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Revision as of 19:14, 27 February 2010 by Wikispan (talk | contribs) (→Reception: 01. This review is a reception of sombody else's book, not this film 02. Nelson's view is described elsewhere on the page)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) For other uses, see The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (disambiguation). Film| The Revolution Will Not Be Televised | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Kim Bartley Donnacha Ó Briain |
| Produced by | David Power |
| Cinematography | Kim Bartley Donnacha Ó Briain |
| Edited by | Ángel Hernández Zoido |
| Running time | 74 min |
| Country |  Ireland |
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a.k.a. Chavez: Inside the Coup) is a controversial 2002 documentary about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
A television crew from Ireland's national broadcaster, RTÉ happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002. Shifting focus, they followed the events as they occurred. During their filming, the crew recorded images of the events that they say contradict explanations given by other sources, the private media, the US State Department, and then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The documentary's premise, in disagreement with other sources, is that the coup was the result of a conspiracy between various old guard and anti-Chávez factions within Venezuela and the United States. The film has received critical acclaim, mixed with charges of that it is manipulated and portrays Chavez in a favorable light.
Synopsis
The portrayal of Hugo Chávez in the documentary has been described as that of a "colourful unpredictable folk hero", beloved by Venezuela's working classes and opposed to "a power structure that would see him deposed". The documentary portrays Chávez's first years as president before the coup and the support the government had among the working class and the poor, referencing educational plans, distribution of the oil revenue and grassroots democracy and participation of people previously excluded from politics as a key to this.
The film then explains the privately owned television channels, business and upper class opposition, who accuse Chávez of being a dictator. The documentary then moves to say the media promoted demonstrations against Chávez and worked together with some military and businessmen opposition to create an anti-Chávez climate leading to the day of the coup.
On 11 April 2002, the opposition finally organized a big demonstration that went to Miraflores presidential palace to demand Chávez's resignation. But a huge crowd of Chavistas was waiting at Miraflores to support the president.
The film alleges to show Chávez's supporters being shot down by snipers, and then some controversial footage of Chavistas shooting back, which the private media channels then used to say the Chávez's supporters shot at the unarmed anti-Chávez crowd, when they say they were actually shooting towards an empty street with armoured vans from where the shots against them were coming.
It then goes on to show an interview with a journalist claiming that he resigned from one of the privately owned TV channels after being forbidden to talk about any pro-Chávez demonstrations taking place at the time.
Filmmakers Kim Bartley and Donacha Ó Briain were inside the presidential palace on 11 April 2002 when Chávez was deposed and two days later when he returned to power, recording "what was probably history's shortest-lived coup d'état."
The pivotal role of the media before and during the coup is covered throughout its 75 minutes, with emphasis on the importance that both Chávez government and the opposition gave to gaining control over channel 8, the only TV Channel owned by the state, shut down the day of the coup and recovered afterwards to communicate the news that the rest of the channels were not communicating, such as the allegatioins that Chávez had not resigned but was actually being held as a prisoner and that what was happening was not a democratical transition but actually a coup d'état.
Reception
Reception of the film was overwhelmingly positive, with a 98% rating based on 48 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes as of February 2010; the consensus view of the film was that it is "as persuasive and engrossing as it is unapologetically biased".
The film has been widely debated among both supporters and critics of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The film has been criticized by those who say that it omits or misrepresents important events—such as a televised announcement of Chávez's resignation by General-in-Chief, Lucas Rincón—resulting in a distorted version of the events as a coup. Chávez refused to sign the resignation letter that military presented him; according to military present, when they refused to suppress the demonstration, he did agree to step down if given safe passage to Cuba.
The film critic Roger Ebert called it a "remarkable documentary" because the filmmakers has access to palace sources and obtained an inside view of the coup, adding that it is "biased in favor of Chavez".
Phil Gunson, writing in the Colombia Journalism Review says the "narrative is, unfortunately, somewhat at odds with the complex, messy reality of April 2002", " a close analysis of the film reveals something worse than political naivete", the film has a "deliberate blurring of responsibility for the coup", and that the film has an "alternative reality" with sequences inserted out of order from archives. Gunson concludes that it is "ironic that a film purporting to set the record straight should itself turn out to he [sic] an exercise in propaganda". Brian A. Nelson, who wrote a book about the coup using primarily interviews with participants, shares Gunson's view and says the film contained "many manipulations" and quotes Gunson, saying it constructs "a false picture of a classic military coup" by "twist the sequence of events to support their case, and replace inconvenient images with others dredged from archives." The filmmakers say Gunson is "guilty of omission and inaccuracy" and that "limited number of recent archive images were used in the documentary to set the scene at the pro-and anti-Chavez gatherings", adding that they do not "claim that film is the definitive or only narrative of what happened during the coup".
