Information for Social Change

Rachad Antonius et professeur de sociologie l'UQAM. Mathématicien et
sociologue, il est l'auteur de nombreux articles et rapports de
recherche sur les sociétés arabes et sur les conflits dans la région,
ainsi que de deux ouvrages de méthodologie quantitative.

SAVE AND BURN

JULIAN SAMUEL, CANADA, 2004, 81 MIN, V.O. ANGLAISE.
DISTRIBUTION. : JULIAN SAMUEL.

Save and Burn replace l’institution de la bibliothèque dans un
contexte politique percutant. Généralement considérée comme un
élément de préservation de la culture, elle est aux prises avec les
idéologies de son temps. Le film aborde des thèmes tels que l’aspect
commercial des bibliothèques, la gestion irresponsable et la
fermeture de bibliothèques, les dérives des droits de reproduction,
mais, surtout, souligne le fait que l’Occident ne reconnaît pas
l’Orient pour la valeur de son patrimoine culturel.

Save and Burn puts the institution of the library within a startling
political context. Generally considered a preserver of culture, the
documentary points out how libraries are subject to the ideologies of
their time and place. The film assays the commercialization of
libraries, the irresponsible weeding and closing of libraries, the
excesses of copyright law, but most of all, the fact that the West
has not recognized the Orient for much of its cultural heritage.

FILMOGRAPHIE : THE LIBRARY IN CRISIS (2002), CITY OF THE DEAD AND THE
WORLD EXHIBITIONS (1995), INTO THE EUROPEAN MIRROR (1994)

26 AU 29 SEPTEMBRE 2005: 15H, 21H.

English and French reviews of Save and Burn, 2005

Save and Burn: 80:34 minutes, NTSC; 2004

Save and Burn builds from The Library in Crisis (2002) by deepening
an understanding of the history of civilization through the
phenomenon of the library. From ancient China, India, Islam, and the
Graeco Roman world, we see how the library radiated knowledge and
spiritual values, and facilitated the cross fertilization of ideas
from one culture to another.

Save and Burn puts the institution of the library within a startling
political context. Generally considered a preserver of culture, the
documentary points out how libraries are subject to the ideologies of
their time and place – and not above them, as may have been assumed.
The film assays the commercialization of libraries, the irresponsible
weeding and closing of libraries, the excesses of copyright law, but
most of all, the fact that the West has not recognized the Orient for
much of its cultural heritage.

The film is provocative. Historically, libraries have been used to
promote or inhibit democratic debate, with a nod to the Patriot Act.
The filmmaker, who was born in Pakistan, combines exquisite footage
of the
Alexandrian Library, the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, and
Bromley House in Nottingham. Interviews include Tom Twiss, Government
Information Librarian, University of Pittsburgh, who gives testimony
on the destruction of Palestinian libraries by Israeli soldiers,
accompanied with painful footage, as well as the fate of Iraqi
libraries during the "liberation."

List of people interviewed in Save and Burn:

Ross Shimmon, Secretary General, International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions;
Isam al Khafaji, ex-advisor to USA forces in Iraq; (Holland)
Ambassador Taher Khalifa, Director, Bibliotheca Alexandria;
Robin Adams, Librarian and College Archivist, Trinity College, Dublin;
Bernard Meehan, Keeper of Manuscripts, Trinity College;
Charles Benson, Keeper of Early Printed Books and Special
Collections, Trinity College;
Michael Ryan, Director, Chester Beatty Library, Dublin;
Declan Kiberd, author, Inventing Ireland, University of Dublin;
David Grattan, Manager, Canadian Conservation Institute, Ottawa;
Paul Bégan, Conservation Scientist, Canadian Conservation Institute,
Ottawa;
John Feather, Professor of Library & Information Studies,
Loughborough University, author of The Information Society, Royal
Society of Arts, London;
Alistair Black, Professor of Library History, Leeds Metropolitan
University, London;
Erling Bergan, Editor, Librarians Union of Norway, Olso;
Peter Hoare, library historian and adviser on historic libraries,
Bromley House Library, Nottingham;
Tom Twiss, Government Information Librarian, University of Pittsburgh.

Note: I transcribed these French reviews from the newspapers – you
will notice errors.

Montreal Gazette Wednesday, September 21, 2005

By BERNARD PERUSSE

Books in the balance: Documentary looks at threats to libraries

We think of the library as a quasi-sacred institution - a shrine to
the works of great thinkers, philosophers, writers and historians. As
such, it offers comforting proof that knowledge and wisdom transcend
politics and ideology. Or do they? In his latest documentary, Save
and Burn, Montreal filmmaker Julian Samuel offers a sobering
reflection on the baser forces that have threatened libraries over
the years. An impressive group of experts - including Robin Adams, a
librarian at Dublin's Trinity College; Taher
Khalifa, director of Egypt's Bibliotheca Alexandrina; and Tom Twiss, a
librarian at the University of Pittsburgh - face the camera.
Together, they offer historical background and make the case that the
beloved institution has been, and continues to be, jeopardized by
commercialization, technology and the prejudices of global conflict
and racism. The destruction of Palestinian libraries by Israeli
soldiers and last year's arson attack on the United Talmud Torahs
school library in St. Laurent are but examples. The premise, which
builds on Samuel's 2002 film The Library in Crisis, is
novel and provocative - although the focus gets lost at points with
political commentary on such hot-button topics as Israeli policy in the
Middle East and the American invasion of Iraq. While political issues
are
obviously crucial to the concept of "bibliocide" denounced by the
film, we
sometimes feel far from the initial premise. It all works, however,
during an examination of how the U.S. Patriot Act changed the
landscape after the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings by allowing the
government to withold data about itself from library users while it
gained greater powers to examine their personal records. In the end,
Save and Burn makes its point most eloquently in scenes like one
showing a young Arab man reading from James Joyce's Dubliners in his
native language. That's when you realize how crucial it is to protect
the unifying power of books from the forces of darkness.

Save and Burn opens Monday at Ex-Centris. For details, go to
www.ex-centris.com Save and Burn Rating 3 Playing at: Ex-Centris
cinema from Monday to Sept. 29. Parents' guide: for all.

La presse, 24 Septembre, 2005, “Save and Burn Documentaire de Julian
Samuel,” par Aleksi K. Lepage

Julian Samuel conviendra sans doute avec nous que son documentaire
“Save and Burn,” par ailleurs fascinant, n’est pas des plus
accessible et ne s’adresse pas au plus vaste public, qui préfère
généralement apprendre en s’amusant (ou l’inverse, plutot). Vite dit:
“Save and Burn” est un film pour professeurs, pour universitaires et
pour tous ceux qui ont frolé de près ou de loin les classes
d’histoire, de littérature ou de sciences politiques. Samuel ne nous
prend pas pour des nuls (et pourtant, s il savait!).

Très mal informé, après une lecture trop rapid du communiqué de
presse, nous nous attendions à un documentaire sur les grande
bibliothèques du monde, un truc à la fois touristique et intello
comme on en voit à ARTV. Rien à voir. Julian Samuel est un homme
politiquement très engagé. Son documentaire place la bibliothèque
(l’institution, oh ! pas l’edifice !) dans ses contextes historique
and politique.

Autrefois symbole de la victoire de la civilisation sur la barbarie
(au jourd’hui, de la démocratie sur toute les dictatures), la
bibliothèque est généralement considéree comme le temple de tous les
savoirs, idéalement ouvert au bon croirait spontanément fortifée et
imperméable aux aléas de l’Histoire, est en vérité d une extrême
fragilité, sans cesse menacée par les guerres et les conflict
politique, aussi par le commerce et par l avènement des nouvelles
technologies, aujourd’hui par l’imposition dan nos vies d’Internet
comme “bibliothèque ultime”.

Par les paroles de professeurs, de conservateurs, d’historiens et de
bibliothècaires, Julian Samuel explore ce problème de la preservation
des savoirs et des cultures. Il est étonnant de constater, si on l
ignorait, qu’en temps de guerre, les bibliothèques ont, de tous
temps, été des cibles de choix pour l’envahisseur : en Irak, pour ne
citer que cet exemple, les troupes américaines les ont vandalisées
avec autant de hargne et d’acharnement que si elles saccagenaient des
églises.

En 80 minutes, Save and Burn en raconte et en apprend beaucoup plus
que ce que nous, du monde ordinaire, pouvons en comprendre. Julian
Samuel ne fait pas dans la vulgarisation systématique, tient pour
acquis que ses spectateurs sont intéressés aux sujet qu il aborde.
C’est un documentaire à revoir, un film à conserver dans ses
archives, un film à “annoter” comme on annote un essai ou un ouvrage
théorique. Enfin, c’est les érudits comme pour tous les autodidactes
intéressés par l’histoire de la culture.

The McGill Daily, Issue 7 - 2005-09-26

It's Dewey's dream come to life

Save and Burn looks at libraries and the historians who love them

By Maddie Phillips

Julian Samuel is no newbie on the Montreal documentary scene. Whether
it’s creating pieces of his own or critiquing the work of others,
this Pakistan-born Montrealer has infiltrated the controversial
documentary community. While he may not be exposing the tragic fate
of all the books that seem to be mysteriously missing from the
McLennan Stacks, he offers insight into an intriguing concept:
libraries and their legacy.

