OVID.tv Presents: ALTHUSSER, AN INTELLECTUAL ADVENTURE – The Dramatic Life of a Visionary Man

This biographical film begins on a rooftop in Rome with an interview granted by Louis Althusser to Rai – Italian Television – in 1980. A big crew of journalists and cameramen surround a man in his 60s, who appears tired and looks a little sloppy. He keeps a low profile and seems clumsy in answering. 

How did you become a communist? asks the interviewer. Althusser’s head is buried in his hands as though he is protecting himself from the world, replying in understandable Italian, “I became a Communist because I was a Catholic.” He remained a Christian, by which he means universalist and internationalist, and he thought that the Communist Party had more adequate means for bringing about universal fraternity. He says he was also influenced by his wife Helène, who had a terrible time in the Resistance.

“There was a Sorbonne Professor who said to his students the day after the murder: 'I always told you it was a murderous philosophy. We shouldn’t be surprised that its originator is a murderer’.” 

Etienne admits that, at that moment, something broke. He realized there was something very strange, like a sort of liberation. Describing himself as Althusser’s faithful lieutenant, he’d been locked into a sort of mirror-image relationship with his professor. As the period just before had been very difficult to live for many reasons, he remembers thinking well, it’s over.

It’s a true confession as Etienne runs, step by step, through those tragic moments while speaking with his head down. Yves looks at him by listening in silence, showing a lot of emotion. 

Althusser’s own notes about his hospitalization records very well explain his moods in those years of suffering. Day by day, like a diary, he perfectly describes the waves of depression with a simple, almost childlike writing implement, coloring his moods in different colors. He also draws a long dark hallway that seems to a tunnel from which it is difficult to get out.  

The interview under the sky of Rome moves on. “When you play football, what happens?” Althusser responds, “There is no marketplace rapport, no political domination, no ideological intimidation. The teams playing each other respect the rules and respect each other. Communism is respect for human beings.” This is his idea about communism. He believes it also exists here, at this moment, on this terrace. Hic et Nunc. Here and now. He’s talking and leaning on the balustrade of the terrace, with a gaze towards the city skyline, like a dreamer. On his left, his everyday objects placed on the railing, a man-purse, and a pipe.

This meeting with the RAI crew is often intermixed with pictures and video reportages about popular pro-Communism demonstrations, which took place in Europe in the late 70s. Althusser’s tired look strikes the eye as he stares off into space. We see him with his students during Parisian protests holding the banner of Ecole Normale Superieure. From urban warfare to the fringe group Brigate Rosse that left a trail of death in Italy, it’s a roundup of exclusive images that shows with harshness, the truth of those years. You like this writer might find them difficult to see, and especially the images of Anni di Piombo (Years of Lead), when political terrorism from both right and left was frequent.

This film, Althusser, An Intellectual Adventure thus takes us on the intellectual journey of this Marxist philosopher. Credited with reinterpreting Marx, Althusser’s students— all very high-level scholars in their own right— were invited by Althusser to collaborate on his theories with the aim of safeguarding the revolutionary capacity of Marxism. The film also explores Althusser's little-understood struggles with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that would see him hospitalized numerous times. The memories, pietas, and the inner story-telling of his one-time collaborators make this film especially compelling, in this writer’s view. Viewers who like history films will likely especially appreciate the portrait of this leftist thinker.

 

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