship and the films concerned ended up being banned shortly after release. 24
The Mid-1970s (1974–77): Partisans against Emmanuelle?
The results of university student elections in Greece, 1974–1981, expressed in percentages 25
The collapse of the dictatorship also triggered an explosion of antifascist memory, which, as Antonis Liakos argues, revolved around the resistance of left-wing partisan forces during the Tripartite Occupation of Greece by Germany, Italy and Bulgaria in the period from 1941 to 1944. 26 This memory linked partisan activity in the early 1940s with left-wing mobilization in the 1960s and 1970s. In this narrative, the Greek ‘people’ were represented as ‘suffering’ from the exploitation of ‘fascist’ and ‘imperialist’ powers, but, simultaneously, as ‘constantly struggling for national independence’. Historical books, novels and songs grounded on this narrative became immensely popular. Virtually no restriction was imposed on their circulation: although the government from 1974 to 1981 was formed by ideological foes of the Left, namely by the conservative New Democracy party, the post-dictatorial state had largely abandoned the project of imposing ideological conformity on all Greek institutions.
In this environment, the politically engaged movies of the so-called ‘New Greek Cinema’ reached their apogee, both in terms of production and consumption. ‘New Greek Cinema’ films topped the list of box office hits – alongside non-Greek pornographic movies, which shall be examined below. The directors of ‘New Greek Cinema’ were broadly left-wing but did not necessarily belong to a particular party. A notable case of Greek politically charged films are the second and the third part of the Trilogy of History by Theo Angelopoulos, Thiassos (1975) and Kynigoi (1977) respectively. The former revolved around the operation of an actors’ colony in Greece from 1939 to 1952. The movie combined two levels of narration: the personal stories of the members of this group as well as the broader historical context, especially of the Occupation and the Civil War. Thiassos received an enthusiastic response and sold 189,620 tickets in 1975–76 in Athens and Piraeus. 27 Kynigoi was also quite popular, selling 104,290 tickets from its release in late 1977 to 2 April 1978 in Athens and Piraeus. 28 The film dealt with the discovery of the corpse of a dead 1940s partisan by ‘bourgeois’ hunters a couple of decades later and their efforts to hide the body. The film’s symbolism was glaring as the hunters suffered from nightmares in their attempt to repress the memory of popular struggle. In the mid-1970s, the screening of the somewhat older film Z (1969) by Costa Gavras attracted an audience of hundreds of thousands – in fact, it sold 454,855 tickets by December 1975 in Athens and Piraeus. It told the story of the assassination of left-wing MP Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963 and the subsequent road to the dictatorship. Another film which referred to contemporary Greek history was Happy Day (1976) by Pantelis Voulgaris. This film sold 61,503 tickets in 1976–77 in Athens and Piraeus, according to Theamata. 29 Happy Day made an implicit reference to the detention centre on Makronisos Island, which was constructed during the Civil War by the state, in order to help suppress the activity of left-wing partisan forces.
This antifascist memory featured prominently in the discourse of Communist youth groups as well. These organizations constructed particular modes of reception of cinematic genres. The official texts of both RF and the KNE taxonomized cultural products in general, and cinematic genres in particular, into ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’ types. The pro-USSR KNE was more precise in defining the meaning of these terms; for it, the former was conceived of as promoting a positive militant role-model, premised upon the optimism in the ‘ultimate victory’ of ‘popular struggle’ against ‘fascist’ or ‘imperialist oppression’. The newspapers published by Communist organizations – Rizospastis (KKE), Odigitis (KNE), Avgi (KKE Esoterikou) and Thourios (RF) – included weekly film review columns. Dimitris Danikas, the film reviewer of Rizospastis, and Antonis Moshovakis, Michalis Dimopoulos and Tellis Samantas, whose reviews appeared in Avgi, were the most influential among members of the KNE and RF, respectively.