His mission: to discover and document the spectrum of issues related
to libraries in cultures around the world. From the historical merits
of books, beginning in the Biblical times of Safed, to the
relationship of the library with the Patriot Act of 2001, his
documentary Save and Burn attempts to bring the library’s cultural
role into focus.

Flash to footage of book bazaars in Baghdad, an insider’s look past
CNN film crews that extols the importance of books and the
institution of the library to Islamic culture. Panning to another
shot, Samuel looks at libraries from a Euro-centric perspective as a
means of recording and documenting history, a home for the legacies
of great leaders. The two worlds seem to collide in Alexandria, the
site of the legendary Library of Alexandria of the Roman Empire, from
which modern scholarship derives most knowledge of Biblical and
pivotal ancient texts (destroyed in the fifth century). Samuel then
dichotomizes Ancient Alexandria with the modern Bibliotheque
Alexandrina, the “jewel in the crown” of the Arab world.

Samuel’s examination of the collections in Alexandria, parts of
England, and Trinity College, Scotland, illuminates the historically
crucial role libraries have played in the circulation of information.
Indeed, library politics have acted as litmus tests to the political
climate. Who is chosen to write history? What is considered to be
relevant history? I smell a second-year contextual history conference
coming on….

Samuel pays brief lip-service to censorship; Save and Burn examines
church-related censorship in a historical context, as well as the
modern process of blacklisting in the elusive “banned books” list.

An interview with Tom Twiss, a Government Information Librarian of
the University of Pittsburgh, places an Orwellian interpretation on
the institution. Citing the use of library records to document the
patterns of particular library users, Twiss warps the traditional
conception of the library as a point of free information.

Far and away the most interesting segment of the movie, however, was
Samuel’s discourse on the current status of libraries in Iraq. In the
dwindling minutes of the piece, he exposes the lack of action of
foreign forces in Iraq that lead to the demise of the National
Archives and Koranic Library. Under Ba’athist rule, changes were made
to the collection of the Iraqi library – a prime example of political
efforts to alter historical perspectives, in this case of Iraq’s
middle class. With the occupation followed the looting, and
ultimately the burning of the remaining coveted chronicles of former
Sumeria, “the cradle and core of settled life.”

Save and Burn will prove absolutely fascinating to the uber-
historiographical Arts student and the film aficionado. Yet Samuel
falls a little short in the film’s ability to relate to the audience;
there is little reference to relevant local events, such as the fire
bombing of the United Talmud Torah’s library in Montreal on April 8,
2004. Though the film’s concepts and questions provide enormous
potential for an in-depth, fascinating look at our postmodern
society, you may find yourself leaving the theatre without any
substantial answers.

Letters: Contempt focused like a laser beam

Daily review off-base

Thanks for your review of my documentary Save and Burn (26 Sept
2005). Do you really think I should have spent more time than I did
on the burning of the Talumd Torah Library in Montreal? This book
burning was made into a cosomological issue by NBC, ABC, CBC, BBC,
New Zealand TV, RDF, TV5, ITV, Thames TV, Channel 4, TV and radio in
Israel, TV Greenland, and FOX. And, our very own slant-free CBC and
CFCF mentioned it every single night for months. And a Hollywood
luminary gave billions for its reconstruction; now, thankfully, this
library has more volumes than than the Library of Congress.

You did not mention the fact that I offer detailed analysis of how
Zionism and its discontents burn Palestinian libraries. Please tell
me why you never mentioned this in your review?

Julian Samuel

*
Issue 8 - 2005-09-29

Libraries on the front lines of democracy: Filmmaker

By Patricia Novakovska
News Writer

Books are important. This is the underlying message in Montreal
documentary director’s Julian Samuel’s newest film.

In Save and Burn, Samuel contrasts the treatment of libraries in the
Middle East with their treatment in the western world. The word
‘save’ in the title refers to the preservation of cultural literary
artifacts in the West, while ‘burn’ refers to what often happens in
countries on the so-called periphery.

In the film, Samuel explores the factors that lead people to continue
the destruction of books, after such widely-condemned chapters of
history as Nazi book burnings. His conclusion is that the reasons
range from senseless vandalism in the throes of military violence to
a “destructive euphoria.” But most damaging, he said, is the
political atmosphere of the day.

“Libraries are extremely important when creating a doctrine; if you
destroy [a culture’s] library you destroy the ability of [that]
society,” said Samuel. “Nowadays, the orchestra is playing
‘terrorism,’ and when they play terrorism, anything can come under
the conductor’s sword.”

The preservation of certain works, said Samuel, and the destruction
of others is a brand of cultural Darwinism, in which the elite class
decides which literary texts are fit for survival.

“What survived was what people at [a certain] time thought was the
best. However, [the point of] a comprehensive universal library is
that everything is there for the future generations to get access to
it,” he said.

In this vein, Samuel does not dismiss the importance of works such as
Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

“It’s absolutely essential to have these works with us, and they
should be studied and criticized,” said Samuel. “How is one supposed
to understand the Second World War without reading the primary
documents? One of these would be Mein Kampf, wouldn’t it?”

Samuel believes that there is a cultural element to censorship that
spreads beyond politics or ideological phobias. In the film, he
supports the Second Protocol, a United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization agreement from 1999 that
provides for enhanced protection of cultural property in times of war.

He feels that such measures are important because the library
consists of more than just shelves; it is instead a “metaphorical
accumulation of knowledge, understanding, wisdom – a shared concept
of society and a retrievable college of information that is essential
to the informed population which underpins a functioning democracy.”

Save and Burn is playing this week at the Cinéma ExCentris at 3536
St. Laurent.

E-mail the editors
© The Daily Publication Society

Le Devoir “La bibliothèque sur la ligne de feu,” par André Lavoie, 26
Septembre 2005

Titre VO : Save and Burn

Description : Réal.: Julian Samuel. Canada, 2004, 84 min. (v. o.
ang.) Du 26 au 29 septembre à 15 h et 21 h au Cinéma Parallèle du
Complexe Ex-Centris. Le film sera précédé d'une introduction par
Rachad Antonius, professeur de sociologie à l'UQAM.

Surnommées «cathédrales du savoir» ou «sanctuaires de la mémoire»,
les grandes bibliothèques de ce monde bénéficient d'une aura de
pureté, comme si leur présence dans la cité ne relevait que de
l'altruisme d'État. Diffuser la connaissance au plus grand nombre;
donner accès à la culture aux citoyens qui, pour des raisons sociales
ou économiques, s'en sentent exclus; favoriser la lecture pour
développer la curiosité et, pourquoi pas, la fibre citoyenne: autant
de missions (certains diront: impossibles!) dévolues aux bibliothèques.

Le cinéaste Julian Samuel s’est donné comme mandat d’aller au delà de
ces idées reçus, affichant un scepticisme parfois dévastateur doublé
d’une perspective historique qui transcende aussi bien les époques
que les civilisations. Après “The Library in Crisis,” Samuel poursuit
sa réflection et alimente certaines polémiques dans Save and Burn; it
tente de dépoussiérer le nobles principes qui guident les
bibliothèques pour en révéler la face cachée, les dessous peu
reluisant, leur défis sur le plan de la conservation de l’information
et ultimement, son instrumentalisation au service du pouvoir. De
plus, il souligne la contribution des sociétés arabes dans le
développment de ces institutions, et leur apport dans
l’enrichissement de la culture occidentale.

Non seulement porte-t-il à bout de bras, el la plupart du temps seul,
sa caméra, mais le cinéaste le trimballe dans different coins du
monde pour tisser cette histoire partielle, et certes partiale, de
l’evolution chaotique des bibliothèques. Et surtout, il cherche à
concilier les différentes composantes de son hértiage deux fois
millénaire, où les traditions de l’Orient et celles de l’Occident se
confondent, mais parfois s’affrontent ou s’ignorent copieusement. De
l’incendie de la mythique bibliothèques d Alexandrie (détruite il y a
plus de 1600 ans et qui contenait pas 700 000 documents, à une époque
où, faut-il le rappler, l’imprimerie n’existant pas....) au Patriot
Act, décréte en vitisse après les événements du 11 Septembre 2001,
qui permet au gouvernement américain de fouiner dans les registres de
prêt des bibliothèques publiques, “Save and Burn” montre à quel point
le temple du livre n’est jamais un lieu désincarné.

Avec le participation de divers spécialistes en bibliothèconomie,
principalement britanniques, et d’historiens, il s’interroge sur les
fonctions méconnues de la bibliothèque, entre autres celles de foyer
de révolution sociales, mais aussi ses détournments de sens par des
governments soucieux d’assurer le calme plutot que la démocratie. Par
example, Alistair Black, historien à la Leeds Metropolitan
University, rapplle que le government britanniques s’est servi des
bibliothèques, pendant la Premiére Guerre mondiale, comme outil de
propagande contre la révolution russe. Et le cinéaste s’appique
également à denoucer, images de cendres à l’appui, les divers
saccages ou “bibliocides”, de l’armèe amèricaine en Irak, ou
israélienne dans les territoires occupés.