Frank Scheck, for The Hollywood Reporter, says:
While the filmmakers were necessarily limited to filming what was in their immediate orbit, their close proximity to the events at hand results in often gripping footage, and the finished product resembles a taut if at times confusing and inadvertently comic political thriller. One might have hoped for a little more in the way of analysis and historical context, but on the other hand, with its mere 74-minute running time, the film earns points for brevity and succinctness.
Writing for The New York Times, Stephen Holden comments:
More than a scary close-up look at the raw mechanics of a power grab, the film is also a cautionary examination of the use of television to deceive and manipulate the public. ... And Mr. Chávez is portrayed uncritically as a heroic reformer and robust man of the people.
Duncan Campbell, writing for The Guardian, says:
The film portrays Mr Chavez in a sympathetic light. ... A Venezuelan TV producer and engineer, Wolfgang Schalk ... claimed it became clear that the producers had "changed the order of the events to fit a story that appeals to audiences."
Nick Fraser, Storyville Series Editor for BBC - UK, on his Commissioner's Comment said:
The result is a brilliant piece of journalism but it is also an astonishing portrait of the balance of forces in Venezuela. On one side stand the Versace wearing classes, rich from many decades of oil revenues, and on the other the poor in their barrios and those within the armed forces who support Chávez. ... The media, who ought to be merely reporting the conflict splitting the country down the middle, are in fact adjuncts of the coup-makers. ... Watch this film and you may truly for the first time in your life understand the term media bias.
J. Hoberman, for The Village Voice says:
In addition to reporting a scoop, Bartley and Ó Briain do an excellent job in deconstructing the Venezuelan TV news footage of blood, chaos, and rival crowds. As befits its title, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is nearly a textbook on media manipulation.
Variety says the film is a "pro-Chavist docu", adding that another film, X-Ray of a Lie, "exposes the manipulation behind The Revolution". Wolfgang Schalk and Thalman Urguelles were commissioned to "produce a response to the propaganda piece by Bartley and O'Briain", according to AC Clark in The Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Farce. Clark says the film accurately uncovers the "mendacity and tendentiousness of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". Urgelles and Schalk say that the images showing the Baralt Avenue without any people and the Venevisión video showing the shooters of Puente Llaguno were filmed at different times. They also argue that the film ignores or misrepresents other important details. According to Human Rights Watch, the Venezuelan government "allegations have never been examined in court", and the X-Ray documentary accuses Bartley and O'Briain of "omissions and distortion".
Groups like Global Exchange arrange tours to Venezuela which include viewing The Revolution, which The New York Times says is "a documentary favorable to Mr. Chávez". According to The National Review the Venezuela Information Office "encouraged art-house theaters to show a propaganda movie on Chavez called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
Another documentary, Puente Llaguno: Claves de una Masacre by Ángel Palacios (desribed as a "staunch supporter" of Chavez), argues that "anti-Chávez opposition alliance manipulated coverage ... to make it look like the government used gunmen to shoot and kill opposition demonstrators".
Soundtrack
Introductory song: La Soga by Ali Primera.
Awards and film festivals
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- Banff Rockie Award, Banff World Television Festival, Best Information & Current Affairs Program.
- Grand Prize, Banf World Television Festival.
- Chicago International Film Festival, Silver Hugo, Best Documentary.
- EBU Golden Link Award.
- Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Seeds of War Award.
- International Documentary Association, IDA Award, Feature Documentaries.
- Leeds International Film Festival, Audience Award.
- Prix Italia, TV Documentary - Current Affairs.
- Seattle International Film Festival, Documentary Award.
- Seattle International Film Festival.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised won twelve awards at film festivals and was nominated for another four. Among those prizes were the Silver Hugo award for the Best Documentary in the Chicago International Film Festival (2003), the Banff Rockie Award as Best Information & Current Affairs Program at the Banff Television Festival (2003) and the International Documentary Association's IDA Award (2003).