The collective memory of the period extending from the 1930s to the 1970s in Greece would provide most of the symbols that defined ‘progressive’ art. Danikas’ review of Kynigoi is indicative. He approached the encounter of the ‘bourgeois hunter’ with the uncorrupted corpse of the dead partisan of the 1940s as a symbol for a potential popular uprising that could threaten the status quo. As he put it, ‘Angelopoulos, more than ever before, leaves no space for doubt. It is high time that Greek cinema pointed out some truths, arming the proletariat with the effectiveness of the image.’ 30 Similarly, Moshovakis maintained that Happy Day underlined the ‘medieval barbarism of the reactionary Right, which violently suppresses the popular struggles for progress’. 31 Greek movies, however, were not the only ones that were deemed to be ‘progressive’ in these publications. In a move that vindicates Robertson’s ‘glocalization’ assumption, a broad range of non-Greek films was regarded as pertinent to the consolidation of activism for ‘democratization’ and ‘national liberation’. In the post-dictatorship years, films by Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein and Andrzej Wajda were screened frequently, attracting mainly young Communists and Socialists. The films shown were sometimes contemporary, but they were mainly retrospectives of earlier cinematic productions. Among them were many Soviet movies produced in the early part of the twentieth century, such as Battleship Potemkin (1925) by Eisenstein and The End of Saint Petersburg (1927) by Pudovkin, as well as films connected with the French Nouvelle Vague and Italian neo-realism produced in the so-called ‘golden era of European cinema’ (from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s).
There is no data concerning the exact number and the profile of the audience who attended such retrospectives. However, these screenings were often advertised in left-wing newspapers and youth-oriented magazines, such as Odigitis, Thourios and Anti. In the case of the KNE in particular, Soviet movies were assigned a very important position, due to the representation of the USSR and Eastern European countries as the ‘embodiment of socialism’. Soviet cinema, which fell under the category of socialist realism, was described in Odigitis as having achieved ‘perfection’ in form and content, meaning that it ‘transmitted clear ideological messages’ and ‘inspired spectators to become heroes!’. 32 The fact that the KNE co-organized a tribute to Soviet cinema in 1976 is instructive. The pro-USSR Communists counterposed the ‘socialist’ world to the ‘capitalist’. Still, American and Western European movies were also endorsed by the KNE on the condition that they revealed the ‘catastrophic’ impact of capitalism on human relations. A review of Visconti’s The Innocent (1976) in Odigitis claimed that the director portrayed the ‘bourgeois class’ as ‘moribund’. 33 In addition, Charlie Chaplin was depicted as representing the ‘Other America’, which had not been brainwashed by capitalism. He was regarded as a ‘champion for peace’, who was persecuted in the USA and had to migrate to Europe. 34
With unprecedented zeal, young left-wingers rushed to watch the endorsed movies, usually in groups of comrades. Watching and discussing ‘progressive’ cinema was one of the means that allowed them to identify with the ‘antifascist, anti-imperialist struggle’ of the Greek as well as of other ‘peoples’. Likewise in the last years of the dictatorship, many Communist and Socialist students attended the annual state-run film festival of Thessaloniki. They gathered in the Upper Circle of the Society of Macedonian Studies to openly express their opinions on the movies, depending upon their political ‘messages’. In this sense, they constitute yet another example vindicating the argument put forth by Janet Staiger, namely that the ‘talk back at the screen’ practice has outlived the silent films. 35 Their comments were often spontaneous: as M.S., a male student in the mid-1970s and member of the Maoist AASPE narrates: ‘We were watching an actor posing the same question to himself many times: “What should I do?” Then, out of the blue, a person shouted: “You should become a member of the KNE!” And he was very serious about that’. 36 Other venues frequented by the Communist and Socialist students were the ‘art house cinemas’, notably Studio and Alkyonis in Athens and Aiantas in Thessaloniki, where screenings were often preceded by an analysis delivered by a cinema specialist. However, the demarcation that appeared in the mid-1970s in other leisure venues frequented by young left-wingers, such as the tavernas, was also manifest in cinemas: young left-wingers divided into peer groups affiliated with or leaning towards different organizations. At stake was no longer the overthrow of the dictatorship, but the vindication of the ‘official script’ of each political group.
