La société du spectacle (1973)

Guy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.

Director:

Guy Debord

Writers:

Guy Debord (book), Guy Debord (screenplay)

Stars:

Leonid Brezhnev, Fidel Castro, Guy Debord

Cast

Credited cast:
Leonid Brezhnev	...	Himself (archive footage)
Fidel Castro	...	Himself (archive footage)
Guy Debord	...	Narrator (voice)
Jacques Duclos	...	Himself (archive footage)
Robert Fabre	...	Himself (archive footage)
Nino Ferrer	...	Himself (archive footage)
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing	...	Himself (archive footage)
Johnny Hallyday	...	Himself (archive footage)
George Harrison	...	Himself (archive footage)
Adolf Hitler	...	Himself (archive footage)
Henry Kissinger	...	Himself (archive footage)
Alexei Kosygin	...	Himself (archive footage)
Zedong Mao	...	Himself (archive footage)
Georges Marchais	...	Himself (archive footage)
Paul McCartney	...	Himself (archive footage)

Storyline

Guy Debord's analysis of a consumer society.

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Plot Keywords:

politics | consumer | communism | market | comfort | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Also Known As:

The Society of the Spectacle

Company Credits

Production Co:

Simar Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Connections

Features The Shanghai Gesture (1941)

User Reviews

The worst movie ever made

I think this was the worst movie I have ever seen, though I had a pretty low opinion of Last Year at Marienbad. It was so bad, I started to laugh. It consists of black and white footage of crowds, bullying soldiers and masses of people, punctuated everyone once in a while by topless women writhing and pawing at their bodies, and one scene of a young male pop singer silently writhing on the ground as if having an epileptic fit. The sound track is in French. I think the script was possibly composed by computer stringing together random abstract nouns. The effect is hypnotic and meaningless, though oddly depressing.

There is only the most tenuous thematic relationship between the narration and the video. I kept thinking the movie was over, and it would pick up again like some nightmare I could not wake from. It was amateurish and incredibly self indulgent and self important. The film could have been easily condensed to 60 seconds to put across its message, that civilisation imposes conformity and an empty pursuit of commodities.