The 35mm revolution: Political violence and resistance in film, from arthouse to grindhouse, 1960-1990edited by Andrew Nett and Sam Dahan, PM Press, 384 pages, $29.95
35mm revolution ‘ is the rare political history that can refuse to resolve contradictions without giving the impression of fraud. Some of the films examined are dedicated to depicting political violence (some of the filmmakers have experience as left-wing or partisan militants, or have worked closely with them); ), and other films are depicted with irony. The violence of these photographs can provoke joy or doubt, catharsis or analysis. Filmed violence can be a call to real violence, a substitute for violence, a vaccine against violence, a dream of violence, and more than one at a time. Often there is. The roots of these conflicts are deeper and sadder. It’s a conflicting magnetism, either propaganda or despair, but few political films resist it.
The book’s physical form leans into pulpy joy and even nostalgia. Edited by Andrew Nette and Samm Deighan. Dahan is a film historian, and Nett co-edited several thick, colorful, and entertaining books about the radical currents in pulp and genre paperbacks. Similar to previous Nette volumes, rotate Long reflective essays alternate with quick hits that you can read during your breaks. Like those books rotate is full of cool Cold War-era art. Still photos, set photos, lobby cards, and movie posters often feature girls with sunglasses and guns. The pages are nice and thick, and the short essays are printed on maroon pages that appear to have frayed edges.
Against these sensual pleasures is set a chastening narrative that the book’s historical scope suggests. It begins in the post-Stalin era, ends just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and covers the period when countless colonies gained independence. It would be a gross oversimplification to say that years of hope and fear are followed by years of calculation. But that allegory, or atmosphere, is also enhanced in that the book does not follow a perfect chronology. The final colonial struggle depicted on film in this book takes place in Northern Ireland, and the film’s central concern is a kind of liberation that cannot be won by force. “The relationship between men and women is exactly the same as the relationship between England and Ireland.” Maeve (1981) argue. “You’re occupying us like an army.” The final chapter’s focus on feminism means: born in the flames (1983) is also coming to an end. A story of feminist rebellion in a socialist future, it’s a post-punk sci-fi vision that feels more hopeful than its synopsis suggests. born in the flames As the title suggests, this is what victory looks like: emerging into a newly created world and understanding that it is still just a world and one must strive within it. It’s about.
rotate Arguing that film and political movements are intertwined across borders, it covers films from six continents. Many of the essays begin with a quick setting, engulfing Americans in Bolivian politics in the late ’60s or the Italian lead years. Three long essays stand out. Christos Tsiolkas offers a personal meditation on the relationship between family and class, queer identity, political resistance and historical memory, and Costa-Gavras’s 1969 Greek thriller. Z. Uday Bhatia traces the rise and fall of a ‘reluctant gangster’ in Hindi cinema. From the gangster as a man dominated by his past and “helpless before fate” to the “unrepentant murderer with no family.” There is no God, no purpose,” and no past. And Matthew Kowalski focuses on Yugoslavia’s Black Wave. Their films sometimes criticized the cult of Josip Broz Tito and challenged the heroic myth of World War II Yugoslav partisan anti-Nazi fighters.
What makes the latter essay stand out is that it shows the filmmakers testing the limits of a communist regime. Although the communist regime defined itself as more liberal than the repressive Soviet Union, it used state power to cleanse its history and enforce taboos. Kowalski also points to rare doubts about the artists’ political acumen. At the end, he reflects on how the Black Wave films did not capture Yugoslavia’s past, but how they failed to foresee its future. While fighting Titoism and “red fascism,” they overlooked the threat of violent ethno-nationalism.
one of rotateThe subtle theme of is the discovery of still important truths within history and past stories. hamlet In Poland, oresteia Greece in the 20th century. Italian cinema spawned an entire subgenre of “Zapata Westerns” featuring Mexico’s revolutionary fight against colonizers and greedy capitalists. Lee Broughton argues that these filmmakers deliberately used other countries’ pasts to reflect class and regional divisions in Italy, anti-colonial struggles around the world, and revolts against American hegemony. are. Equally important are the thrills: the sound of rifle fire, the beating of hooves, the pounding titles (Yo Soy La Revolution; Duck, you sucker!), the chest is surrounded by a bandolier. Italian studios churned out these films because they sold.
rotate He lives by the audience’s fundamental desires. The Internet has found an unexpected angle on the disturbingly large subgenre of Patty Hearst movies. All of these films were made within approximately a decade of Hearst’s kidnapping, involvement in the kidnapper’s crimes, and his conviction. She’s sexy because she carries a gun and is dangerous. But in films that fetishize her rape (judging by the description here), she is portrayed as damaged and depraved. It’s impossible to write about violent movies without recognizing the disingenuous way in which many movies enjoy watching victims suffer. Some might argue that close-ups of the faces of suffering people, with the camera pointing out all the bruises, evoke sympathy. On the other hand, that close-up is what the torturer wants to see.
rotate The question of whether films about violence can avoid glorifying violence is only temporarily resolved, and not always convincingly. Many of these movies are cool, and cool because they depict sympathetic characters wielding power. There’s a fascinating, undeveloped little moment at the beginning of the book, where Nette says something that most viewers will notice about Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 classic. battle of algiers: Colonel Mathieu, a “warrior and intellectual” who leads the French army and ideologically justifies torture as a service to the colonial state, is not “completely unsympathetic.” He is as fascinating as his Algerian counterpart, Ali La Pointe, who offers a similarly uncompromising defense against anti-colonial terror.
good, why Is Colonel Mathieu that attractive? Like La Pointe, he is a precarious mixture of power and weakness. That weakness (he will lose, and he can see glimpses of it) allows him to faint into power. He is intelligent and insightful. He can be both devoted and sarcastic. He’s the type of person who can’t be beat in movies. What a propaganda coup by the Algerian government to fund this film! What will happen to Algerians if they lose? this man?
algiers is a smart and fearless film. Nett points out that the film has been used as a recruitment and training tool by the Black Panthers, the Provisional IRA, and Palestinian and Kashmiri organizations, and that it was shown at the Pentagon in 2003. The reason is exactly what you’re thinking. I’m not sure if any of these movies were inspired by exactly what their creators wanted. blood of the condor (1969) prompted Bolivia to expel the American Peace Corps after the film condemned forced sterilization by Americans. Essay by Michael A. Gonzalez ghost sitting by the door (1973) ends with a long list of black artists the film cites as influences, but no political leaders.
“Does art change anything?” This is one of those questions that tends to resort to propaganda and nihilism. This is a subset of “Has anything changed?” rotate There are many examples on different aspects of this issue. Violence that has achieved some semblance of a goal, violence that has failed, and violence that has provoked a nation tilted between the left and the right to reject whichever side was responsible for killing large numbers of civilians.
rotate They are many different sides: extremists and critics, cheerful pulp enthusiasts and thoughtful appreciators of complex ideas. It’s not vague. It does not seek “balance”. At the same time, Nette and Dahan seem to believe that it is not their place to provide definitive answers to the questions these films raise. I respect books that know their limits.