After screenings, young left-wingers were again involved in extensive discussions – and quarrels – about the ‘message’ of the movie. As O.Y., a member of the Eurocommunist RF in the mid-1970s, narrated: ‘[We went to the] cinema very often. Then, we discussed [the film] in the tavernas, drinking red wine. I remember this situation with affection and nostalgia. I miss it … We cannot reach the high level of that period’. 37
On the other hand, some interviewees, especially – but not only – those who did not make it to university and were young workers in the 1970s, claimed that they tried hard, but found it difficult to understand the meaning of ‘New Greek Cinema’ movies.
38
Similarly, D.M., a male KNE member in the 1970s from the lower-middle and working-class district of Neos Kosmos, stated: We went to a movie, which Danikas claimed was of high artistic value. It showed some steppes: you couldn’t understand anything, unless you had read the ideological analysis. While my [unaffiliated] friends [from my district] laughed, I tried hard to be ready to analyse the movie, to distil the message. I got angry with them: I asked them to leave [because] they could not understand socialist art! [The narrator laughs here].
39
In addition to the modes of consumption, the Communist and the Socialist youth groups sought to disseminate politically engaged movies. The young left-wingers were involved in the construction of a ‘parallel network’ of film circulation, mainly through cultural societies and cine clubs that were established in university departments as well as in working- and lower middle-class districts. Young Conservatives were totally outgunned in this domain, failing either to intervene in the existing societies or to establish alternative ones.
The left-wing non-commercial network was not a novelty of the post-dictatorship years: such societies had been established by young left-wingers in the 1960s. Many of them had been shut down during the dictatorship, but its collapse would result in the rejuvenation of this ‘parallel network’. From the mid-1970s onwards, the operation of the cultural societies was sucked into the forcefield of party political competition over the question of how to create a coordinating central body. The pro-Soviet KNE and KKE strove for the creation of an institution called the Panhellenic Cultural Movement (Panellinia Politistiki Kinisi, PAPOK). This organization was envisaged as one that would rigidly define which cultural products, including films, were ‘progressive’, as well as promote them in co-operation with local government and cultural societies. The PAPOK was founded in late 1976. 40 By contrast, RF insisted on the direction of the ‘autonomy’ of cultural societies, including cine clubs: while not rejecting their co-ordination per se, it decried the existence of a permanent body that would regulate their activity. These differences regarding the ‘progressive cultural movement’ persisted throughout the 1970s.
However, the making of the ‘progressive’ model involved the definition of its ‘Other’, which, in this area too, was the ‘American Way of Life’. Concerning cinematic production, four genres were glossed as ‘American’ in the official language of both the KNE and RF, although such films were not necessarily produced in the USA: pornography, horror movies – especially the very popular Hollywood film Jaws (1975), which sold 326,996 tickets in 1975–76 in Athens and Piraeus, 41 martial arts films 42 and crime movies. Pornographic films were immensely popular in the initial post-dictatorship period, and it suffices to note that Emmanuelle (1974) sold 337,485 tickets in Athens and Piraeus in 1974–75, its popularity second only to Z. 43 These so-called ‘American’ movies were attacked both in Thourios and in Odigitis. Articles in the former suggested that pornographic films served the ‘dark aims’ of the ruling class and had to be ‘confronted’. 44 Odigitis blamed ‘porn’ 45 films for disseminating ‘sexual corruption’, aimed at ‘distracting the attention of the youth from its crucial problems’. By contrast, the newspaper promoted the stable heterosexual couple as the framework of ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ sexual relationships, which would make this ‘insidious weapon’ of the bourgeois class ‘vanish’. 46
At this point, a crucial question emerges: apart from the so-called ‘progressive’ movies, did young Communists actually watch pornographic, crime, martial arts and horror movies, despite the official language of their groups? The material I have collected mainly illuminates their reception of crime movies. In general, many young men had watched such movies as teenagers in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Some interviewees, affiliated either to the KNE or RF in the mid-1970s, were scornful of such movies, which they described as ‘trash’ or ‘low-level’. O.Y., a male RF member in the mid-1970s, remembered that ‘we sometimes watched such movies, but we never took them seriously into account’. 47 Angelopoulos and James Bond were hardly natural bedfellows in the eyes of young Communists, though not without exception. It is remarkable that some male KNE members and cadres, regardless of class origin, showed a greater openness in contrast to those of RF. Put simply, T.L., A.H. and H.Z., all KNE cadres in the mid-1970s, argued that they reserved a couple of hours for themselves every day, during which they abstained from any activity associated with their organization. This arrangement did not challenge the ‘discipline’ endorsed in the official texts, but, rather, supplemented and reinforced it. According to their narratives, it allowed them to concentrate on their tasks for the rest of the day. 48 It is actually a rare case of leisure time experienced as time apart, albeit not totally disconnected from political activity: working hard for the KNE required some time off.