Dans une forme parfois sèche et austère, reposant trop souvent sur la
formule des têtes parlentes et mois sur la découverte de ces lieux
magnifiques où Julian Samuel promène sa camera – la nouvelle
bibliothèque d’Alexandrie, une splendeur architectural et un symbole
puissant au coeur du Moyen-Orient, n’est que visuellement effleurée
-, “Save and Burn” passe souvent du documentaire au réquisitoire
militant. Et l’on ose croire qu’avec le cinéaste est loin d’en avoir
terminé avec l’analyse de la mission politique de ces institutions.

22 septembre 2005 - Voir calendrier Cinéma
Save and Burn

Bibliothèques, entre espoir et chaos
Carlo Mandolini

Malgré sa réflexion intéressante sur l'histoire des bibliothèques, ce
documentaire adopte un style plutôt laborieux qui nuit à
l'approfondissement du propos et ne facilite pas l'adhésion du
spectateur.

Save and Burn, du Montréalais Julian Samuel, soulève d'intéressantes
questions sur la place et le rôle de la bibliothèque dans l'histoire
des civilisations. Un traitement plutôt brouillon et chaotique qui
laisse pantois.

Après Library in Crisis (2002), le cinéaste montréalais Julian Samuel
s'intéresse une fois de plus au rôle qu'a joué - et joue encore - la
bibliothèque en tant qu'institution sociale, culturelle et politique
dans l'histoire des civilisations. Dans cette réflexion très à-
propos, on y apprend - en vrac et dans une structure ainsi que dans
un style parfois déstabilisants - que la bibliothèque a toujours été
au cœur de débats passionnés et qu'elle s'est révélée lieu de
contrastes et de contradictions, comme l'évoque d'ailleurs le titre.

Les spécialistes américains, arabes et européens interviewés par
Samuel nous rappellent que la bibliothèque, dans l'Histoire, a
facilité l'apparition d'idées révolutionnaires, mais a aussi su se
faire la gardienne d'une pensée institutionnelle. De tout temps
victimes d'agressions, au sens figuré comme au sens propre
(Alexandrie, la bibliothèque de Bagdad, les bibliothèques
palestiniennes en territoires occupés, etc.), les bibliothèques
doivent être valorisées, aimées et protégées. C'est cet appel
désespéré, et l'espoir qu'il soit entendu, que Julian Samuel a voulu
relayer.

Or son effort est presque complètement anéanti par un traitement
filmique plutôt laborieux: cadrages très approximatifs (de gens assis
et qui parlent!), caméra tatillonne qui cherche constamment quelque
chose à filmer comme dans une vidéo de touristes, effets visuels
intégrés de façon souvent malhabile, images d'archives de piètre
qualité, redondance entre image et son... il n'est pas ici question
de déconstruction filmique délibérée et provocatrice, mais bien de
difficulté à maîtriser le médium.

On veut bien croire que le film a été produit avec un budget serré,
mais tout de même! Un documentaire est aussi une œuvre artistique. Et
à moins d'avoir été tourné dans des conditions particulièrement
difficiles (ce qui n'est pas le cas ici), il exige une recherche
esthétique et une qualité minimale dans l'exécution.

Dommage aussi que le film ne fasse nullement place au point de vue
québécois (à part un graffiti hostile à la Grande Bibliothèque). Mais
ce ne serait pas faute d'avoir essayé; le cinéaste se dit persona non
grata dans l'entourage de la Grande Bibliothèque.

Un peu trop brouillon pour prétendre à un véritable
approfondissement, Save and Burn n'arrive pas à convaincre
complètement. Il propose par contre de nombreuses idées importantes
qui alimenteront sans doute les débats sur la place des bibliothèques
dans notre civilisation.

*
Montreal Mirror, Sep 22-28.2005 Vol. 21 No. 14

“If you want to train a doctor, you need some manuals and some
books,” he says. “If you want to train a civil engineer, you need
books. If a library is destroyed, where are you going to get the
books you need to be able to transport water?”

Samuel says he wants to accentuate the links between a country’s
libraries and its civil society.

“Libraries contain instrumental tools of knowledge and history,” he
says. “If you can’t touch the past, you can’t bring about the
fruition of democracy.”

The film runs from Sept. 26 to 29 at Ex-Centris (3536 St-Laurent).
Consult listings for showtimes. » Patrick Lejtenyi

La Presse, 27 April, 2005

Grande bibliothèque, petites considérations par Nathalie Petrowski

Parce qu’il y avait beaucoup de livres chez nous, je n’ai pas souvent
fréquenté les bibliothèques. Plus tard, la pluie bienfaisante des
livres tombant sur mon bureau, m’a évité de courir à tout bout de
champ la bibliothèque la plus proche de chez nous. Si bien que j’ai
mis du temps à m’intéresser au sort des petites comme des grandes
bibliothèques. Ce serait encore le cas si l’énorme champignon en
forme de Rona dont la couleur oscille entre le vert hôpital, le vert
fédéral et le vert CLSC, ne s’était pas mis à pousser rue Berri me
poussant par la même occasion vers ses splendeurs à l’intérieur.

Aujourd’hui à quelques 48 heures de l’ouverture de la Grande
bibliothèque du Québec,voilà qu’enfin j’allume. J’imagine que mon
éveil tardif est en partie dû au petit Saint-Thomas qui sommeille en
moi et qui ne croit que ce qu’il voit.

Mais la vraie raison c’est que personne n’a réussi à m’expliquer
intelligemment l’importance de se doter collectivement d’une telle
institution ni pourquoi on devrait non seulement s’en réjouir mais
crier au miracle.

Depuis le début, le discours entourant la gestion de la Grande
bibliothèque a été monopolisé par des questions de taille, de
volume et d’argent. Ou bien la Grande Bibliothèque était trop grande.
Ou bien elle coûtait trop cher. Ou bien elle était trop grande, trop
chère et menaçait de cannibaliser le réseau agonisant des petites
bibliothèques, présentées comme des victimes sacrifiées sur l’autel
de la folie des grandeurs.

Dernier et ultime argument : c’est bien beau une Grande bibliothèque
mais à quoi ça sert quand on vit à Chibougamau ? Et pourquoi devrait-
on payer pour une bébelle qui ne profitera en fin de compte qu’aux
Montréalais.

Toutes ces objections, fondées sur la peur (du changement ou de
l’ambition, au choix) ont fini par contaminer le discours et par
empêcher toute réflexion politique ou intellectuelle. Même Lise
Bissonnette pourtant versée dans les grandes analyses universelles,
n’a eu d’autre choix que de répondre aux objections sans pousser la
réflexion publique plus loin.

Aujourd’hui on assiste au phénomène contraire mais c’est toujours la
même chanson. Une fois de plus les chiffres ont la vedette comme si
eux seuls justifiaient l’importance du beau gros joujou qu’on vient
de se payer : 1.1 millions de livres, 1.2 millions de documents, 1.6
millions de microfiches et de microfilms, 33,000 mètres carrés
d’espace, 400 postes internet, 1500 fauteuils dessinés par Michel
Dallaire. En voulez-vous des chiffres ? On en a !

J’ai failli moi aussi succomber au vertige enivrant des chiffres.
Mais j’ai été sauvée in extremis par <Save and burn> un documentaire,
financé par le CALQ et le Conseil des arts et signé par un trouble-
fête du nom de Julian Samuel.

Né à Lahore au Pakistan mais Montréalais depuis plus de 30 ans,
Samuel a eu la bonne idée d’aller visiter les grandes bibliothèques,
à Londres, Dublin et Oslo, sans oublier la spectaculaire grande
bibliothèque d’Alexandrie. Il n’a pas entrepris ce périple pour se
lancer dans des études comparatives stériles. Mais plutôt pour
fouiller la dimension politique et historique de ces grandes
institutions nées du triomphe de la raison sur la barbarie.

A travers le parole d’historiens, de chercheurs et de
bibliothécaires, son film nous explique comment les grandes
bibliothèques arrachées à la nuit des temps sont devenus le symbole
de la civilisation et de la démocratie, non sans certains heurts
comme en témoigne le feu qui a ravagé la bibliothèque d’Alexandrie au
septième siècle, et plus récemment le délabrement délibéré des
bibliothèques en Palestine ou le pillage éhonté de la bibliothèque de
Badgad pendant l’invasion américaine.

Au départ Julian Samuel voulait inclure la Grande Bibliothèque de la
rue Berri mais assez tristement et pour d’obscures raisons on l’a
envoyé paître, lui refusant l’accès au chantier comme au bureau de sa
directrice. C’est d’autant plus navrant que ce que son film dit du
rôle des grandes bibliothèques à travers l’Histoire est fascinant.

A quoi et à qui les bibliothèques servent ? Quels intérêts défendent-
elles ? Pourquoi tout au long de l’Histoire de l’humanité, a-t-on
cherché autant à les ériger qu’à les saccager et à les brûler ? Les
bibliothèques sont-elles des agents de changement où fermentent les
révolutions ou au contraire des instruments de contrôle social ? Et
puis comment envisager l’avènement des bibliothèques virtuelles qui
se reproduisent à la vitesse grand V sans se soucier de l’évolution
technologique qui d’ici 30 ou 50 ans risquent de rendre caduques
leurs banques de données ?

Autant de questions essentielles et d’actualité que posent le film
de Julian Samuel et qui méritent qu’on s’y attarde.

