Episode 13 of renowned filmmaker Chris Marker's mythical masterpiece about…
The Owl's Legacy: Democracy, or City of Dreams
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- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
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“Modern and ancient democracy have no genetic relationship” -- Mihalis Sakellariou
An in-depth—but not overly dense—exploration of how Athenian democracy worked, and the key ways it differs from modern states using the word. Ancient Greek democracy emphasized the polisnot as a city-state the way we understand it, but as a collection of individuals. Those able to participate (free men—a small minority of the total population) were passionate about politics and had access to numerous checks and balances. It was a world without parties, written policies, or an independent judiciary—one in which today’s decisions could constantly be revisited and refined tomorrow.
Book-ended by the 1968 pro-democracy protests in Athens against the ruling fascist junta, this episode paints a vivid picture of life in the first democracy. It also chronicles the unraveling of Athenian democracy during the three decades of the Peloponnesian War when, as Cornelius Castoriadis puts it, “The Athenian Demos degenerated. There was an oligarchic revolution... What the Demos lost was the art of making decisions. Even language was being corrupted.”
Athenian and contemporary Western democracies may be vastly different, but, as this episode clearly shows, they certainly do have parallels.
“We should raze the Sorbonne and put Chris Marker in its place.” —Henri Michaux
“The primary pleasure of the series, which is incredibly inspiring, is linked to this great banquet of participants, the sum of knowledge they invoke, but above all to the playful flows the editing establishes between their ideas, constructing a formidable network of meanings, historical and cultural perspectives - a veritable encyclopedia of development." —Le Monde
“Why did we have to wait so long for this electrifyingly intelligent film?” —Le Point
“Thirteen words to uncover an entire civilization and reestablish its considerable influence on our modern societies.” —Les Inrockuptibles
“With erudition, Chris Marker questions in each episode what remains Greek within us.” —Philosophie Magazine
Citation
Main credits
Marker, Chris (film director)
Peck, Bob (narrator)
Other credits
Music, Eleni Karaindrou [and 3 others]; camerapersons, Andreas Sinanos [and 5 others]; editing team, Khadicha Bariha, Nedjma Scialom.
Distributor subjects
Historical Anthropology; Ancient Greece; Chris Marker; France; PhilosophyKeywords
"The Owl's Legacy"; Icarus Films; France; Chris Marker; Ancient Greece; culture; ,doc,art; history; shod
WEBVTT
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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Some images conjure
memories beyond those
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they were made to represent.
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This is a film made in secret
by left-wing Greek militants
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under the Dictatorship
of the Colonels
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at the funeral of George
Papandreou in November 1968.
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The death of a moderate
politician for the first time
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opened the way to a
popular demonstration,
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and the film circulated
throughout Europe
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as a pamphlet, the
first visible signal
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of underground resistance.
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May its blurred images
be a reminder that
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in the year students
in Paris and Berkeley
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were dreaming of revolution,
Chile under Pinochet
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would be a mere four-hour
flight from London.
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Greek democracy, Chris,
was not a democracy.
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About 90% of the people
in Athens were slaves,
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and 10% were supported
by these slaves.
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So that democracy
is partly a legend.
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They did meet, the 10% did
meet and make judgments.
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But they had armies that were
threatened by the Sparta army,
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and they all fought
with each other.
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And it was the same damn thing.
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I\'m not impressed
by Greek democracy.
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But America really
has a democracy.
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Now, you may not like it.
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People don\'t like it
and look down on it.
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But America really
has a democracy.
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It seems to me quite
evidence that if we
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were to ask Aristotle
to categorize what
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is called democracy
in the modern world,
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he would declare that
not a single one of them
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was a democracy.
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They were all oligarchies.
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They\'re all elected.
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After all, democracy is
government by lot, not
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by election.
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Election is oligarchic.
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The city-state, I think,
is not a comfortable form
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of government.
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The democracy of Athens, you
have perhaps 6,000 people.
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And you must address
them and persuade
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them each day of your
particular point of view.
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To be a politician was, I
think, in the classical world,
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to have a neurosis or at
least a very big head.
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You had to have the ability
to maintain a point of view
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when your listeners had
perhaps forgotten it.
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And this, I think, is why the
demagogue was an important part
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of the machinery of government.
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It was extremely
difficult, unless one
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had a loud personality, unless
one had an enormous ego.
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It was extremely difficult
to maintain the energy
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to persuade day in, day
out, week in, week out,
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to persuade people, the
people, of the same truths.
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And naturally, many of the
demagogues failed to do this,
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and changed their minds
on different occasions.
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And the people were continually
rejecting their advice.
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It\'s a world without
policies, without parties,
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and without continuity, in
which the individual must
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decide each day on his future.
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Terrifying world.
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One of the continuities
that you\'ve often
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seen between Athenian
culture and ours
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is democracy and the
political system.
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But what I see as
continuous between the two
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or similar between the
two is political bluff,
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the large amount of hypocrisy,
especially in America,
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that we have to endure
from our politicians, who
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can be counted on never
to tell the truth,
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and the peculiar
interest we have
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in the personal, private,
even sexual lives
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of our politicians.
00:12:02.210 --> 00:12:05.270 align:middle line:84%
All of those things can be
found in ancient Athens too.
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There was an almost
McCarthy-like scrutiny
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procedure called the dokimasia
whereby any candidate elected
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by vote or by law to
public office for each year
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was allowed to be challenged
by anyone in the audience.
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Anyone who knew any dirt on this
person could bring it forward,
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and he would be subject to a
full-scale trial and scrutiny.
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And yet, carefully looking
at the documents of scrutiny,
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the trial cases we have, shows
that such challenges were only
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brought by political enemies.
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They were never brought for
an objectively moral reason.
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It\'s not that you
were dissatisfied
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with an elected politician
because of his morality.
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Rather, you used anything
you could in his private life
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because you already objected
to him on other grounds.
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In truth, they were
quite different names
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from those invoked in
1988 to seduce the people.
00:14:43.380 --> 00:24:10.737 align:middle line:90%
00:24:10.737 --> 00:24:12.320 align:middle line:84%
The demonstrators
of November the 3rd,
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1968, had started by chanting
Papandreou\'s name, then
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eleftheria--
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freedom.
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But the word which finally
exploded on the crowd
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was the one that pervades
our whole episode--
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demokratia.
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If only it could be caught,
the image of democracy people
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create when they\'re
deprived of it,
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and if it could be projected
back to them like a slide
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once they had recaptured it.
00:24:40.380 --> 00:24:42.680 align:middle line:84%
Or can we say of
democracy what someone
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has written of
happiness, that it\'s
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a thing which doesn\'t exist, and
yet which one day is no more?
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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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Distributor: Icarus Films
Length: 26 minutes
Date: 1989
Genre: Expository
Language: French; German; English
Closed Captioning: Available
Interactive Transcript: Available
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