The same period witnessed another trend within the Left, connected with an articulate critique of the effort to distil ‘antifascist, anti-imperialist’ messages from cinema movies. In particular, a segment of RF members was influenced by a heterodox approach, which revolved around the magazine Synchronos Kinimatografos (Contemporary Cinema) and was expressed by reviewers such as Christos Vakalopoulos 49 and Theodoros Soumas who were also RF members. The magazine presented extensive analyses of the cinematic production of numerous Western European and Soviet film directors, such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Luc Godard and Sergei Eisenstein. 50 While some RF members were already familiar with their work, the articles in Synchronos Kinimatografos served as an impetus for them to rush to art cinemas and to watch even more of their movies. 51
Synchronos Kinimatografos was the successor of the magazine titled Ellinikos Kinimatografos (Greek Cinema), which published five issues prior to the establishment of the dictatorship. The former first appeared in the early 1970s. In the mid-1970s, the magazine was modelled on the French Cahiers du Cinema; its major contributors similarly opted for a language, which would combine semiotics and structural Marxism, as developed by Louis Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas. They were influenced by the Althusserian notion of the cultural product as being neither inherently ‘progressive’ nor ‘reactionary’, but as something ‘ambiguous’, playing different roles in different contexts. Psychoanalysis, especially the version endorsed by Jacques Lacan, was a necessary accompaniment. Resting on this conceptual framework, important contributors to the magazine challenged the classical liberal vision of the individual as an autonomous entity.
A major concern in the discourse produced in Synchronos Kinimatografos was the castigation of the message-centred approach to film prevalent in the discourse of all left-wing youth organizations in the mid-1970s. Its contributions, premised on the abovementioned theoretical assumptions, maintained that the dominant reception mode of ‘New Greek Cinema’ in the mid-1970s was grounded on an approach classifying film roles in a Manichean fashion, consisting of the ‘heroes’ of class struggle and their virulent ‘enemies’.
The magazine was one of the first to voice criticism of the form of the collective memory of Greek history since the 1930s in Greek political cinema. One exception was Thiassos, which received a very positive review from Vakalopoulos. Abstaining from a linear narrative, the film, according to the reviewer, ‘teemed with discontinuities’. 52 On the contrary, Kynigoi received a cooler response, again for precisely the same reasons that Danikas appreciated it: for the film reviewers of Synchronos Kinimatografos it endorsed too linear a narrative which resembled the ‘official Communist Party’ line on memory. 53 The ‘voice’ of the magazine was evident in Thourios by the mid-1970s. It actually complemented the aforementioned message-centred narrative, without being regarded as deviating from the official line. Synchronos Kinimatografos’ approach would be central to the debates around ‘culture’ among Communist youth organizations, especially from 1977 onwards.
