“Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible”Grands soirs & petits matins [May Days] (William Klein, 1978)
May
24
1968
Sorbonne students discussing the political situation with an elderly Parisian man. DPs: William Klein & Bernard Lutic.
– May 68 slogan
“Soyez réalistes, demandez l'impossible”Grands soirs & petits matins [May Days] (William Klein, 1978)
May
24
1968
Sorbonne students discussing the political situation with an elderly Parisian man. DPs: William Klein & Bernard Lutic.
– May 68 slogan
“Convert all Parisian universities into reception centres for the revolutionary youth of the whole world.”Grands soirs & petits matins [May Days] (William Klein, 1978)
Jun
6
National Higher Education Day
Students discussing at the Sorbonne. DPs: William Klein & Bernard Lutic.
A ripple went through France in the early months of 1968. It started when the Communist and socialist party joined forces in an attempt to remove President De Gaulle from office. A month later, students at Nanterre (a Parisian university) teamed up with poets, musicians and small leftist groups to discuss class discrimination and political bureaucracy on campus. The meeting was peacefully disassembled but tensions remained. In May, Sorbonne students stood up for Nanterre, by then shut down. Then, police invaded the university and 20 000 stood up against the police.
– student proposal
Somewhere in that crowd were those whose interest went beyond the main spectacle: the toppling of the new ancien regime. A #JeanRouchian anthropologist of sorts, artist, photographer and filmmaker William Klein pushes the eye through the masses. But it's also his eye; each frame is a Klein. However, we see not a documentary. Sound is asynchronous. Suddenly, it's night and flames lick the black sky. When bricks fly, frames follow. And then… the end.