Due to opposition pressure, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised was withdrawn from an Amnesty International film festival in Vancouver in November 2003. The decision to withdraw the film was taken because of threats to the physical safety of Amnesty staff in Caracas if the film was shown in the festival. Bartley and Ó Briain stated that "unfortunately, this perfectly legitimate decision by AI to protect the safety of their workers has been distorted by some in order to claim that AI dropped our documentary because of its content."
The annual IDFA, International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam, gives an acclaimed filmmaker the chance to screen his or her personal Top 10 favorite films. In 2007, Iranian filmmaker Maziar Bahari selected The Revolution will not be Televised for his top ten classics from the history of documentary.
References
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
CuriousCoupwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - "The Revolution will not be Televised -Film Synopsis". Archived from the original on 2008-01-05. Retrieved 2007-06-18.
- ^ Template:Es icon Del Naranco, Rafael (13 April 2002). "El Ejército derroca a Chávez y pone en su lugar al líder de la patronal". El Mundo. Retrieved 2009-02-08.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help); Unknown parameter|dateformat=ignored (help) - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2003). Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 27 February 2010.
- ^ Campbell, Duncan (22 November 2003)."Chavez film puts staff at risk, says Amnesty". Guardian. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
- Correia, Alexis (3 October 2003). "Cineastas denuncian manipulación en documental sobre el 11-A." El Nacional, p. B-6
- ^ Gunson, Phil (May 1, 2004). "Director's cut: did an acclaimed documentary about the 2002 coup in Venezuela tell the whole story?". Columbia Journalism Review.
{{cite journal}}:|format=requires|url=(help) - Ebert, Roger (2005). Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2006. Andrews McMeel Publishing, p. 568. ISBN 0740755382.
- Nelson, Brian A. (2009).The Silence and the Scorpion: The Coup Against Chavez and the Making of Modern Venezuela. Nation Books, p. 265. ISBN 1568584180.
- Scheck, Frank (1 April 2003).The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The Hollywood Reporter.
- Holden, Stephen (2003-11-05). "Film review; Tumult in Venezuela's Presidential Palace, Seen Up Close". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-06-15.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link) - Fraser, Nick. Chávez: Inside The Coup. Storyville. BBC UK 18 November 2003.
- Hoberman, J. (2003-11-04). "Recall Sequel in Venezuela? Hugo Your Way, We'll Go Ours". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2008-06-15.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link) - de la Fuente, Anna Maria (June 18, 2007 - June 24, 2007). "Venezuelan nets tread lightly: RCTV closure quiets Chavez foes". Variety. p. 20.
RCTV is not the only web struggling against the threat of government closure. "In Latin America, the new populist regimes like the ones in Ecuador (and Bolivia) are using their popularity to suppress all dissident media to maintain 'good taste and integrity,' " says Wolfgang Schalk, helmer of "X-Rays of a Lie," a docu that exposes the manipulation behind pro-Chavist docu "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."
{{cite news}}:|format=requires|url=(help); Check date values in:|date=(help) - Clark, AC (2009). The Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Farce. Encounter Books. p. 91.
- Template:Es icon "Observaciones específicas". El Universal. 16 November 2003. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
- Holland, Alisha (2008). VENEZUELA A Decade Under Chavez Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela. Human Rights Watch. p. 69.
- Forero, Juan (21 March 2006). "Visitors Seek a Taste of Revolution in Venezuela". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
- Miller, John J (27 December 2004). "Friends of Hugo: Venezuela's Castroite boss has all the usual U.S. supporters". The National Review. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
- ^ Kirk, Alejandro (2005-04-26). "Film-Venezuela: Documentary Revolution". Inter Press Service. Retrieved 2008-06-14.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link) - ^ Awards for Chavez: Inside the Coup (2003).The Internet Movie Database - IMDb.
- Awards 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' has won to date
- Campbell, Duncan (2003-11-22). "Chavez film puts staff at risk, says Amnesty". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-06-15.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link) - "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". 2007. Retrieved 2007-11-09.
Further reading
- Nelson, Brian (2009). The Silence and the Scorpion: The Coup Against Chavez and the Making of Modern Venezuela. Nation Books. ISBN 1568584180.
- Schiller, Naomi (October 2009). "Framing the Revolution: Circulation and Meaning of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". Mass Communication and Society. 12 (4): 478–502. doi:10.1080/15205430903237832.
External links
- Template:Amg movie
- The Revolution Will Not Be Televised at IMDb
- The Revolution Will Not Be Televised on Google Video.
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