Guy Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International (SI). He was also briefly a member of
Socialisme ou BarbarieSocialisme ou Barbarie was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period . It existed from 1948 until 1965...
.
Early Life
Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931. Guy's father, Martial, was a pharmacist who died due to illness when Guy was young. Guy's mother, Paulette Rossi, sent Guy to live with his grandmother in her family villa in Italy. During World War II, the Rossis left the villa and began to travel from town to town. As a result, Guy attended high school in Cannes, where he began his interest in film and vandalism.
Involvement with the Letterists
Debord joined the Letterist International when he was 19 years old. The Letterists were led dictatorially by
Isidore IsouIsidore Isou , born Ioan-Isidor Goldstein, was a Romanian-born French poet, film critic and visual artist...
until a widely agreed upon schism ended Isou's authority. This schism birthed several factions of Letterists, one of which was decidedly led by Debord upon Gil Wolman's unequivocal recommendation.In the 1960s, Debord led the Situationist International group, which influenced the Paris Uprising of 1968. Some consider his book Society of the Spectacle (1967) to be a catalyst for the uprising.
After the Situationist International
In 1972, Debord disbanded the Situationist International due to the fact that he had either expelled or lost all of the original members, including
Asger JornAsger Oluf Jorn was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International...
and, in 1972,
Raoul VaneigemRaoul Vaneigem is a Belgian writer and philosopher. He was born in Lessines . After studying romance philology at the Free University of Brussels from 1952 to 1956, he participated in the Situationist International from 1961 to 1970...
, who wrote a biting criticism of Debord and the International. Debord then focused on filmmaking with financial backing from the movie mogul and publisher
Gérard LeboviciGerard Lebovici was a French film producer, editor and impresario.His mother was executed in a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War...
(éditions
Champ LibreChamp Libre is a French publisher founded in 1969 by Gérard Lebovici in Paris.In 1984, after the assassination of Gérard Lebovici, Champ Libre changed its name and became Editions Gérard Lebovici as an hommage...
) until Lebovici's mysterious death. Debord was suspected of Lebovici's murder. Distraught by these accusations and his friend's death, Debord took his films and writings out of production until after his death, when he agreed to have his films released at the request of the American researcher, Thomas Y Levin. Debord's two most recognized films date from this period: a film version of Society of the Spectacle (
1973The year 1973 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*The Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx divorces his second wife, Barbara Blakely. Blakely would later marry actor/singer Frank Sinatra....
) and "In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni" (1978). After the dissolution of the Situationist International, Debord spent his time reading, and occasionally writing, in relative isolation in a cottage at Champot with Alice Becker-Ho, his second wife. He continued to correspond on political and other issues, notably with Lebovici and the Italian situationist
Gianfranco SanguinettiGianfranco Sanguinetti was a writer and member of the Situationist International , a political art movement.Sanguinetti was deported from France in 1971 and settled in Italy....
He focused on reading material relating to war strategies, e.g.
ClausewitzCarl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz was a Prussian soldier and German military theorist who stressed the moral and political aspects of war...
and
Sun TzuSun Wu , style name Changqing , better known as Sun Tzu or Sunzi , was an ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher who is traditionally believed, and who is most likely, to have authored The Art of War, an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy...
, and he designed a war game with
Alice Becker-HoAlice Becker-Ho , is the author of Les Princes du Jargon , as well as numerous works of poetry.-Life:...
.
Debord was married twice, to
Michele BernsteinMichèle Bernstein is a French novelist and critic, most usually remembered as a member of the Situationist International from its foundation in 1957 until 1967, and as the wife of its most prominent member, Guy Debord.-Early years:...
and
Alice Becker-HoAlice Becker-Ho , is the author of Les Princes du Jargon , as well as numerous works of poetry.-Life:...
. However, these were open relationships. Debord had noted relationships with other women, including Michèle Mochot, the daughter of a surrealist. Bernstein produced a vaguely fictional account of the intimate details of her and Mochot's open relationships with Debord in her novel, All The King's Horses".
Debord's alcohol consumption became problematic for his health, giving him a form of polyneuritis brought on by his excessive drinking. Apparently, in order to end the suffering induced by this condition, he committed suicide, shooting himself in the heart at his property in Champot, near
Bellevue-la-MontagneBellevue-la-Montagne is a commune in the Haute-Loire department in south-central France.-See also:*Communes of the Haute-Loire department...
,
Haute-LoireHaute-Loire is a department in south-central France named after the Loire River.-History:Haute-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...
, on November 30, 1994. Just before his death, he filmed (though did not publish) a documentary called "Son art et son temps" (His Art and his Time), an "autobiography" that focused primarily on social issues in Paris in the 1990s. It has been suggested that this dark depiction of Debord's "time" was a suicide note of sorts.