Pour l’heure pourtant, nous avons complètement occulté ces questions
à la faveur de considérations qui se réclament moins de l’Histoire
que du service à la clientèle. Au lieu de se demander comment se fait-
il que le Québec se soit doté d’un stade olympique et d’un casino
avant de s’offrir une Grande Bibliothèque, on veut savoir à quelle
heure ça ouvre et ça ferme.

Au lieu de se rappeler que les grandes bibliothèques sont les
sanctuaires de la mémoire du monde et le fondement-même de la
démocratie et que c’est à travers elles que les sociétés assurent
leur pérennité, on s’inquiète du confort des fauteuils et de
l’absence d’un casse-croûte. Un chausson aux pommes avec ça?

Heureusement il n’est jamais trop tard pour bien faire. Maintenant
que le Grande Bibliothèque existe, profitons s’en pour élargir nos
horizons. La présentation du film de Julian Samuel à la Grande
Bibliothèque serait une excellente entrée en matière. La direction a
déjà fait savoir au cinéaste qu’elle n’était pas intéressée à
présenter son film. Mais c’était il y a plusieurs mois dans le chaos
de l’installation. Peut-être a-t-elle changé d’idée depuis, sinon il
faudra se résoudre à faire appel au dernier recours : le service à la
clientèle.

Montreal Serai:

http://www.montrealserai.com/index.htm May, 2005

“Save and Burn”, 80:34, NTSC, 2004. A documentary by Julian Samuel.

Reviewed by Maya Khankhoje.

[Maya Khankhoje, when not busy exploring the world out there, can be
found deep in contemplation in a library.]

Save and Burn is a compelling commentary on the world of libraries
as well as a compressed history of their importance from the days of
the ancient Sumerians -credited with inventing writing to save
administrative records- to current day Iraq, where people, along with
libraries, are the victims of massive burning and destruction. It
is also a dispassionate analysis of the role of libraries as
repositories of historical notions of the self and a passionate cri
de coeur against the systematic annihilation of such notions, such
as the gradual strangulation of Palestinian identity. If the
juxtaposition of placid images of libraries where silence reigns with
images of armed conflict in Israel/Palestine and Iraq strikes the
viewer as jarring at first, upon reflection, one realizes that it is
not the images that jar, but reality itself. Why burn books –
alongside countless human beings – if not to reduce the truth to
ashes? Moreover, such contrasting imagery speaks to the need for
librarians to take to the streets to defend their privilege to
continue to house the patrimony of humanity.

The film opens up with the following quote from Carl Sagan (Cosmos):

“Only once before in our history was there the promise of a brilliant
scientific civilization. Beneficiary of the Ionian Awakening it had
its citadel at the Library of Alexandria, where 2,000 years ago the
best minds of antiquity established the foundations for the
systematic study of mathematics, physics, biology, astronomy,
literature, geography and medicine. We build on that foundation still.”

Who would want to destroy such a foundation? The culprits, say
multiple voices, are the forces that would replace civilization
with barbarism. Take the wanton destruction inflicted on Palestinian
libraries and cultural centres by the Israeli government. Or the
fire set to the United Talmud Torah Library in Montreal in 2004. Or
the appropriation, by the Israeli government, of books ordered by
Palestinians, and their subsequent delivery to the Hebrew University
library, proving that the powers that be fear, not knowledge per se,
but knowledge in the “wrong” hands, that is, in the hands of “others”.

Such destruction is not achieved by means of brimstone and fire
alone. The closure of libraries due to “lack of funding” is an
obvious device. Legislation is another powerful weapon for the mass
destruction of knowledge. For example, the USA Patriot Act of 2001,
allows the government to peer over the shoulders of its citizens as
they read while increasingly denying them the information they seek.
The gradual disappearance of library catalogues is a stratagem to
control what people read. The digitalization of knowledge, while
contributing to its speedy dissemination over the ether, is also
contributing to its ethereal and ephemeral nature. The privatization
of human knowledge, of course, is the most insidious version of this
onslaught.

Libraries, says Irish author Declan Kiberd, are utopian spaces for
the disenfranchised Irish, and hence promote democracy, but they can
also be used for state control. Libraries, says Julian Samuel’s off-
camera voice, produce knowledge about democracy at home and export
terror abroad. Libraries are also beautiful, says the director’s
camera. Samuel, a painter, filmmaker and writer, lets our eyes
lovingly linger over the long hall of Trinity College Library. He
also treats us to a panoramic view of The Bibliotheca Alexandrina,
arisen from the ashes of its illustrious predecessor. Its director,
Ambassador Taher Khalifa, tells us that this library, partially
funded by several Arab countries, is shaped like an incomplete sun
disk symbolizing the incomplete nature of knowledge – and presumably
its illuminating attributes.

Save and Burn is a follow-up on The Library in Crisis, 2002 (cf.
www.montrealserai.com/2002_Volume15/15_4Article_9.htm) in which the
author traces the history of libraries and libricides while allowing
us a glimpse into the multicultural world of libraries in 5th century
India. It is also a fervent plea for us, as free and independent
thinkers, to unite in defence of our right of access to the knowledge
that we have accumulated as a species. Most importantly, it is an
aesthetically pleasing and lyrical reminder of the links between the
contemplative space of reading rooms and the hustle and bustle of
life out there.
for more information on “Burn and Save” please contact:

Le Devoir, 4 June 2005

Save and Burn

Jean-François Nadeau

Ces dernières semaines, impossible de passer une journée dans ce
journal sans tomber à tout moment au téléphone sur un certain Julian
Samuel. Vous le connaissez? Ce monsieur s’est donné beaucoup de mal
pour produire Save and Burn, un documentaire sur l’univers des
grandes bibliothèques de monde et sur la place qu’elle jouent dans
l’édification des consciences culturelles. Il a interrogé et mis en
scène différent acteurs de ces lieux souvent feutrés. La narration
est un peu lourde et la dynamique globale de l’ensemble manque
quelque pue d’huile et de fini. On découvre cependant dans ce
documentaire certain aspects de la vie culturelle le dont les
bibliothèques se sont fait le gage au fils des siècles.

Vous ne verrez sans doute pas ce petit film. Les réseaux de
distribution étant ce qu’il sont, la place pour des réalisations de
ce genre demeure à peu près inexistante.

Le film aurait-il pu être projeté dans un espace alternatif tel qu la
Grande bibliothèque du Québec? Peut-être, mais l’institution affirme
avoir déjà programmé ses activité pour les mois à venir.

Ce qui n’empêche pas Julian Samuel de partir en croisade contre la
Grande bibliothèque et contre sa directrice, Lise Bissonnette. Motif?
Si son film n’est pas diffusé dans la Grande bibliothèque, dit-il,
c’est que l’institution ne supporte ni les anglophones ni les gens de
couleur. Bref, il y aurait du racisme dans l’air qui clouerait
davance son film plancher. Et pourquoi ne parle-t-on pas ou ne
diffuse-t-on pas son film ailleurs? Pour la même raision, clame-t-il.
Evidemment….

18th Singapore International Film Festival, 2005

( http://www.filmfest.org.sg/main_js-int.php )

March 20, 2005 - Vinita Ramani and Julian Samuel discuss Save and Burn.

VR: Broadly-speaking, 'The Library in Crisis' dealt with bibliocide
(a term used by Ian McLachlan) and the increasing digitisation of
texts - in a sense, the "crises" referred to in the title. 'Save and
Burn' has honed in on a more specific issue: the systematic
preservation and destruction of knowledge/texts. What do you see as
the trajectory from the first documentary to the second?

JS: I didn't plan a trajectory, but there is a trajectory which I'll
tell you about a few lines down...I write a documentary treatment
after reading many books on a particular subject and then approach
funders. After a few rejections I get a tiny budget on which to live
and produce.

VR: So then do you at see documentary films having some effect on our
understanding of history and politics?

JS: Documentaries, on their own, accomplish nothing politically; they
record symptoms. If they could change an understanding of reality,
and how to act, then why haven't they had any large-scale progressive
effect on society? Despite the making of many critical documentaries,
the economic right and the religious right are hitting us in coercive
ways. Rent control and the Magna Carta all down the drain, and it's
all Michael Moore's fault.

VR: There's an intellectual density in both your documentaries that
is quite different or lacking in the new wave of "activist" films
that have emerged off-late (since 2000 and the WTO protests, in
particular).

JS: Someone has to make dense documentaries - otherwise we'd all be
making documentaries like The Corporation, Bowling for Columbine et
al ad naseum which are visually fun, easy and comic, but analytically
as deep as a fried Mars Bar. The directors offers no criticism of
Caterpillar Corp and its support of Israel, for instance.

VR: While you hint at the great intellectual traditions of Asia and
Africa, the documentary is very much focused on libraries in Europe,
or the "west".

JS: Sadly, much is missing from Save and Burn (2004). My excuse is
that they didn't give me much money. It would have been useful to
have included in-depth discussions from other parts of the world such
as Africa, Asia, libraries in the Arctic and Antarctica. This would
have filled in all the geo-bibliographic holes. And, it would have
been great to shoot all the pretty books in grain-less 35mm. A visual
exploration (in IMAX) of the 13th century wood printing blocks at the
The Temple of Haeinsa would have been enriching.

