Author: [log in to unmask] (Allan Siegel) Date: 12/15/94 8:29 PM [Editor's note: This message was submitted to SCREEN-L by the "Author" noted above, and not by Jeremy Butler ([log in to unmask]).] >Author: Gloria Monti > >> Guy Debord was 37 during the French uprising of 1968, or the Chicago >> Democratic Convention, or the Chinese Cultural Revolution or lots of other >> moments in a year when a popular motto was, >> "Don't trust anyone over thirty!" > > I was thinking about this just the other day, wile reading a piece >on the anniversary of the Berkeley uprising. How can one still believe >the dictum, once they *are* over thirty? > >> > So why suicide at 62, was he >ill? > Was he trying to push the greatness that comes at the end of life? > > Why Christian Metz? Why Claire Johnston? Why do these great film >theorists take their lives? To follow on Gloria Monti's comments: Guy Debord was one of the true visionaries of the 60's. The conceptual language of the situationists and their description of a malignant transnational reality appeared in sharp contrast with the hackneyed rhetoric and analyses of old-guard leftists (in Europe and the United States). He understood the moment and envisioned the future. There was (and still is) a frightening delirium to the world he amagined AND ALSO MUCH BEAUTY. Contained within his life was a fragile, delicate balance. Allan Siegel