On January 29, 2009, 15 years after his death,
Christine AlbanelChristine Albanel is a French civil servant. From May 2007 to June 2009 she was France's Minister for Culture and Communication in François Fillon's government.Albanel is agrégé in classical Letters...
,
Minister of CultureThe Minister of Culture is, in the Government of France, the cabinet member in charge of national museums and monuments; promoting and protecting the arts in France and abroad; and managing the national archives and regional "maisons de culture"...
, classified the archive of his works as a "
national treasureThe idea of national treasure, like national epics and national anthems, is part of the language of Romantic nationalism, which arose in the late 18th century and 19th centuries. Nationalism is an ideology which supports the nation as the fundamental unit of human social life, which includes shared...
" in response to a sale request by
Yale UniversityYale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. The Ministry declared that "he has been one of the most important contemporary thinkers, with a capital place in history of ideas from the second half of the 20th century." Debord similarly once called his book, "The Society of the Spectacle", "the most important book of the twentieth century". He continues to be a canonical and controversial figure particularly among European scholars of radical politics and modern art.
Written Works
Guy Debord's best known works are his theoretical books, Society of the Spectacle and Comments on the Society of the Spectacle. In addition to these he wrote a number of autobiographical books including Mémoires, Panégyrique, Cette Mauvaise Réputation... and Considérations sur l'assassinat de
Gérard LeboviciGerard Lebovici was a French film producer, editor and impresario.His mother was executed in a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War...
. He was also the author of numerous short pieces, sometimes anonymous, for the journals Potlatch, Les Lèvres Nues, Les Chats Sont Verts, and Internationale Situationniste.
Debord was deeply distressed by the hegemony of governments and media over everyday life through mass production and consumption. He criticized both the
capitalismCapitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
of the West and the dictatorial communism of the Eastern bloc for the lack of autonomy allowed to individuals in both governmental structures. Debord postulated that
AlienationMarx's theory of alienation , as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx , refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony...
had gained a new relevance through the invasive forces of the 'spectacle' - "a social relation between people that is mediated by images" consisting of mass media, advertisement and popular culture. The spectacle is a self-fulfilling control mechanism for society. Debord's analysis developed the notions of "
reificationReification or Versachlichung, literally "objectification" or regarding something as a separate business matter) is the consideration of an abstraction, relation or object as if they had human or living existence and abilities, when in reality they do not...
" and
"fetishism of the commodity"In Marx's critique of political economy, commodity fetishism denotes the mystification of human relations said to arise out of the growth of market trade, when social relationships between people are expressed as, mediated by and transformed into, objectified relationships between things .The...
pioneered by
Karl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and
Georg LukácsGyörgy Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism. He contributed the concept of reification to Marxist philosophy and theory and expanded Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. Lukács' was also an influential literary...
. Semiotics was also a major influence, particularly the work of his contemporary, Roland Barthes, who actually coined the term, "the society of the spectacle", which Debord appropriated as the title for his most celebrated book. Debord's analysis of "the spectaclist society" probed the historical, economic and psychological roots of the media and popular culture. Central to this school of thought was the claim that alienation is more than an emotive description or an aspect of individual psychology: rather, it is a consequence of the mercantile form of social organization which has reached its climax in capitalism, as theorized by
Herbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
of the
Frankfurt SchoolThe Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
.
The Situationist International (SI), a political/artistic movement organized by Debord and his colleagues and represented by a journal of the same name, attempted to create a series of strategies for engaging in class struggle by reclaiming individual autonomy from the spectacle. These strategies, including "
dériveIn psychogeography, a dérive is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, where an individual travels where the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture and geography subconsciously direct them with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic...
" and "
détournementA détournement is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and consist in "turning expressions of the capitalist system against itself." Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was...
," drew on the traditions of
LettrismLettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totaling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and culture, most notably in poetry, film, painting and...
. As founder of the SI, it has been suggested that Debord felt driven to generalize and define the values, ideas, and characteristics of the entire group, which may have contributed to his hand-picking and expultion of members. However, the hierarchical and dictatorial nature of the SI existed in the groups that birthed it, including the Letterists and the Surrealists.
The SI was the fusion of several extremely small
avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
artistic tendencies: the Letterist International, the
International Movement for an Imaginist BauhausThe International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus was a small European avant-garde artistic tendency that arose out of the breakup of COBRA, and was initiated by contact between former COBRA member Asger Jorn and Enrico Baj and Sergio Dangelo of the Nuclear Art Movement.-Timeline:*December 1953:...
(an off-shoot of
COBRACOBRA was a European avant-garde movement active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home cities: Copenhagen , Brussels , Amsterdam .-History:...