However, I think that with Save and Burn I have provided classical
linkages between the master races and the others: England and
Ireland; Palestine and America; America and Iraq. I have not explored
the role between libraries in the Mediterranean region and their
impact on the development of this one-sided democracy in Europe. The
documentary makes the links between empire and knowledge institutions
apparent. The trajectory from Save and Burn is now a documentary on
Atheism. Will George Soras please help me? I only want a millionth of
his wealth.

VR: Alistair Black (Leeds Metropolitan University) and John Feather
identify the specific relationship between libraries and the advent
of modernity, in how the growth of the individual or "self" was
integral to the Enlightenment project. But Black identifies the
controlling aspects of libraries as well: they are bureaucracies par
excellence. This is a tension present throughout the film (freedom
and control in relation to knowledge). Is this a specifically western
experience?

JS: Modernity? What's that? Save and Burn's slowly leads us to the
following kinds of question: Is western democracy falling apart in
the eyes of everyone else? Western democracy - with its legal trade
rules and legally sanctioned moral values in place - is transparently
terrorizing resources out of vast areas of the world.

Lefty documentary film-makers try to get answers from experts in
order to produce an abridged yet wide version of history and
politics. And, unfortunately, documentaries produce culturalists who
know the world's problems but can only vote in a certain way; go to
demonstrations; have political discussions at supper time, and buy
samosas on solidarity nights. I won't put you in a cultural studies
coma by doing a Chomskian repetition of what's wrong with the world,
don't worry.

VR: Save and Burn also touches upon contrasts/tensions in relation to
perceptions of class and access to knowledge. Alistair Black is
sceptical of the claim that the working classes benefited from
libraries: he says they were rarely the constituency that used
libraries. You juxtapose this with Irish author Declan Kiberd's
resoundingly positive perception that libraries for the Irish, were
and are almost utopian spaces, following the 19th century reading
room tradition, where issues in the community can be debated, read
about, shared. What is the intention of these juxtapositions?

JS: It would appear that I have a sociological reflex - inducted
during schooling.

VR: Nevertheless, the humour aside, you are suggesting something with
these recurring discussions on freedom, democracy and accesss to
knowledge.

JS: What's the conclusion? Libraries actually produce a knowledge of
how to practice democracy at home and export terror abroad; this is
one obvious, preliminary conclusion. The current-day British labour
party members all have a knowledge of social democracy because of the
libraries they used - packed to the gills with English Marxism and
even more flashy Euro-Marxism. Many of them were arrested for
protesting during the last century.

The center of the documentary are the comments on the catalogue. The
library catalogue controls access to sections of knowledge. The
techno-culturalist and historical discussion in the beginning of Save
and Burn takes us to the destruction of the library catalogue in
Palestine. Here, western democracy falls to bits. The Palestinians,
as people everywhere, see through western democracy's terror-laden
values.

VR: Save and Burn also reveals a strong relationship between history
and libraries. Alarmingly, we can no longer speak of historiography
if, as Tom Twiss (Govt. Information Librarian, Pittsburgh), Isam al
Khafaji (ex-advisor to US forces in Iraq) and Erling Bergan
collectively identify how Iraqi libraries/museums are being
systematically burnt and destroyed, books are not reaching
Palestinian libraries. History is being altered by what is saved and
what is burnt. What is the future then, from your perspective? How
does one respond to these "cultural war crimes" as Ross Shimmon
points out?

JS: The future? Most documentary film-makers are non-experts who are
in one way or another looking for answers to advance a general
knowledge which will lead to criticism, action, Eden. Viewers should
understand that film-makers put viewers in the precarious position of
trusting the film-maker who usually are non-experts in the areas they
are documenting. The questions encompassed by Save and Burn are posed
by a non-expert. I have tried to offer in-depth knowledge of
libraries across many voices.

The conclusion of the documentary asks: Western democracies are
encouraging Israel and other places (via innocent tax payers in
Austin, Warlingham, and Canberra) to do one illegal thing after the
next. The mad search for weapons of mass hypnosis is like the search
for God itself. Many people at the other end of American foreign
policy see nothing "western" nor "democratic" but see hypocrisy
personified in various heads of states. You should have heard the
analysis the shoe-shine man in Cairo gave me about 911.

So what political models can 'they' out there look for? Can they make
an economically competitive state via an investment in Islamic or non-
western values? More questions for an expert. The idea of investing
in western democratic values is exhausted, not simply because western
democracy is so easy to see through but because democracy, give or
take a Patriot Act or two, is structured fundamentally to supply a
bit of democracy at home while fully financing dictators and their
armies the world over.

Save and Burn – a documentary by Julian Samuel (2004)

A film review by Steve Fesenmaier
published: http://www.counterpunch.org/fesenmaier10022004.html

There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a
document of barbarism.And just as such a document is not free of
barbarism, barbarism taints also the manner in which it was
transmitted from one owner to another.

Walter Benjamin
Theses on the Philosophy of History, 1940

“Ueber den Begriff der Geschichte”, used at the beginning of this film

Julian Samuel, a Montreal-based filmmaker born in Pakistan, continues
his exploration of the contemporary world of libraries in this 80-
minute documentary. He first investigated libraries in his instant
library classic, “The Library in Crisis.” Here is the description
from the distributor’s website – Filmakers Library –

Dense with the informed commentary of notable scholars, this
documentary in effect traces the history of civilization through the
phenomenon of the library. From ancient China, India, Islam, and the
Graeco Roman world, we see how the library radiated knowledge and
spiritual values, and facilitated the cross fertilization of ideas
from one culture to another.
http://filmakers.com/indivs/LibraryCrisis.htm

“Crisis” was made before 9/11 and focuses on the hottest crises at
that time – the effects the WTO may have on libraries, the
commercialization of libraries, mindless weeding and closing of
libraries, expansion of copyright by computer corporations, and much
more. No film I have ever seen on libraries comes close in exploring
so much in such a short period of time – 46 minutes.

I contacted the filmmaker in Canada, and sent him videotapes of
interviews with leading American library activist Sanford Berman.
Originally, he was going to interview Sandy and other American
library leaders, but after the draconian war against people from
Pakistan and other East Asian countries by the Bush Administration
after 9/11, Samuel took the official Canadian advice to NOT cross the
border. Thus this film did not include these voices – but rather
focused on Irish and English libraries plus the new Bibliotheca
Alexandrina

Unlike “The Library in Crisis,” this film looks at race and class.
Various library historians including John Feather, Professor of
Library & Information Studies, Loughborough University, author of
“The Information Society,” Royal Society of Arts, London and Alistair
Black, Professor of Library History, Leeds Metropolitan University,
London discuss how public libraries were used both to stop the locals
from contemplating revolution a la Russian Communism during and after
WWI and to serve as a place for debate. By cutting back and forth
from Irish and English library events to the history of the Library
of Alexandria, Egyptian public libraries, and current programs in the
Bibliotheca Alexandrina, like one on unemployment and youth, the
viewer is counter-conditioned to reject Western racism. Samuel wants
to show the West that we are the inheritors of the great Arab-Asian
tradition of libraries going back thousands of years – not its enemy.

The facts are piled on, not using the standard Ken Burns-style of
slow discourse, but rather throwing the facts at us, using optical
printing, aiming to create a much more complicated GESTALT in our
minds. This is extremely refreshing to someone who has watched a
thousand such films, and found them boring. His style is more like
the Hong Kong master Wong Kar-wai or Godard, demanding that the
viewer has a universe of images already in his mind, waiting for
someone to link them together in new ways.

Like all serious intellectuals, Samuel begins with Walter Benjamin,
the cornerstone of post-WWII global analysis. By doing this he shows
right from the beginning that he is not guilty of anti-Semitism and
Arab fanaticism. He shows that he really wants truth and justice, at
whatever cost. He wants to show that libraries have been one of the
few places of truth and justice for a long time, and that there are
really only two kinds of people – those who respect such sacred
places and those who do not.

The visual images of the libraries he shows are exquisite, lingering
on the walls, the books, the people, and the spaces that libraries
have used over the centuries. He is a painter, an artist – as well as
a philosopher, historian, and freedom fighter. Ambassador Taher
Khalifa, Director of The Bibliotheca Alexandrina talks about the
shapes of the library – using an incomplete sun disk, the earth, a
moon, the sea, and alphabets from all over the world, none making a
single sentence.

I found one scene particularly positive, given the ocean of negative
images flooding us now. A young Arab man reads from “Dubliners” in
front of the James Joyce Wall in Dublin -in his native tongue. This
brief scene may be the clearest direct message Samuel is trying to
make – we are all one people, friends, not enemies.

This film notes a key historical possibility that I very much believe
in – and that is that if the great world of the original Alexandrine
Library had been allowed to continue, our world would have been much
better, and mankind would have landed on the moon by 1000 AD. There
is a new field of alternative histories, including Philip Roth’s new
book, “The Plot Against America," about a US with a Nazi Charles
Lindbergh as president. Samuel has a text crawl that states that
there was one other time when there was a possibility of a “brilliant
scientific civilization” – the 700 years of the first Alexandrine
Library under the Greeks, and he notes that most of the Old Testament
comes to us from items once found in that library. Apparently he
believes, as I do, that if mankind had channeled its energy into the
arts and sciences rather than war at the time of the world’s greatest
library, our world would now be a humanistic paradise rather than a
toxic corporate American hell.

