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  • "More Problems than Solutions," 1967
  • Peter Whitehead
    Translated by Presley Parks

US was a controversial play about a controversial subject. Whitehead's Benefit of the Doubt captured this sense of outrage and radicalism through its use of footage of the play itself intercut with interviews with director Peter Brook and a number of the main actors. Once completed, the film continued to attract varying degrees of "trouble."It was shown in Paris in the months leading up to the "events" of 1968. In Nora and ... , as the extracts included in volume 2 of this issue highlight, Whitehead reimagined these screenings as being directly implicated in the pitched street battles between the students and the police. In addition to presenting a review from Variety, the documents in this section outline these screenings and provide an insight into the nature of the film's French reception.

Filming a theatrical performance raises a series of problems which I have always found exciting. So when, in January 1967, Peter Brook suggested to me that I should film his play US, I accepted. He had shown my two previous films to the Royal Shakespeare Company ensemble, as he felt these filmed documents were good representative samples of how film can compliment theater. In Wholly Communion I showed Allen Ginsberg reading his poems, and in Charlie Is My Darling, which was a cinéma-vérité film, I followed the Rolling Stones from the wings.

I had seen US and recognized that the play raised more problems than solutions (if you think that the purpose of the play was actually to resolve certain issues). In fact Brook wanted to make audiences think and act. How and why had this play been put on the stage? The fundamental idea of Pirandello's play Six Characters in Search of an Author was uppermost in my mind. In fact US was, from some perspectives, close to Pirandello, because those who participated in it put themselves on stage, presented their situation, [End Page 333] their emotions, their responsibility in confronting the war in Vietnam. From this arose the title US.

It was difficult to make Benefit because the play had to be filmed like a document, and at the same time I had to show how this stage production was the result of an ensemble piece of work presented to the public. We had to film 86 minutes of the play in a single day. But it was an exciting day, full of enthusiasm. In the weeks that followed I interviewed the actors, the director and the authors, and filmed the reactions of the press and public. In this way Benefit of the Doubt was born. I hope that the film is a true translation of the spirit of the play, and takes into account today's reality, which for me is essential.

On reflection, I realize it's impossible for me to clarify why I am against the war in Vietnam, and that any contrary position would be dangerous and ridiculous. I can only see myself for what I am, and find that I am weaker having made the film. This is a situation for which there is no end in sight. The war in Vietnam continues, and little by little it increases in importance in the eyes of America. Action which might propose a solution to the war, and address the issue of racism, becomes increasingly urgent. I am currently making a film in New York which mixes fiction with reality, and which again raises the problem of practical action. Nothing seems to me to be more important. I am awaiting the moment when peoples' reactions will become violent, and the moment when the revolution will be born. [My film] The Fall arises from the experiences I went through when making Benefit of the Doubt. I discovered that it wasn't enough to stay in London. I realized I had to go to where things are happening. The Vietnam War is readily apparent in every American home. We have to seek out the roots of evil rather than the symptoms.1

December 12, 1967

Note

1. First published in Positif, December 12, 1967. [End Page 334]

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