"Antonio Negri:

A Revolt That Never Ends"

A documentary about Toni Negri entitled "Antonio Negri: A Revolt that Never Ends" is now available via the collaborative video network V2V.

The film was made for Arte and to my knowledge is the first english-language film to recount Italy's recent revolutionary history; from Potere Operaia and the long '68 (1968-77) to autonomia operaia. Nice archival material is used, and there is an attempt to articulate the development of Negri's ideas. Whilst appreciating the effort invested by the film-makers, some criticisms must be mentioned.Firstly it succumbs to the temptation to fetichise Negri as an individual and a personality. It is notable that other important figures are essentially effaced: Bologna, Marrazzi, Virno, Dalla Costa, Fortunati, Mezzandra etc etc. Brief interviews with Bifo and Pino Tripodi, and a slightly longer contribution Alisa Del Re are included. And that is only the theoretical plain. Grassroots militants are simply invisible, unless present to say kind things about Toni. Reducing the complex history of a movement to a figurehead is to undermine intelligibility of the collective agency which made it. Secondly this personalization around Negri is precisely the mechanism employed by the state to process him in the media-political-justice apparatus. It was by pedestalizing him that they could claim that Negri was a "cattivo maestro", simultaneously head of the Red Brigades and autonomia operaia. The second part focuses on his time in Paris, his relationship with Felix Guattari and others.

This same weakness repeats itself in the elaboration of the theses currently proposed by Hardt & Negri, where considerable attention is given to the notion of the 'multitude' and to the rejection of traditional forms of representation. Irony or paradox then that protagonists presented acting politically are drawn uniquely from one faction (such Luca Casarini, ex -leader of the disobbedienti) heavily criticised by libertarian autonomists and just about everyone else for their periodic attempts to hegemonise the movement. In defense of the this documentary it could be argued that there is a general failure amongst filmmakers to develop a visual language capable of conveying polyphonic representation capable of communicating the richness of difference.

Obviously the limitations of television formats impose heavy constraints both narratively and in terms of detail. Unfortunately it will deepen the trend set off by Empire to take Negri as the sole representative of the class-compositionist/autonomist tradition, haemorrhaging the contributions made by thinkers who have forged other paths path. The subtle and important questions (the relationship with feminism, the step from Potere Operaio to autonomoia operaia etc) are glossed over which will leave those already familiar with the italian movements dissatisfied. But as an introduction to spark discussion it is a useful tool notwithstanding its hagiographic and formal defects.

Downloading the video

V2V provides links to download the file using bit torrent, edonkey/emule and gnutella clients. Bit Torrrent is the fastest and you can get the client here:
http://www.bittorrent.com/

The file is encoded using the non-proprietary Ogg-Theora Format. In order to play the movie, the player video lan client is recommended, as it does not require installation of any additional codecs.

V2V is a network dedicated to the encoding and sharing of video in non-proprietary formats.