During the last half of the film he interviews Tom Twiss, Government
Information Librarian, University of Pittsburgh, who has flown to
Canada for the interview. During the next 30 minutes Twiss discusses
the war against people’s access to federal government information,
pointing out that as our government has limited our access to them,
they have increased their access to us – library patrons- under the
Patriot Act. Twiss is also an expert on the destruction of
Palestinian libraries. He talks about what happened to Palestinian
libraries during an Israeli invasion of the West Bank. He points out
that Lutheran libraries were also attacked without any reaction
worldwide – but that there is ample proof of the events. He notes
that some Israeli newspapers even ran editorials about the “cultural
cleansing” but many Israelis deny it even happened. One gruesome
story he gives is about the Israelis taking books ordered by
Palestinian libraries being shipped to Palestinian libraries being
seized and shipped to Israeli libraries instead.

Another expert on the reality of libraries in Palestine is Erling
Bergan, Editor, Librarians Union of Norway, Oslo, who talks about the
destruction of their libraries, and a tour by international
librarians to these libraries, seeing first hand how much the
children use them. He discusses one particular act of destruction
involving The Orient House. Bergan is like one of the thousands of
Jewish Holocaust survivors one has seen in films about Nazi Germany.
(I have programmed the local Jewish film series for 25 years),
shaking his head in disbelief. Sanford Berman is the inventor of a
word that should have been uttered – bibliocide. ( Ian McLachlan uses
this word in Samuel’s earlier film, “The Library in Crisis.) Some
librarians even use the term “biblio-holocaust” for the destruction
of books in our modern age.

Finally, the destruction of Iraqi libraries is discussed, mainly by
Ross Shimmon, Secretary General, International Federation of Library
Associations and Institutions and Isam al Khafaji, ex-advisor to USA
forces in Iraq. Khafaji discusses who destroyed the books, and how
important they still are in the life of war-worn Iraqis. Shimmon
talks about writing letters to Saddam and Blair requesting that they
protect Iraqi libraries during the coming war.

The final comments in the film are by Khafaji. Earlier in the film
pictures of Iraqi libraries that have been burned are shown, giving
the viewer the reason why this film is called “Save and Burn.” It’s
horrific to see the rooms of ashes, and reflect on the eternal loss
the millions of Iraqis have endured as pawns in the game between the
Arab fanatics and the America extremists – now in control. I had to
recall the ashes from “The Day After,” showing a world incinerated by
men of equal sadism.

Samuel has again created a masterpiece about the contemporary
library. I suggest that it be included with the many Arab Film
Festivals that have been created by thoughtful people around the
world since 9/11. As always, non-Arabs and Arabs will discover that
they have much more in common than they realize – and that they are
brothers and sisters, not enemies. All librarians should see this
film, and I am sure they will feel like I do that librarians must
leave their beautiful houses of culture, and join the fight to
protect them from the despots East and West who will eventually
destroy them. One librarian talks about how the Book of Kells was
protected from the invading English, being moved from site to site,
even in a building used by the invaders as a headquarters.

A very good companion book to read is Matthew Battles recent,
“Libraries -An Unquiet History.” I read it two summers ago on a
porch near Wilmington, North Carolina, smoking and sitting under a
semi-functioning ceiling fan with my dog. I took my time and savored
the amazing history Mr. Battles has written, taking a global
perspective somewhat akin to Mr. Samuel’s. I was very impressed with
his brief history of libraries in China and England, and consider his
account of the war against my friend Sanford Berman to be the best in
any book I have read so far.

There is a brief discussion of “libricide” in this film – and now
there is an excellent book on the subject – and now there is an
excellent book on the subject – “Libricide: The Regime-Sponsored
Destruction of Books and Libraries in the Twentieth Century” by
Rebecca Knuth. It looks at five particular cases - Germany, Bosnia,
Kuwait, China and Tibet. Of course it doesn’t mention the
uncontrolled “weeding” of American libraries during the last decade,
most famously in San Francisco where thousands of books were buried
in a landfill.

Read together, “An Unquiet History” and “Libricide,”” along with
“Save and Burn” would make an excellent introduction for beginning
MLS students anywhere in the world. Or as a “Continuing Education”
course for working MLS librarians. Hopefully I will be able to show
“Save and Burn” at the spring West Virginia Library Association
conference in April 2005.

Steve Fesenmaier is the film reviewer for Graffiti magazine, the
largest monthly in West Virginia. He was director of The West
Virginia Library Commission Film Services 1978-1999, receiving his
Masters of Library Science in 1979. He was previously the chairman of
the University Film Society, University of Minnesota, 1972-78. He is
the co-founder of the West Virginia International Film Festival
(1984), The West Virginia Filmmakers Film Festival, (2001) and the WV
Filmmakers Guild (1979). He has worked on many films including John
Sayles’ “Matewan”(1987) and presented a week of films made in WV in
March 2004 at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in NYC. He is the
associate producer of an indie feature film, “Correct Change”(2002)
and the executive producer for “Green Bank – The Center of the
Universe.” He provided research information for Mr. Samuel.

Septembre 2005 Vol 13 No 1

Plein cadre: Julian Samuel

Culture

Karolyne MARENGO
Plein cadre - Julian Samuel

De Londres à Dublin, d’Oslo à Alexandrie, Julian Samuel fouille les
dimensions historiques et politiques des grandes bibliothèques tout
en analysant les relations conflictuelles qui ont composé l’histoire.

PRÉSERVER LE SAVOIR
Documentariste trouble-fête, Julian Samuel provoque du scepticisme et
dépeint de manière habile des sujets qui font réfléchir. Ses
dernières réalisations cinématographiques à caractères politique et
historique mettent en scène les relations entre la démocratie et le
savoir. Portrait d’un cinéaste engagé dans l’art dit minimaliste.

Julian Samuel, cinéaste montréalais, s’amuse à aller au-delà de la
censure en réalisant des films sur les sujets qui le minent. « Le
cinéma est défini par la menace qu’il amène directement à la
démocratie. Tout le long de son histoire, le cinéma a été sujet à la
censure et il l’a tolérée. Les documentaires progressistes sont
définis par leur combat contre ce conservatisme : nous, les
documentaristes, nous existons parce que le conservatisme existe. »

Intellectuel averti, il valorise les documentaires qui vont au fond
des choses, qui analysent en profondeur, ceux qui vont au-delà du
divertissement tout en provocant du scepticisme. « Veut-on ou pas que
des questions profondément controversées soient divulguées au public?
Les bons documentaristes s’amusent à la confrontation alors que les
mauvais cinéastes sont lâches et s’efforcent continuellement de
plaire aux producteurs, au public et aux journalistes. » Son
objectif : exposer l’injustice, réaliser des documentaires qui sont
engagés politiquement et qui suscitent des polémiques. Amener
l’auditoire à entretenir des discussions à matière historique le
stimule en tant que réalisateur. « C’est par la discussion de faits
historiques que les gens peuvent comprendre et savoir comment agir
dans la société contemporaine. »

RETOUR AUX SOURCES

Le 7e art minimaliste de Julian Samuel trahit l’admiration qu’il voue
à Michael Snow. « Le travail des cinéastes canadiens n’expose pas, en
général, une vision provocatrice de la politique internationale. Je
n’ai pas été influencé par des soi-disant cinéastes canadiens à
l’exception de Michael Snow. Dans Wavelenght, un film de quarante-
cinq minutes, il utilise simplement deux ou trois images. C’était
très courageux et minimaliste à l’époque. » Dans ses films, Julian
Samuel mise avant tout sur l’information verbale plutôt que sur
l’information visuelle. Les arguments soulevés dans Save and Burn et
Library in Crisis sont rapportés par les interviewés, sans narration.
Des images de livres et de bibliothèques accompagnent leurs paroles
sans plus; l’attrait se situe au niveau du contenu.

Le travail d’Américains gauchistes comme Emile Antonio et Fredrick
Wiseman a aussi influencé Julian Samuel. Parmi ses inspirateurs, Joan
Harvey, qui a fait des films soulevant du scepticisme, et le cubain
Santiago Alvarez qui, malgré de maigres budgets, a tout de même
réussi à réaliser des films intelligents. Les documentaristes
provocateurs stimulaient le cinéaste montréalais alors qu’il n’était
encore qu’un jeune étudiant. « J’ai étudié les brillantes oeuvres de
D.W. Griffiths dont les films sont immensément apeurants parce que
les racistes nordaméricains montrés dans le film The Birth of a
Nation existent toujours en 2005. »

INJUSTICE ET CURIOSITÉ
Le racisme déchaîne Julian Samuel. D’origine pakistanaise, il se sent
brimé au Québec à cause de ses souches orientales. La question
identitaire et le thème du nationalisme imprégnant sa trilogie The
Raft of the Medusa, Into the European Mirror et City of the Dead and
the World Exhibitions reflètent indirectement le combat auquel se
livre quotidiennement le cinéaste. L’absence des minorités dans le
paysage médiatique québécois révolte Julian qui déplore le
nationalisme de la province. Son court métrage Visible Minorities
Hired by the Media montre l’injustice qu’il perçoit.

