Commemorating Karl Marx's 200th Birthday
marxism today (prologue)
Director: Phil Collins, 2010, color and black & white, sound; 35 min; German with English subtitles
Shining a light on what is generally perceived as the losing side in the political and social upheavals of the past 30 years,
marxism today (prologue) is a film realised in collaboration with teachers of Marxism–Leninism from the former German Democratic Republic. After the fall of the Berlin Wall this subject, once a mandatory feature of East German education, was swiftly abolished. From sixty people who responded to his call, Collins selected four women to be the subjects of his film. He talks to them in their homes and former workplaces about the changes in their daily lives and belief systems that occurred post–1989. Intercut with the interviews are personal mementoes and archival footage from the heyday of the socialist state, including propaganda films, TV programmes and choreographed mass spectacles. An intimate and decidedly empathetic tone renders palpable a sense of the past that is both vivid and bygone, as well as the continuing relevance of Marxist ideas in the present day.
Phil Collins, use! value! exchange!, 2010, Courtesy Shady Lane Productions
| © Phil Collins, Courtesy Shady Lane Productions
use! value! exchange!
Director: Phil Collins, 2010, color, sound; 21 min; German with English subtitles
A sister–piece to
marxism today (prologue), use! value! exchange! extends Collins’ interest in embodied histories and lived realities into the present day. The film consists of a lecture by one of the featured teachers to a new generation of students at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin–Karlshorst. Having previously studied and taught at this once prestigious state institute, known then as the Bruno Leuschner Higher School of Economics, Andrea Ferber returns to deliver an introduction to Marx’s
Das Kapital from her former lesson plans. The lecture is interspersed with footage shot by Collins of the relocation of the iconic Marx and Engels statues from a public square near Alexanderplatz in the centre of Berlin to a nearby, less conspicuous site. Combined with Ferber’s astute concise explication, and the students’ lack of familiarity with the fundamental concepts of Marxist economic analysis, this scarcely publicised relocation is symbolic of a historical erasure, but also demonstrative of Marxism’s enduring capacity for insights into the nature of capitalism–in–crisis.
© Phil Collins
Phil Collins (1970, GB) is a filmmaker and artist based in Berlin and Wuppertal. His films, installations, photographs, and live events explore the intersections of art, politics and popular culture. Often working with disregarded or marginalised communities, Collins looks past conventional media portrayals, aiming instead for a more nuanced and empathic vantage point. Since the 1990s he has collaborated with, amongst others, disco-dancing Palestinians; Kosovan Albanian refugees; the youth of Baghdad; teachers of Marxism–Leninism from the former German Democratic Republic; a leading anime studio in Tokyo; anti–fascist skinheads in Malaysia; a homeless centre in Cologne; and inmates at one of the United States' largest prisons. Recent solo projects and presentations of his work include Creative Time, New York (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH, and Manchester International Festival (both 2017); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (both 2016); Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2015); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2013); and British Film Institute, London (2011). marxism today (prologue) was awarded 3sat–Förderpreis at the 57th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 2010. Collins is Professor of Video Art and Performance at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne.
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