Directed by Carl Hindmarch Written by Mark Hayhurst Release date July 2009 (2009-07) Initial release 11 July 2009 Screenplay Mark Hayhurst Narrator Jan Pearson | Produced by Mark Hayhurst Distributed by BBC Two Country United Kingdom Director Carl Hindmarch Producer Mark Hayhurst | |
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Cast Slavoj Žižek, Simon Schama, Ruth Scurr, Ed Stoppard, Marisa Linton Similar La Révolution française, The Man Who Crossed, The Reality of the Virtual, Marx Reloaded, Predictions of Fire | ||
Terror robespierre and the french revolution
Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution is a 2009 documentary broadcast on BBC Two in July 2009.
Contents
Terror robespierre and the french revolution part 2
Synopsis
In 1794, French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre produced the world's first defense of "state terror" - claiming that the road to virtue lay through political violence. This film combines drama, archive and documentary interviews to examine Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee of Public Safety - the powerful state machine at the heart of Revolutionary France. Contesting Robespierre's legacy is Slavoj Žižek, who argues that terror in the cause of virtue is justifiable, and Simon Schama, who believes the road from Robespierre ran straight to the gulag and the 20th-century concentration camp. The drama, based on original sources, follows the life-and-death politics of the Committee during "Year Two" of the new Republic. It was a year which gave birth to key features of the modern age: the thought crime; the belief that calculated acts of violence can perfect humanity; the notion that the interests of "mankind" can be placed above those of "man"; the use of policemen to enforce morals; and the use of denunciation as a political tool.