Search

Toggle dark mode:

Saved articles

You have not yet added any article to your bookmarks!

Browse articles

GDPR Compliance

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service.

Secret City Screening with Filmmakers Q&A

 
Daniel Tovey-Hayes Review by Daniel Tovey-Hayes 4 Published: 29 May 2013 Show Dates: 31 Dec 1969-31 Dec 1969

John Donne claimed “No man can be an island.” It is one of the phrases of our literature – one of a multitude – now made banal and sterilised by a carnivorous mass culture. The documentary film ‘Secret City’, directed and produced by Lee Salter, shows how, despite the sterility of the phrase, it is also false. The film is centred on that square mile which constitutes The City of London Corporation, exploring the tension between its infinitesimal geography and its immense global influence. Made on a zero budget Walters unearths, beneath the recondite surface-area, a corpulent morass whose arteries, sluicing with Capital, vivify a global economy.

The documentary is a socio-historical investigation into an archaic institution – old but not emaciated – which pre-dates Parliament. With considerable success, despite a diminutive duration, the film explores the changing functions of The City of London from its position as an arbitration centre of maritime time to its contemporary saliency in global capitalism. Although lacking any central storyteller, the narrative is concise, the argument always clear. Mixing archive footage with interviews from activists and academics what emerges is a passionate, coherent film that stands against corporate insouciance and globalised indifference. The picture created of The City of London is that of the metal heart of modern capitalism, sustaining the hegemony of the Commodity; ‘A very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.’ As one contributor puts it, by fuelling the decimation of a manufacturing base, what we have now is the secular religion of the commodity. This is not so much an island then (the image falls too easily on the mind) but a steel fortress enclosed by an inhuman façade with shit for brains and rust-coloured veins. The cool caresses of the sea transmogrify into the putrescent penury of the enfolding Boroughs.

We all know the rapacious nature of free-market capitalism, however. We can all see its hellacious inequalities. It is visible. What is never challenged in the film is the left’s endemic failure in the face of such a situation. The Occupy movement is a central part of the film, but the wider public are disengaged from the planned economic alternatives offered by the Left. This is never explored, and as long as this is so the Left will keep on failing. Walters alluded to these coruscating lines of Marx, describing the cannibalistic nature of capitalism, in the post-screening discussion; “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.” Faced with imminent ecological destruction, if we wish to survive into the next century we need to act. This will require an engaged and engaging left, it will come from nowhere else. Without it we may yet prove Eliot wrong, in another of those banal lines from our great literature; “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang, but a whimper.”

Amir Nisi

Daniel Tovey-Hayes

Performances

The Blurb:

What do you know about the City of London, the Corporation that runs it, and the economic crisis? Inspired by the Occupy movement, filmmakers Lee Salter and Michael Chanan contribute to the current debate about capitalism by seeking to bring the Corporation of London out of the shadows. Watch this revealing film then question the filmmakers and John McDonnell MP.
Phantom of the Opera
Lion King
Wicked
Popular now
The Producers
The Play That Goes Wrong
Les Miserables