French Communes Research Articles

Watching the Third World Watchers: The Visual, the Verbal, the Personal and the Political in "Under Fire" and "The Year of Living Dangerously"

In Under Fire, a new film directed by Roger Spottiswoode about the final months of Sandinista insurrection in 1979 against the American-supported dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua, a hot-shot news photographer (played by Nick Nolte) finds that his personal files of unpublished photos of Sandinista rebels relaxing in their mountain hideaway have been purloined by a European intelligence agent working with the CIA. The photos have been put at the disposal of a CIAfinanced American mercenary, who uses them to identify and summarily execute anyone in his picture collection. For the photographer, the discovery of how his pictures are used comes as the final blow to his stubborn illusions of the photo-journalist's neutrality. (I don't take sides; I take pictures, has been his credo.) In The Year of Living Dangerously, Australian director Peter Weir's 1982 film about foreign correspondents covering Sukarno's Indonesia during the social unrest of 1965, a strangely androgynous, half-caste dwarf, Billy Kwan (played as a man by actress Linda Hunt) uses his skills as a photo-journalist to amass files of surreptitiously taken photographs of his friends. He muses endlessly over these pictures-and over those he has shot of Indonesia's President Sukarno, whom he greatly admires-using the photographs almost as magic talismans or fetishes, whose purpose, it would seem, is to enable him to exercise an imagined, benevolent control over the destinies of those he loves and admires. He is devastated, however, when the people who mean most to him fail to live up to his own image of them. A fascination with photographs-and with their potential use as real or imagined elements of control-is only one of the features shared by Under Fire and The Year of Living Dangerously. But it is an important one, especially in these two films dealing with highly volatile political situations in the Third World. As a point of departure, we would be wise to recall that, historically, photographs, when first printed in newspapers, were immediately r cognized-and used-by the police and the state as evidence to suppress political dissent. In 1871, when newspapers in Paris printed photographs of the crowds gathering to hear the leaders of the French Commune holding forth in the streets, the Paris police, on orders from the government, used the published photos to identify and round up both the leaders and many of their listeners. Aside from their fascination with photographs, both Under Fire and The Year of Living Dangerously concern themselves with the social and political aspirations and struggles of Third World peoples-not exactly a theme one would expect to be treated at all, much less so sympathetically, by films coming from Hollywood. (Under Fire is an Orion Pictures release; and The Year of Living Dangerously is an MGM/United Artists release.) Of the two films, Under Fire is especially timely,

Le territoire politique

The problem of politics in small rural French communes is that of joining local compétition and national political debutes. The analysis of the electoral System, and of the nature of the stakes thus revealed, etc., suggests that municipal elections, in their diversity, can be far removed from the national logic which tends to unify their results. The political game is also based on real local competition and on the inclination of some to invest in it. What should be studied are the local determinants of affiliation to politics.

Géographie des hagiotoponymes en France

Le dictionnaire géographique et administratif de Paul Joanne propose, en son volume VI (p. 4025), une cartographie du culte des saints ; ou, pour être plus exact, une cartographie des communes dont le nom commence par Saint-…(Saint-Laurent-de-Condel, Saint-André-de-Najac, etc.). Éditée en 1902, cette publication exclut, et pour cause, les territoires alsaciens et lorrains ; elle porte sur 4 450 communes qui, pour 98,9 % d'entre elles, se formulent en Saint-X…, cependant que les 1,1 % restantes se composent de villages appelés Dammarie, Dampierre, etc. (le préfixe damou dont, autrement dit Dominus ou Seigneur est utilisé jusqu'au xe siècle et parfois un peu plus tard, notamment dans l'Est de la France, pour signifier, par exemple, Sainte-Marie ou Saint- Pierre). Ces 4 450 localités correspondent à 12,3 °/o du total des 36 170 communes françaises de l'époque, soit (en gros) une commune sur huit. .

Re Maire d'Auboue

Treaties — Conclusion and operation of — Operation and enforcement of — Necessity for municipal legislation — North Atlantic Treaty, 1949 — Status of Forces Agreement, 1951 — Protocol of Accession of Federal Republic of Germany, 1954 — Refusal by mayor of French commune to permit passage or stationing of German forces — Decision quashed by Prefect of Department — Whether within jurisdiction of administrative courts — The law of France.

In re Commune of Rosenau

State territory — Acquisition of territorial sovereignty — Cession — Treaties of Paris, 1814 — 1815 — Treaties between France and Baden, 1820 and 1840 — Boundaries between French and Baden Communes — Territory separated from Baden by Rhine boundary — Creation of French Commune of Rosenau — Subsequent agreement between French Communes of Rosenau and Kembs to transfer part of ceded territory to Kembs — Whether valid — The law of France.

The French Communes

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The French Commune and the English Borough

The French Commune and the English Borough

Some French Communes, in the Light of Their Charters

Some French Communes, in the Light of Their Charters

Some French Communes, in the Light of their Charters

Journal Article Some French Communes, in the Light of their Charters Get access Earle Wilbur Dow Earle Wilbur Dow Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 8, Issue 4, July 1903, Pages 641–656, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/8.4.641 Published: 01 July 1903