LGM Film Club, Part 513: Europe Endless I: The Spectre of Eurocommunism

I recently watched the fascinating new Christopher Roth documentary, Europe Endless 1: The Specter of Eurocommunism. This is the first part of a planned trilogy that celebrates the greatest values of modern Europe and the idea of Europe. The obvious influence here is Chris Marker, a leftist-oriented film with a wry view of politics and mass movements. The star of our show is Colin McCabe, the British academic philosopher and film expert. He’s been a major player in European intellectual circles since the 70s (even though he ended up teaching at the University of Pittsburgh) and he provides us something of a grand tour of left western Europe in that decade especially. What Eurocommunism means here is the post-Leninist move of the western Communist parties in that decade that turned their back on the Soviet model and toward engaging in mass-movement democratic politics, often in coalition governments. Of course the success of this was pretty mixed. But what about the Soviet model of communism was appealing by then?

So this film goes deep into Gramsci, who is the real hero of the story, Godard, so many others, with appearances from Stuart Hall and every other leading European intellectual of the era, usually in film clips. This kind of film isn’t really for everyone, but I certainly enjoyed it. It’s also nice to watch a documentary that actually has a point of view, rare in the horror show of boring Netflix formulaic “documentaries” of the latest ripped from the headline story.

There’s no clip or preview or anything on YouTube, but it is available on Criterion Channel and I recommend it to you.