The Late 1970s (1977–80): An Iconoclastic Era
It is very difficult to construct a defensible chronology which reflects similar trends in all the examined groups, since continuities and ruptures were neither identical nor did they occur at the same pace among young Communists of different affiliations, class, gender and rank. Therefore, this essay does not adopt a strict division into the mid- and late 1970s. On the contrary, it puts forth a multiple periodization: according to the latter, the period from 1974 to 1981 could be treated as relatively uniform regarding the modes of reception of cinema movies in the case of the pro-Soviet KNE. The cinema reviews, for example, that appeared in Odigitis and Rizospastis bore a striking resemblance to those of previous years. A notable case is the film review of O anthropos me to garyfallo (The Man with the Carnation), produced in 1980, which presented the biography of the prominent KKE cadre Nikos Belogiannis, focusing on his trial and execution in the post-Civil War era. The movie was very popular, topping the box office in Athens, Piraeus and their lower-middle and working-class districts from autumn 1980 to spring 1981; it actually sold 616,242 tickets in these areas by 3 May 1981. As they had placed Belogiannis in the pantheon of ‘Communist heroes’, the KKE and KNE assigned great importance to the way his biography was presented. Danikas was enthusiastic about the film, which appeared to fulfil the criteria put forward by the pro-Soviet organizations on what made a film ‘progressive’: it demonstrated, according to the reviewer, a positive role-model of a militant with origins in the lower social strata. As Danikas argued, ‘the movie will reveal that the committed militants are … common people, who have grown up in popular families’. 54
However, the late 1970s constituted a period of reconfiguration of youth politics in Greece, a process that affected a broad segment of the Communist youth beyond the KNE. This modification can be attributed to a confluence of two factors: first, the growing distance between the Eurocommunists and the pro-Soviet Communists in Greece, which partially reflected the establishment of closer ties among those Communist parties in Western Europe which were critical of the USSR. On 2–3 March, 1977, George Marchais of the French Communist Party, Santiago Carillo of the Communist Party of Spain and Enrico Berlinguer of the Italian Communist Party met in Madrid and signed a common declaration of their principles. They laid out the fundamental lines of their strand of Communism, based on political pluralism and autonomy from the USSR. In addition to endorsing a ‘creative’ approach to theory, RF members concomitantly became even more open to currents of thought beyond Marxism-Leninism, predominantly structuralism. These were being transferred from the early 1970s onwards, principally by educated, middle-class scholars and/or activists, many of whom had studied in Western Europe, especially Paris.
Secondly, from 1978 onwards, youth politics became very turbulent, which again was linked to an extent with developments at the international level: the disillusionment with post-Mao China that led to the decline of Maoist groups in Greece. Coupled with a big split in RF, this resulted in the gradual emergence of a network of autonomous left-wing groups and magazines: named Choros, it encompassed organized groups, mainly EKON RF-B Panelladiki, which split from RF in 1978. These organizations were neither affiliated to nor leaning towards any party. Former members of the Maoist groups, the KNE and the Youth of PASOK also joined. This amalgam never acquired common organizational structures, though; it was active mainly in the form of autonomous student groups, lacking any significant appeal in lower-middle and working-class districts. The common denominator of the people who participated in Choros was the concept of amfisvitisi (challenging), which extended mainly to two domains: the rejection of top-bottom hierarchical structures – which were blamed for fostering ‘bureaucratic’ relations – as well as of the intensification of university studies. Drawing on the conceptual framework introduced by Louis Althusser and Nicos Poulantzas, the Choros participants argued that these processes would lead to the ensomatosi (integration) of the youth into the capitalist system. For the same reason, again following structuralist Marxism, they criticized the regulation of sexual behaviour through guidelines, which they also labelled a means of ‘integration’. The appearance of Choros marked the emergence of a new cleavage in the Greek political scene. Young autonomous left-wingers did not describe themselves as yet another ‘progressive’ force. They did not pay even lip service to achieving unity with the main left-wing parties, which they lambasted as ‘bureaucratic’. For instance, they were loudly critical of the EFEE (Ethniki Foititiki Enosi Ellados [National Student Union of Greece]), which had been controlled by Communist and Socialist student groups since the end of the dictatorship. Choros participants claimed that the body functioned as a ‘student parliament’, serving the narrow interests of the party-affiliated youth groups involved.