), and the
London Psychogeographical AssociationThe London Psychogeographical Association is an organisation devoted to psychogeography. The LPA is perhaps best understood in the context of psychogeographical praxis.-London Psychogeographical Institute:...
in 1957. After an intense period of theoretical analysis, publication and the expulsion of most of its few members, leading to the
Second Situationist InternationalJørgen Nash identifies the first manifestation of the Second Situationist International after it broke away from the Situationist International as a leaflet signed by himself along with Jacqueline de Jong and Ansgar Elde, shortly after the group Seven Rebels was formed at Situationist Bauhaus at...
, the
Situationist AntinationalThe Situationist Antinational was an American magazine formed in 1974, two years after the disbanding of the Situationist International. Only one issue of the magazine was published...
and the Situationist Bauhaus, Debord dissolved the SI in 1972.
Debord's first book,
MémoiresMémoires is an artist's book made by the Danish artist Asger Jorn in collaboration with the French artist and theorist Guy Debord...
, was bound with a sandpaper cover so that it would destroy other books placed next to it.
Debord has been the subject of numerous biographies, works of fiction, artworks and songs, many of which are catalogued in the bibliography by Shigenobu Gonzalves, "Guy Debord ou la Beauté du Negatif."
It is often suggested that Debord was opposed to the creation of art. However, Debord writes in the Situationist International magazine ("Contre la Cinema") that he believes that "ordinary" (quotidian) people should make "everyday" (quotidian) art; art and creation should liberate from the spectacle, from capitalism, and from the banality of everyday life in contemporary society. In "The Society of the Spectacle", Debord argues that it is the price put on art that destroys the integrety of the art object, not the material or the creation itself. Perhaps this is how Debord justified his filmmaking. It is imporant to note that Debord does not equate art to "the spectacle".
Films
Debord began an interest in (or perhaps a hatred for) film early in his life when he lived in Cannes in the late 1940s. Debord recounted that, during his youth, he was allowed to do very little other than attend films. He said that he would often leave in the middle of a film screening to go home because films often bored him. Debord joined the Lettrists just as
Isidore IsouIsidore Isou , born Ioan-Isidor Goldstein, was a Romanian-born French poet, film critic and visual artist...
was producing films and the Lettrists attempted to sabotage
Charlie ChaplinSir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
's trip to Paris through negative criticism. Debord directed his first film, "Hurlements en faveur de Sade" in 1952 with the voices of Michele Bernstein and Gil Holman. The film has no actual images; instead, it shows bright white when there is speaking and black when there is not. Long silences separate speaking parts. The film ends with 24 minutes of black silence. People were reported to have angrily left screenings of this film. The script is composed of quotes appropriated from various sources and made into a montage with a sort of non-linear narrative. Later, through the financial support of Michele Bernstein and Asger Jorn, Debord produced a second film - "Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps", which combined scenes with his friends and scenes from mass media culture. This integration of Debord's world with mass media culture became a running motif climaxing with "The Society of the Spectacle". Debord wrote the book for "The Society of the Spectacle" before writing the movie. When questioned on why he made the book into a movie, Debord said, "I don't understand why this surprised people. The book was already written like a script". Debord's last film,"Son Art et Son Temps", was not produced during his lifetime. It worked as a final statement where Debord recounted his works and a cultural documentary of "his time".
- Hurlements en faveur de Sade (Howls for Sade) 1952
- Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps (On the Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Unity of Time) 1959 (short film, Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilmskompagni)
- Critique de la séparation (Critique of Separation) 1961 (short film, Dansk-Fransk Experimentalfilmskompagni)
- La Société du spectacle (Society of the Spectacle) 1973 (Simar Films)
- Réfutation de tous les judgements, tant élogieux qu’hostiles, qui ont été jusqu’ici portés sur le film « La Société du spectacle » (Refutation of All the Judgements, Pro or Con, Thus Far Rendered on the Film "The Society of the Spectacle") 1975 (short film, Simar Films)
- In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni (We Turn in the Night, Consumed by Fire) (Simar Films) 1978 This film was meant to be Debord's last one and is largely autobiographical. The film script was reprinted in 2007 in No: a journal of the arts.
- Guy Debord, son art, son temps (Guy Debord - His Art and His Time) 1994 (a 'sabotage television film' by Guy Debord and Brigitte Cornand, Canal Plus)
Complete Cinematic Works (AK Press, 2003, translated and edited by Ken Knabb) includes the scripts for all six of Debord's films, along with related documents and extensive annotations.
Popular culture
Debord was the inspiration for the character in the film
Waking LifeWaking Life is an American animated film , directed by Richard Linklater and released in 2001. The entire film was shot using digital video and then a team of artists using computers drew stylized lines and colors over each frame.The film focuses on the nature of dreams, consciousness, and...
(2001) named "Mr. Debord", who says: "Suicide carried off many. Drink and the devil took care of the rest."
Works by Debord
- Memoires, 1959 (co-authored by Asger Jorn
Asger Oluf Jorn was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International...
