Eyal Sivan, honored guest of the 14th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, gave a Masterclass on Thursday, March 15, 2012 at the John Cassavetes Theater. His subject was the documentary as a means of expressing political consciousness, Israeli-Palestinian relations, editing, History and the duality of memory and forgetfulness.
Introducing the Masterclass which was part of the Tribute to the Israeli artist’s work hosted by the festival, TDF Director Dimitri Eipides warmly thanked Eyal Sivan for attending and referred to him as a truly great documentary filmmaker with a significant body of work to his credit and a special ability to deal with political as well as social subjects. “He is a director who, starting from a humanist perspective, goes beyond borders and prejudices,” Mr. Eipides said.
"It is great honor for me to be here and I want to thank the director of the festival just for existing," Eyal Sivan said.
Then Dimitri Kerkinos, who curated the Tribute, made a brief introduction to the filmmaker’s work: “Beginning with the fact that the documentary is an attitude and a view of reality, Eyal Sivan is unique in documentary cinema. Using the documentary as a means of expressing critical dialogue and political consciousness gives us the opportunity to see things differently by re-examining reality through the language of montage. The issues that concern him are Israeli-Palestinian relations, Israeli state policy, colonization and de-colonization; he doesn’t hesitate to knock down myths, a fact which brings him into conflict with the Israeli way of thinking.”
Beginning the Masterclass, Sivan revealed that he has always felt uncomfortable with the idea of the word master, preferring the term “ignorant master”. “The only thing that can result in someone having tributes held for him is hard work, nothing else. I don’t believe in great talent, what you need to do is be in the position of the worker, not the master” he explained.
He then defined the way in which he sees the documentary as a vehicle for revising reality, using examples from History. “Revision means creating a new perspective about something that already exists. We can define the documentary this way, as the revision of a concept about something that is known. For me, what is important in a documentary is what I call construction; it is what helps us give the story structure. For example, in official history we learn that America was discovered in 1492. If we went through the process of revising this view, we would see that it doesn't apply to those who already lived in America before Columbus. This is how it is possible to shift people's view of events and change history," Eyal Sivan explained and continued with another characteristic historical example:" It's interesting how history is divided into periods. I doubt if there was someone in the Middle Ages patiently waiting for the Renaissance for things to change. If I have tried to do anything through my films, it is to revise history. This presupposes denying something historic. In plain language, what I suggest is another history which clashes with the history that prevails, which I call counter-history. After all, we must not forget that what is important in a documentary is not to give a clear answer, but to raise questions".
Sivan then focused on the frame, the basic element of an image: “The frame contains a hypocritical, arrogant point of view, since we include in it something that could not otherwise be seen. But for me, the frame is censorship; it is about what we decide not to show. This is roughly where the discussion about subjectivity and objectivity begins”.
"The documentary is an invitation to look at something from an unfamiliar perspective," observed Sivan, referring to the concept of the "other" as the established point of view prevalent in documentary films: “Documentary tradition dictates the way in which we film the “other” so that we can make him/her the film’s main character. I don’t like the term “the other”, it usually refers to the poor, prostitutes, victims and prisoners. In this way cinema becomes a kind of secular church, where instead of the Jew hanging on the cross we see the victims of life and suddenly feel caring, compassionate, and human”. To illustrate the “other”, Sivan showed a scene from Aqabat-Jaber: Passing Through, explaining that he had also once used this established point of view: “As you can see in the scene, I went as a young Israeli to meet the “other”, the refugee, thinking that what I had to do was give these people the opportunity to speak. I soon understood that I wasn’t essentially knocking down any power: I remained a white male going to see those ‘inferior’ to him and it was as if I was saying to them ‘I’m the one who is going to give you the opportunity to speak’. It was the last time I did something like that. I understood that I am not here to provide a voice to the weak, but to use my camera in order to deconstruct the concept of power and to face those who are equal to me; not the victims, but the perpetrators. "
A brief excerpt from Izkor, Slaves οf Memory followed. In this film Sivan brings the viewer into the system of Israeli education, beginning from the age of 5-6 and going right up to the soldiers swearing allegiance to the State of Israel. “Izkor was for me a kind of revenge on the educational system and its institutions. That was the exact moment I became a heretic, even a criminal, because I exposed the system, re-reading it not as History, but as Counter-History. It is indicative that even conservative Israelis looked on my first film favourably. Of course this wasn’t so with my second one. But I am white and I come from an Apartheid country, so for me to be critical is essential, it is self-evident. If I didn't do it I would be a collaborator. Every artist and intellectual must cross over to counter-history, otherwise he is a collaborator. Foucault said that politics has to do with words. Paraphrasing him, I say that it has to do with images”.
Sivan then expounded on the way in which Israeli cinema reinforces victimization in the national collective unconscious: “What has been said, that we Israelis will never forgive the Palestinians because they force us to become murderers, is indicative".
Regarding the relationship between History and memory, Sivan noted: “It is stupid how important memory is considered to be. In order for there to be memory, there needs to be forgetfulness. In History, when we speak of memory the question that arises for me is what has been forgotten? It is interesting that no nation remembers itself as having committed criminal acts, but as a victim. The French who collaborated with the Nazis have been erased from the collective memory of the French, but the Resistance is strong in it. The Kurds consider themselves victims, forgetting that they participated in the Armenian genocide for the Turks. The Israelis, also traditional victims, were the ones who chased the native Palestinians from their land. I want to say that memory can very easily be a tool for the commission of crimes. If course we may prefer to see ourselves as victims, but the truth is that we are all potential perpetrators”.
Sivan called editing the ultimate power, “since in the end everything winds up there. What I prefer most of all is the editing room, not the process of shooting the film. I don’t like having to appear pleasant or intelligent, I know right from the start that the ultimate power and control are in my hands through editing”.
An excerpt from the film The Specialist: Portrait of a Modern Criminal followed. This film presents the Adolph Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961. “When my colleague Rony Brauman and I were searching for videos of the Eichmann trial in the archives, we found them in the unused toilets at the University. This is a classic case of history being thrown down the toilet. So we took the original footage and decided to look at the subject of “evil” in politics. We didn’t want a film about the Holocaust, but about bureaucracy. In The Specialist we tried not to paint the portrait of a psychopath, but that of a “normalpath”. Eyal Sivan stressed, and continued: “The footage was reedited in The Specialist. It truly is a case of desecrating the archives and some people questioned how I could be permitted to interfere in such important ways with an issue that is so sensitive for Israelis”.
Asked about whether his work could take him to the opposite extreme of that which he rejects Sivan said: "My goal is certainly political. By itself however, memory is undoubtedly selective. When you talk about the other side, there are no Arabs there for me. Besides, I'm not trying to be objective. I do what I do because there is a state in the world which has made all Jews Holocaust victims and citizens of Israel without asking them. Israel emerged through the contrast that was born in Europe between the Bible and Auschwitz. "
Sivan did not fail to mention surveillance cameras and the cameras of Authority in general: "When Authority makes a documentary it is called propaganda. A nice example of this is East Germany, where all they wanted was to monitor the counter-revolution and in the end it was the only thing they didn’t record. A surveillance camera can never prevent a crime. They never work as a preventative to someone who has decided to act. "
The tribute to Eyal Sivan has been funded, among other 14th TDF activities, by the European Union - European Regional Development Fund under the Central Macedonia ROP 2007-2013.
