The Internationale
Pete Seeger, Billy Bragg, Peter Miller (Director, Producer), Arturo Toscanini (Conductor), Jan Peerce (Performer), Burgess Meredith (Narrator), May Sarton (Screenwriter), Alexander Hammid (Director), Irving Lerner (Producer), NBC Symphony Orchestra (Performer), Peter Miller Films, Crawford Communications, Inc, First Run Features (Firm)
This documentary film recreates the history, memory, and meanings of a song that has shaped the imagination and practice of internationalism for over a century and whose continuing popularity is a sign of "globalization from below." Eugène Pottier wrote the original French verses in the aftermath of the Paris Commune in 1871, and seventeen years later Pierre Degeyter put the words to music. A remarkable collection of sound recordings, film footage, and still images trace how the song has changed, developed, and sometimes stagnated in specific historical and political contexts. The contested meanings of the song are discussed, along with its use in a globalizing world shaped by migration, diaspora, and multi-national activism, to negotiate rather than suppress differences--of gender, ethnicity, and sexuality--that compose our common humanity
DVD Video, English, 2006, ©2000
Peter Miller Films : Distributed by First Run Features, [New York, NY], 2006, ©2000