In general, the practice of collective viewing and discussion of cinema movies perpetuated in the late 1970s and ran across the various Communist youth organizations. What emerged was an intensive reflection on the cinema review as a genre, both within RF and Choros as well as in cinema magazines. The role of cinema criticism in identifying and transmitting ‘progressive’ messages deemed suitable for breeding committed Communist militants came under challenge. The unmaking of taxonomies in the case of cinema constituted a joint project between political organizations and film reviewers. Synchronos Kinimatografos was engaged in a mutual relationship with RF and B Panelladiki which was predicated on the Althusserian notion of the ‘ambiguity’ of ideological products. On the one hand, RF members began in 1977 to jettison the categorization of cultural products as ‘progressive’ and ‘reactionary’. As was argued in a Thourios article, ‘the cultural product is a product of ideology. It is basically ambiguous and a battleground of diverse elements, serving a different role in different contexts’. 55 Both political groups and the magazine problematized the gaze of the cinema reviewer and no longer took for granted his/her role in distilling ‘progressive messages’. In the case of Synchronos Kinimatografos, this approach ended up acquiring the form of a critical reflection on theory in general. As Vakalopoulos claimed in reply to a letter published in Synchronos Kinimatografos in 1979, the use of theory may function as a factor that obscures the film per se, treating it as simply a means to vindicate or refute a theoretical statement. 56
The open subversion of the ‘progressive’/‘reactionary’ taxonomy would dominate film reviews in Thourios from 1977 onwards as well. The reviews, especially those by Soumas, refrained from trying to locate the ‘correct message’, seeking ambiguity instead: first, in the content of the film, which was preferably open-ended, and secondly, in the narrative structures, which ideally jettisoned a linear unfolding of the plot. In this vein, the stark differences between the reviews of Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble in Thourios and Odigitis are indicative. The film has to do with the progress of a female film director in her quest to find Stakhanovite workers. Her journey, depicted by Wajda in the form of a documentary, shows that the regime did not cultivate ideologically engaged subjects, but rather conformists or ‘marble men’. The pro-USSR Communist press claimed that it represented the ruling party as being capable of capturing the ‘weaknesses in the implementation of socialism’ and of offering solutions. 57 In contrast, Soumas emphasized the structure of the movie, describing it as a ‘complex and refined narration’. 58 Another approach that film reviewers in Thourios followed lay in trying to locate aspects of the ‘commercial’ within the ‘political’ film and vice versa. The ambivalent analysis of the film The Cat saw Murder is notable. Soumas claimed that the narrative structures of this film were interesting, as they did not represent a sensational unfolding of action, but demonstrated through black humour the alienation of the protagonists in the contemporary world. 59
The subversion of the ‘progressive’ as opposed to the ‘reactionary’ films’ taxonomy, would affect, especially in the case of Choros, the very collective memory of the period from the 1930s to the 1970s in Greece. Growing sceptical of the role models of collective struggle – real or abstract figures that were active in Greece in the aforementioned period, especially during the wartime resistance – Choros participants became fascinated by socially marginal groups or individuals, such as outcasts or bohemians. To be clear, rather than adopting their lifestyle, the young autonomous left-wingers resorted to these figures as symbols in order to portray themselves as ‘politically marginal’. This status was experienced as both positive and negative by Choros participants. On the one hand, it signified their resistance to the ‘bureaucratic’ Left, often through humorous-provocative activities, as shall be analysed below; on the other hand, it sparked an emotion of isolation and a concomitant melancholy, which runs through many of their texts from the late 1970s and in the stories told now by its former participants. O.Y., a male member of RF in the mid-1970s and of B Panelladiki in the late 1970s, remembers that ‘we were people beaten by the police, persecuted by the KNE … many had the psychology of the defeated’. 60