), reprinted by Allia (2004), ISBN 2-84485-143-6.
- La société du spectacle, 1967, numerous editions; in English: The Society of the Spectacle, Zone Books 1995, ISBN 0-942299-79-5. Society of the Spectacle, Rebel Press 2004, ISBN 0-946061-12-2.
- La Véritable Scission dans L'Internationale, Champ Libre
Champ Libre is a French publisher founded in 1969 by Gérard Lebovici in Paris.In 1984, after the assassination of Gérard Lebovici, Champ Libre changed its name and became Editions Gérard Lebovici as an hommage...
, 1972 (co-authored by Gianfranco SanguinettiGianfranco Sanguinetti was a writer and member of the Situationist International , a political art movement.Sanguinetti was deported from France in 1971 and settled in Italy....
); in English: The Real Split in the International, Pluto Press 2003, ISBN 0-7453-2128-3.
- Œuvres cinématographiques complètes, Champ Libre, 1978, new edition in 1994; in English: Complete Cinematic Works: Scripts, Stills, and Documents, AK Press 2003, ISBN 1-902593-73-1.
- Considérations sur l'assassinat de Gérard Lebovici, éditions Gérard Lebovici, 1985; in English: Considerations on the Assassination of Gérard Lebovici, TamTam 2001, ISBN 2-85184-156-4.
- Le Jeu de la Guerre
Le Jeu de la Guerre is a book by Guy Debord and Alice Becker-Ho where they illustrate a game devised by Debord through giving a blow-by-blow account of one of their table-top conflicts. It was first published in 1987, but unsold copies were later pulped in 1991, along with other books by Debord, at...
, 1987; in English A Game of War, Atlas Press 2008, ISBN 978-1-900565-38-7
- Commentaires sur la société du spectacle, éditions Gérard Lebovici, 1988; in English: Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, Verso 1990, ISBN 0-86091-302-3.
- Panégyrique volume 1, 1989; in English: Panegyric, Verso 2004, reprinted 2009, ISBN 1-85984-665-3; in Portuguese: "Panegírico" [2002], ISBN 85-87193-77-5.
- "The Proletariat as Subject and as Representation"
Further reading
- egs.edu
- Internationale situationniste, Paris, 1958-1969. Réédition intégrale chez Van Gennep, Amsterdam 1972, chez Champ Libre 1975, et chez Fayard 1997, ISBN 2-213-59912-2; complete translations are available in German: Situationistische Internationale, Gesammelte Ausgabe des Organs der Situationistischen Internationale, Hamburg: MaD Verlag 1976-1977, ISBN 3-921523-10-9; and in Spanish: Internacional situacionista: textos completos en castellano de la revista Internationale situationniste (1958-1969), Madrid: Literatura Gris [1999-2001], ISBN 84-605-9961-2.
- The Situationist International by Simon Ford, Black Dog Publishing, 2004, illustrated.
- Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
, Harvard University PressHarvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
, 1990, ISBN 0-674-53581-2.
- Situationist International Anthology, translated and edited by Ken Knabb, Bureau of Public Secrets 1981; Revised and Expanded Edition 2006, ISBN 978-0-939682-04-1.
- Guy Debord, Anselm Jappe, University of California Press 1999, ISBN 0-520-21204-5.
- Guy Debord - Revolutionary, Len Bracken, Feral House 1997, ISBN 0-922915-44-X.
- I situazionisti, Mario Perniola
Mario Perniola is an internationally acclaimed Italian philosopher, professor of Aesthetics and author. Many of his works have been published in English.-Biography:...
, Roma, Castelvecchi 2005, ISBN 88-7615-068-4.
- The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord., Andrew Hussey
Andrew Hussey OBE is a cultural historian and biographer, born in Liverpool, England. He lectured in French at the University of Huddersfield in the mid to late 1990s. He was a Senior Lecturer in French at the University of Wales Aberystwyth and since 2006 he has been the Head of French and...
, Cape 2001, ISBN 0-224-04348-X.
- Guy Debord and the Situationist International, edited by Tom McDonough, MIT Press 2002, ISBN 0-262-13404-7.
- "The Beautiful Language of my Century": Reinventing the Language of Contestation in Postwar France, 1945-1968, Tom McDonough, MIT Press 2007, ISBN 0-262-13477-2.
- Guy Debord, Andy Merrifield, Reaktion 2005, ISBN 1-86189-261-6.
- 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situationist International, McKenzie Wark
McKenzie Wark is an Australian-born writer and scholar. He works mainly on media theory, critical theory and new media. His best known works are A Hacker Manifesto and Gamer Theory.-Life:...
, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2008 ISBN 1-56898-789-7
- Los Situacionistas y la Anarquía, Miguel Amorós, Bilbao, Muturreko burutazioak, 2008, ISBN 978-84-88455-98-7.
External links