La grande curiosité de Julian Samuel l’amène à dénicher l’objet de
ses films. Par l’entremise de la lecture, il découvre des thèmes qui
le motivent à creuser davantage. « Tu cherches plus profondément sur
un sujet et avant que tu ne le saches, tu es pris dans ses
engrenages. Tu pousses plus loin, tu parles avec des gens, tu fais
des recherches pour finalement en faire un traitement. » L’étape
cruciale : amasser les fonds pour réaliser les documentaires. Une
collecte souvent trop modeste qui le résigne à l’art minimaliste.

FILMOGRAPHIE

L’un des récents sujets qui a piqué la curiosité de Julian Samuel est
l’idée selon laquelle la démocratie et la lutte pour celle-ci
dépendent de l’accès à la connaissance. Ses derniers documentaires,
Library In Crisis et Save and Burn, illustrent cette pensée. De
Londres à Dublin, d’Oslo à Alexandrie, Julian Samuel fouille les
dimensions historiques et politiques des grandes bibliothèques tout
en analysant les relations conflictuelles qui ont composé l’histoire.
Save and Burn pose un regard sur la démocratie et l’actuelle
destruction des livres en Irak; les bibliothèques y sont définies
comme sources de changements sociaux, mais également comme
instruments de contrôle social. Pendant les quatre-vingts minutes que
dure le film, Julian Samuel insiste principalement sur le fait que
l’Occident ne reconnaît pas le patrimoine culturel de l’Orient à sa
juste valeur.

The Library in Crisis précède Save and Burn et se concentre, entre
autres, sur les «bibliocides» historiques et contemporains,
l’alphabétisation, la Révolution française et la métamorphose des
bibliothèques en instances commerciales. Le cinéaste y déplore la
numérisation des textes, l’évolution technologique qui réduit le
savoir à des bribes d’informations numériques risquant de se
désagréger au fil du temps.

Actuellement, Julian Samuel a à son actif cinq livres et quelques
autres documentaires dont une trilogie examinant la relation
politique et historique entre l’Occident, le Moyen-Orient et l’Asie.
The Raft of the Medusa, Into the European Mirror et City of the Dead
and the World Exhibitions, tels que mentionnés précédemment, mettent
en scène les enjeux du nationalisme tout en traitant de divers sujets
comme le fondamentalisme islamique et le modernisme occidental. Le
cinéaste réalise présentement un documentaire sur la croyance
religieuse et l’athéisme, dont le titre provisoire est Against the
Incantations of False Prophets. La lecture d’un livre traitant de
l’athéisme et du fanatisme religieux l’a poussé à creuser davantage
le sujet. Son dernier documentaire Save and Burn sera présenté à l’Ex-
Centris du 26 au 29 septembre prochain.

unpublished research interview for Quartier Libre article (Septembre
2005 Vol 13 No 1), circulated on web:

Karolyne Marengo interviews Julian Samuel, August 2005

KM: Why are you - or were you - so interested by Imperialism?

JS: Imperialism is a continuum that deserves exposure in
documentaries. Imperialism not only transforms world trade, but also
transforms the very way in which one sees the world and relations
within it. Historically, this force expropriated cotton grown by
bonded labour in India, shipped it to shirt-making factories in
Manchester which then sold finished shirts back to India for profits.
Imperialism transforms oil from the middle-east into condoms;
toothbrushes; DVDs or videotape which is used to archive our
collective memories of the war in Vietnam; the Intifada; Britney
Spears singing in an airplane powered by refined oil; Martin Luther
King speaking in Washington, being killed in Montgomery; Space
Shuttles blowing up; the World Trade Towers collapsing. The goal of
Christian imperialism, internally, is the same as its foreign policy
projections: to convince a chubby, television-addicted population to
purchase meaningless glitter made by slaves who ‘earn’ two dollars a
day.

KM: How would you define cinema?

JS: Cinema is defined by the direct threat it poses to a conservative
understanding of the term “democracy”. Throughout its history, cinema
has been subjected to and has tolerated censorship; its
transformative potential is so great that the people who fund its
production and those who distribute it are inexorably censorial and
so controlling that many accusatory human-rights stories are
ruthlessly suppressed. Only politically suitable and safe stories
make it to the production and distribution stages.

Elia Suleiman’s ‘Divine Intervention,’ a film about Palestine, was
subjected to hardcore American censorship: On 20 December 2002, ABC
News reported, that: “Academy Executive Director Bruce Davis informed
Balsan (producer – my note) that the film was ineligible for
consideration in next year's Best Foreign Language Film category
because Divine Intervention emerges from a country not formally
recognized by the United Nations.

( http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79485&page=1 ).

KM: What’s your defination of documentary cinema?

JS: Our national definer of the documentary, The National Film Board
of Canada, produces meek, inconsequential works and ought not to get
public funding. Writers and film-makers have learnt to use the tool
of allegory to cut the noose of the censor. Progressive documentaries
are defined by their fight against conservatism: We exist because
conservatism exists.

Film-makers can now easily made fiction or documentaries with digital
cameras and computers. Although small distribution networks for
independent documentaries exist, there isn’t large scale distribution
for these documentaries. Large-scale distribution or TV is controlled
by the same mentally ill, wretched money hungry individuals who
inflict cinema.

KM: What is the importance of documentary?

JS: Certain documentaries encourage sceptical thinking. Do you or do
you not want deeply antagonistic questions posed in public?

KM: Why do you make documentaries rather fiction?

JS: Fiction requires big political money, therefore it is impossible
for minorities living in Quebec to fully tell their stories in
cinema. Bien sur, inoffensive, uncle tom works do get produced, but
who gives a shit about these?

KM: What inspires you?

JS: Making a film is like stepping into a battlefield where the wings
of inspirational angels are napalmed. Documentary film-makers don’t
have a patron saint who comes down from St. Joseph’s Oratory to give
them inspiration.

KM: What motivates you to make films?

JS: To expose injustice. Noble cause n’est pas?

KM: Which film-makers have inspired you and how?

JS: The works of Canadian film-makers do not, generally, contain any
challenging expository international politics. I have not been
influenced *whatsoever* by Canadian film-makers except one: Michael
Snow. European and Third World cinema are more cogent than Canadian
cinema. This is not a vain attempt at snobbery. Canadian cinema,
especially Atom Egoyan’s is infinitely inane. Deny Arcand’s films are
boring. Pierre Falardeau leftwingism 101 can be goofy and comic - he
gets major funding - guess why? Pierre Perrault has made wide ranging
kinds work which are well-researched and well-structured: “Un pays
sans bon sens!” (1970) is very good.

I have studied and admire the works of Americans such as Emile de
Antonio and Fredrick Wiseman. Joan Harvey has made sceptical films.
Cuban Santiago Alvarez has made brilliant films with small budgets;
Gillo Pontocorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1965) is as relevant today
as when it was made. It wouldn’t surprise me if Tony Blair bans
screenings of this work.

My early influences were James Joyce; American musicians such as
Little Walter; Abstract Expressionists; Stan Brakhage; and, bien sur,
the Russian classics. I studied the brilliant works of D.W. Griffiths
whose films are immensely frightening because the North American
racists shown in ‘The Birth of a Nation’ (1915) are still here in 2005.

Cinema is an international medium and so one’s influences can come
from all over (call it a cinematic collectivity if you want to be a
cultural studies type). In Quebec, one is punished for not caressing
the local heros. Quebec’s ethnic nationalists, like the crackers in
‘The Birth of a Nation’ fear that the WOG WITHIN will make a better
work than the whites who live off hereditary privilege. Quebec’s
cultural elites thwart les autres.

KM: What is your style and what distinguishes it from the works of
other directors?

JS: Canadian documentaries such as The Corporation and Manufacturing
Consent are sound-bite works that are comfortable enough for
prostitutional TV producers who buy BMWs with our tax contributions.
My documentaries are not as popular as these films. Save and Burn is
a multi-thematic work which projects arguments without voice-of-god
narration; my documentaries don’t spoon-feed the viewers. Noam
Chomsky the star of Manufacturing Consent incessantly exposes Israel
and its kissing cousin America. Peter Wintonic and Mark Acbar, the
directors of Manufacturing Consent, do not include his commentary on
Israel.

KM: What is the message you are trying to send with your trilogy: The
Raft of the Medusa, Into the European Mirror, and City of the Dead?

JS: I offer hard evidence on the imperial game.

KM: And The Library In Crisis and Save and Burn?

JS: To show that democracy and the fight for it depends on access to
books and libraries.

KM: The future of the book and learning pre-occupy you. You have made
two films that look at knowledge and democracy. Why such a marked
interest in these areas?

JS: Without democracy we will never have single malt scotch.
Documentary film-makers offer the opposite of Prozac – that’s our job.

KM: Save and Burn produced a small controversy – what was all this
about?

JS: In Save and Burn I’ve proven that Israelis are not only
destroying the libraries of Palestinians, but are also stealing their
books to enrich their own collections. I remind people that this
pillage could not happen without the support of democratic America.
Showing this connection is enough to hamper screenings at festivals
and academic conferences. However, one ought to keep in mind that
parts of religious America are progressive especially when compared
to India, the largest caste-ridden democracy in the world.