One cultural pattern that facilitated the identification with the social fringe was a trend that appeared in Greek cinematic production in the late 1970s. Nikos Nikolaidis’ Ta kourelia tragoudane akoma (The Wrecked are Still Singing, 1979) described the feeling of nostalgia of a group of middle-aged Greeks for their youth and the 1950s. Nikos Zervos’ Exoristos stin Kentriki Leoforo (Exiled on Central Avenue, 1979) portrayed a protagonist metaphorically wandering on an avenue, struggling to find the ultimate truth in his profession, politics and sexual emancipation, but always without success. 61 These films, which were very well received by Choros participants, certainly did not address high politics and their tone was particularly pessimistic. One interviewee actually modelled part of her testimony on Ta kourelia: I.A., a female university student in the late 1970s, PASOK youth member until 1980 and subsequently a Choros participant, narrates: ‘We glorified the marginal: Ta kourelia expresses this element. Ta kourelia is the challenging [amfisvitisi] of everything, an emotion of decadence, a melancholy, which existed in our lives.’ 62
The humorous-provocative approach of the young autonomous left-wingers towards ‘culture’ emerged in full force during the university occupations of December 1979. At the beginning of that month, Choros and the Maoists geared their efforts towards supporting resolutions, many of which were passed at the student assemblies, calling for ‘immediate occupations’ of their schools in protest against Law 815/1978. The latter stipulated that if a student failed three or more examinations in the second examination period of every year, s/he had to repeat all the courses of that academic year. If s/he failed in two or more examinations twice, s/he would be expelled from the university. 63 Choros participants argued that this would result in the easier incorporation of the students into the capitalist system: students would dedicate more time to preparing themselves for examinations and would have little time or energy to reflect on the orientation and the flaws of the education system. The spread of occupations paralysed the universities and forced the PSK and PASP, which were initially hostile towards such tactics and held the majority in the EFEE, to reconsider their stance: the union eventually called for the occupation of all university schools on 17–19 December in protest against Law 815. 64 On 4 January 1980 the government was forced to render Law 815 inactive, through an announcement made by the prime minister, Konstantinos Karamanlis, himself.
In the occupied schools, the young autonomous left-wingers screened numerous movies. They actually re-invented the watching of so-called Greek ‘commercial’ movies, such as I kori mou i sosialistria (My Socialist Daughter, 1966), starring the famous actress Aliki Vougiouklaki, alongside propaganda movies that had been produced during the dictatorship, such as Oi gennaioi tou vorra (The Heroes of the North, 1970). Choros participants screened them not to promote discussions of the ‘meaning’ they conveyed but in order to satirize them. Such a practice seems to be similar to what has been described by film scholars as ‘trashing’, namely demonstrating what the audience regards as the faults of the film. 65 However, this humorous-provocative tone sometimes reproduced gender inequalities. Certainly, Choros was a fluid network, which makes it difficult to generalize on the attitudes of its participants. Nevertheless, during a screening of the film Oi gennaioi tou vorra, when the character played by the actress Aimilia Ipsilanti, who was actually a KKE cadre in the late 1970s, was raped by a Bulgarian soldier, some male students linked to Choros shouted that it was ‘time for new rapes’, a slogan directed not only against her, but KNE/KKE members in general. 66
After the end of the occupations, Choros participants tried to expand their activism beyond the universities. They created cultural societies in the lower-middle and working-class districts of Athens, such as the Leschi (Club) of Kallithea. In contrast with the associations controlled by the KNE, these cultural societies were not guided by an administrative council; they constituted loose-knit groupings. The screening of movies in a humorous fashion was part of their activity. However, these societies proved to be short-lived, ceasing to exist in the early 1980s.
The 1980s
The 1980s witnessed a number of transformations, which affected the production, circulation and reception of films in Greece. The 1981 general election was marked by the sweeping victory of the Socialist party PASOK. The new government tapped into many concerns of those who described themselves as left-wing by promising to bring massive social and political transformations, which it labelled Allagi (Change). It aimed at incorporating the ‘parallel (cinema) network’ into the state institutions. While in the period from 1974 to 1981 local cultural societies were neither founded nor subsidized by the state, the Socialist government established many state-funded cultural centres across Greece, in both rural and urban centres. These were called pnevmatika kentra (cultural centres), and they held concerts, film screenings, exhibitions and seminars and organized excursions. 67 Still, all left-wing youth groups continued to organize festivals and evince serious interest in their cultural politics.
