Projeter le réel. Notes sur l’attitude critique inhérente à la notion de réalisme, à partir du film Chung Kuo, Cina, de Michelangelo Antonioni

Chung Kuo, Cina, a documentary film by Antonioni, aroused fierce criticisms both in China and in Europe when it was released in 1973. While their positions differed in content, and even contradicted one another, they all converge on a conceptual core in relation to the notion of realism, understood in a Marxian sense as critical representation of reality. Yet by refusing to grant a coherent and essentialist meaning to the images, Chung Kuo, Cina problematizes the presuppositions of such an understanding of realism. In this way, the film anticipates some of its intrinsic difficulties and inaugurates a new form of criticism.