In Montreal, the Bibliothetque National du Quebec will not show The
Library in Crisis and Save and Burn. I do not think, in principal,
that this is rejection is race-related. Lise Bissonnette, the head
provincial librarian, is not a racist. I am confident that given her
august and inflated stature as an local intellectual, she is nimble
enough to connect the dots between D W Griffiths and Jacques Parizeau
(George Wallace of Quebec) to George Bush’s war on the Arabs. The BNQ
has commissioned a documentary on itself, and in the near future,
this work will be broadcast. Mirror, mirror on the wall. It cruel and
ruthless for Bissonnette to not tell me why The Library in Crisis and
Save and Burn are unworthy of a screening at the BNQ. Furthermore, I
published a translation of the following letter in La presse, 16 may
2005:

“Lise Bissonnette director of the Grande bibliothèque du Québec
promotes her dedication to reflecting the racial diversity of Quebec
within her library. However, she and her collegues, Ghislain Roussel,
Secrétaire général et directeur des affaires juridiques, in
particular are dead silent on following question: Do ‘visible
minorities’ have jobs in key positions within the BNQ?

All the commissioned art works in the BNQ are made by white quebecois
francophones. Is there an undeclared policy of favoritism? Julian
Samuel”

KM: Is it necessary for documentaries to be polemical?

JS: Yes.

KM: What are your current struggles? And which do you consider
important?

JS: The struggle for funding is continual. It would be nice to get
the same level of funding as French-Canadian directors or white Anglo
Canadian directors. I made my documentaries with a budget seven times
*smaller* than the average film made at the ONF. And my income is
*five times less* than the average professor of cinema at U de M. I
live near the poverty line. Would a cradle-to-the-grave corporate
welfare job at the CBC or the NFB have encouraged intellectual suicide?

KM: In varying degrees your works look at the Middle East – why this
interest?
Does the fact that you are a Montrealer of Pakistani origin determine
the themes you develop in your work?

JS: Pakistan does not determine the subjects of my documentaries. I
am a Canadian citizen. I don’t normally revert to being a Pakistani
national until I enter Pakistani air space which is where my acquired
nationalities - Canadian and British – are temporarily over ridden.
Except in my novel Passage to Lahore (De Lahore a Montreal), my works
are not connected with where I was born.

KM: Can you distinguish between a good documentary film-maker and a
bad one?

JS: Good documentary film-makers find confrontation amusing. Bad
documentary film-makers are craven and always find ways to please
producers, audiences, journalists.

KM: What is your next documentary or book?

JS: My next documentary is about belief, unbelief and atheism;
working title, ‘Against the incantations of false prophets.’ And a
novel, working title, ‘Dark Interloper of the Eastern Trade’ – a
comedy set in Charles De Gaulle airport. Also, I might make a
documentary about mangoes - I an expert on Pakistani mangoes.

KM: What do you try to reveal in your 60 second clip Visible
Minorities Hired by the Media ?

JS: This short clip laughs at the ‘visible minorities’ hired by the
Canadian state. American Republican senator Jesse Helms must love our
Governor General Michaëlle Jean’s documentary which trashes Fidel
Castro and Cuba.

The Mirror, Sept. 22 2005

FRONT-LINE LIBRARIES

Local filmmaker Julian Samuel is fascinated by libraries. They are
repositories of knowledge, centres of learning and essential to a
well-educated and democratic populace. His newest documentary, SAVE
AND BURN, screening next week at Ex-Centris, will look at how
libraries are used worldwide, but also how they can be abused and
destroyed. Samuel turns his lens to the situation in Iraq and
Palestine, where libraries have suffered terribly in the chaos of war
zones. “If you want to train a doctor, you need some manuals and some
books,” he says. “If you want to train a civil engineer, you need
books. If a library is destroyed, where are you going to get the
books you need to be able to transport water?”

Samuel says he wants to accentuate the links between a country’s
libraries
and its civil society. “Libraries contain instrumental tools of
knowledge and history,” he says. “If you can’t touch the past, you
can’t bring about the fruition of democracy.”

The film runs from Sept. 26 to 29 at Ex-Centris (3536 St-Laurent).
Consult
listings for showtimes. » Patrick Lejtenyi

26-29 septembre 2005 15h00 - 21h00
Ex-Centris 3536 St-Laurent, north of Sherbrooke
10$ (7.50$ before 6 pm mon-fri)

Save and Burn

Reviewed by Sheila Intner, Professor Emerita, Graduate School of
Library & Information Science, Simmons College GSLIS at Mt. Holyoke,
South Hadley, MA

http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/emro/emroDetail.asp?Number=2443

Not Recommended

Date Entered: 7/14/2006

Ostensibly this is a documentary film about libraries and the roles
they have played in various socio-political settings from early times
to the present. In reality, however, the film is an expression of
opinions and attitudes held by a group of librarians about Middle
East politics, mainly anti-Israel and anti-U.S. policy, carefully
disguised as a piece about libraries and the preservation of library
materials.

First, a word about the technical aspects of the piece: The visuals
are good for the most part, especially the well-shot footage of the
newly completed library at Alexandria, Egypt, early in the film and,
later, the well-paced interviews. Too many scenes, however, display
in slow motion. One slo-mo circumnavigation of the Alexandrian
library’s new buildings is appealing, but repetitions and slo-mo
scenes of library users and other activities are not. The editing is
odd. Strange images interrupt the film. Unrelated, unidentified
documents, people, and scenes flash on the screen as if the original
material was inadvertently filmed over, and special effects are added
that do nothing to enhance the material. The audio is less
successful. Several interviewees are difficult to comprehend although
they speak English, because they speak too softly and swallow their
words, or because of strong, unfamiliar accents.

Filmakers’ advertising says, “The film is packed with provocative
ideas.” That is an understatement. For instance, Norwegian librarian
Erling Bergan says that the establishment of the state of Israel was
a bad idea, even if it was prompted by good intentions. Talking about
the ineffectiveness of taking up a collection to help rebuild
Palestinian libraries, allegedly destroyed in wanton fashion by the
Israeli military, he says it would be far better to persuade the
United States to stop aiding Israel. Isam al Khafaji, an Iraqi ex-
official, intimates that devastation of Iraqi libraries is the fault
of the U.S. military, who failed to protect them and still aren’t
protecting them.

At the end of the day, the film is neither about libraries nor Middle
East politics. It offers bits and pieces about preservation of rare
books and manuscripts; about the new Alexandrian library; and about
the terrible treatment of Iraqi and Palestinian libraries by the U.S.
and Israel, respectively. Biased comments about Middle East politics
are generally framed in a library context. Israel and the United
States are cast as villains who would, at best, ignore, or, at worst,
destroy, painstakingly built repositories of Arab culture.

Save and Burn teaches very little about libraries and librarianship,
even about Arabic libraries. It is, however, a good example of how
positional arguments can be framed as objective, socially responsible
scholarship.

Not recommended.

2004
Distributed by Filmakers Library, 124 East 40th Street, New York, NY
10016; 202-808-4980
Produced by Julian Samuel
Directed by Julian Samuel
DVD, color, 80 min.
College - Adult
Middle Eastern Studies
Copyright 2006. All Rights Reserved. Distributors may use select
segments for promotional purposes with full credit given to
Educational Media Reviews Online.
Educational Media Reviews Online - http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/emro/
search.html
Contact Information
Revised January 20, 2006

Mots-clés: Multiculturalisme, Culture
Save and burn [enregistrement vidéo] / by Julian Samuel. [Montréal,
Qué.] : Julian Samuel, c2004. 1 vidéodisque : son., coul. ; 12 cm.
MEDIA / AVDOC DVD 0662 vidéodisque
L'histoire des bibliothèques détruites ou saccagées par les guerres
et les envahisseurs vue par Julian Samuel. Des images superbes de la
bibliothèque d'Alexandrie, des entrevues avec des bibliothécaires de
différents pays qui ont assisté souvent impuissants à la destruction
de leur patrimoine culturel que sont les bibliothèques. Depuis les
débuts de l'histoire de l'humanité , brûler les bibliothèques est
l'acte premier de tout envahisseur et le 20 è siècle, vu par certains
historiens comme le "siècle du saccage de ces institutions du savoir"
n'est pas de reste, avec l'Allemagne nazie. La guerre en Irak, en est
un autre témoignage.

Screening: London: 3 May, 2007

http://www.palestinefilm.org/resources.asp?
aqu_sect=fil&film_type=y&aqu_id=92

Title:
Save and Burn
Director:
Julian Samuel
Year:
2004
Language:
English
Duration:
80 min

About the Documentary:

Generally considered guardians of culture, Save and Burn reveals how
libraries are subject to the ideologies of their time and place – and
not above them, as might be assumed. The film assays the
commercialization of libraries, the irresponsible weeding and closing
of libraries, the excesses of copyright law, but most of all, the
fact that the West has not recognized the Orient for much of its
cultural heritage. Historically, libraries have been used to promote
or inhibit democratic debate, and Samuel’s extraordinary interviews
with an immense range of senior librarians and collectors extends
here to a discussion of the impact of the Patriot Act on the politics
and surveillance which inflect libraries in the US today. This
strikingly shot and intellectually commanding work includes exquisite
footage of the Alexandrian Library, the Library of Trinity College,
Dublin, and Bromley House in Nottingham. The second half of the film
includes painful and expert accounts of the calculated destruction of
libraries and cultural infrastructure in Palestine and Iraq in recent
years by Israeli and US-led occupying forces.

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