However, the left-wing politicization of cinema faced a serious challenge from Greek popular cinema, which bounced back in the early 1980s. Poniro thilyko, katergara gynaika (Evil Female, Woman Trickster, 1980), starring Aliki Vougiouklaki, was a prominent example. Such movies were immensely popular throughout the 1980s.
Another development in the early 1980s was the fact that the Choros network petered out. B Panelladiki ceased to exist in 1982. What increased significantly from 1981 was the influence of anarchist groups. A number of squats, started by anarchists, appeared mainly around in Exarchia Square in Athens. Whether the leisure activities of the anarchists in the domain of cinema can be described as continuity or a rupture with those of the young autonomous left-wingers is an issue that requires further examination.
Conclusions
This article has sought to make a contribution by refining the paradigm of ‘Americanization’, even in the form of the selective reception of American cultural products, in relation to the making of youth identities in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. It resonates with the concept of glocalization as proposed by Robert Robertson; in this vein, it explores the varying modes of reception of cinematic genres, whose appeal transcended national borders, as well as the production, circulation and reception of Greek films. By examining the reciprocal relationship of cinema and left-wing youth politicization in Greece in the period from 1974 to 1981, namely the initial post-dictatorship period, this article demonstrates that, in the 1970s, the politically engaged ‘New Greek Cinema’ enjoyed immense popularity, both prior to and after the collapse of the dictatorship. ‘New Greek Cinema’, alongside a significant segment of literary and musical production in Greece, reproduced an ‘antifascist’ memory. It supplied young Communists and Socialists with images of militants, which served for many of them as role-models for the entire period under examination. In return, the cinematic taste of young Communists and Socialists was grounded on a bipolar model, which juxtaposed ‘progressive’ films, which mainly included ‘New Greek Cinema’, Soviet socialist realism, Italian neo-realism and French Nouvelle Vague, with ‘reactionary’ films, such as ‘porn’, horror and crime films, which were depicted as ‘American’, regardless of their actual origin. This dichotomy was reinforced by the cultural politics of left-wing youth organizations, which became mass-based soon after the collapse of the dictatorship. In fact, young Communists and Socialists shared with left-wing filmmakers the need to help disseminate ‘progressive’ movies and they were involved in the establishment of cine clubs and cultural societies that screened such movies immediately after the collapse of the dictatorship.
However, the late 1970s witnessed a number of changes, both in Greek cinematic production and in the way in which a segment of the Communist youth approached films. A broad range of left-wing intellectuals, who were not necessarily young or aligned with Communist parties and who were usually influenced by structuralism and psychoanalysis, engaged themselves actively in the subversion of the aforementioned classification of cinema films. The thrust of their argument was that the reception of films should not centre on distilling the ‘correct message’ that would inculcate militancy. Their approach was welcomed, first of all by young Greek Eurocommunists. The closer ties among Eurocommunist organizations in Europe, especially after 1977, rendered them more willing to put forward the idea of ‘pluralistic’ cultural politics, which would differ from the message-centred, ‘dogmatic’ ones that they accused the pro-Soviet Communists of espousing. The participants in Choros, a fluid network of left-wing student groups and youth cultural societies, which emerged in this period, also proved quite responsive to this transgression. Both young Eurocommunists and autonomous left-wingers began to seek ‘complexity’ in the form and content of cinema movies rather than a clear narrative. The latter also embarked on the screening of non-political films in order to satirize them. In addition, refraining from seeking positive role-models, they appreciated a number of Greek films in the late 1970s that displayed the life of bohemian figures; the autonomous left-wingers approached representations of ‘anticonformism’, the cinematic ones notwithstanding, as part of their effort to be ‘heretic’ by challenging the behaviour patterns promoted by what they labelled the ‘bureaucratic’ Left.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
This article is based on parts of my PhD dissertation, which was supported by the IKY (Idryma Kratikon Ypotrofion, Greek State Scholarships Foundation). An earlier version of this article was presented to the Modern European History Research Seminar at the University of Cambridge. I would like to thank Professors Adam Tooze, Efi Avdela, Christopher Clark and Victoria de Grazia for willingly discussing parts of this article with me. Of course, I alone am responsible for the errors and analysis herein.