'Break Out' Leftist Films

["George Windau" <gwindau@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There are, perhaps, precendents or even cycles for the 'break out' of art,
literature and film art from the mindlessness of popular apolitical culture.
By that I mean, times of great artistic expression may precede or lag behind
a shift in the general consciousness but the 'break out' takes certain
symbolic forms with embedded messages such that only years later can we say
that a film, for example, was an attempt at a 'leftist break out'.

For example, the film 'Spartacus' was such an attempt to 'break out' of the
Hollywood black-lists of the McCarthy era. Dalton Trumbo was the
screenwriter (black listed and forced into exhile in Mexico) and while the
film 'seems to be' about a distant time and about a distant political issue
(namely slavery in the Roman Empire), one can view this film now and see so
much more of the hidden content and subtle resistance (the slaves revolt and
defeat Roman Legions, very heavy!). The film was designed to make money but
it was also intended to be some form of symbolic resistance against
McCarthyism.

We may be in such a time period where 'leftist' screenwriters are searching
for the palatable equivalent of 'Spartacus'.  The film must be marketable,
it probably needs to be about a distant time and a seemingly 'resolved'
political issue while at the same time containing hidden tidbits of relevant
'current' resistance that will not be noticed by the bonehead critics of our
day (. . . while these tidbits of resistance will indeed be recognized by
intellectuals of the future as our time period's equivalent of 'Spartacus').

For example, when can we see a film that is either openly or sublimely
critical of the Reagan years?  How many years must pass before artists and
intellectuals have the courage to piss on Ronald Reagan's legacy? When can
we see a film about the great Cold War where the characters are openly
pro-Soviet?  How about a film about the great Cuban Missile Crisis from the
perspective of Cubans?  Now this opens a whole can of worms, you see,
because it 'humanizes' the cartoon characters (Boris Badanov and Natashya
sterotypes which prevail in Cold War films) of the Cold War. This
'humanization' of America's adversaries in the Cold War is simply not
allowed, permitted or tollerated to any degree by the high priests of
Hollywood.  The Soviet Union has collapsed but the social ideology of
dehumanization of the 'bad guys' in the great Cold War cannot be abandoned
in popular culture.  Capitalism needs this and Hollywood dares not
deconstruct this dehumanization propaganda.

How about a film about the American Anti-Vietnam War Movement that points
out the simple fact that if America had listened to the peace hippies there
would be a lot fewer names on that great Vietnam War Memorial? How about a
film that points out this simple, basic and irrefutable fact? No, it is not
allowed because the ruling class wants to nurture the myth that every name
on that War Memorial needs to be there. They need this post-traumatic
propaganda ideology to weave each death into some sort of patriotic myth
hysteria. They all died for their country (. . . and that is the end of the
discourse about the Vietnam War). Hollywood can barely admit that there were
a few American citizens in the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, but these people,
well-meaning as they were, were some how misguided.  That is the political
line of Hollywood.

You see, history is still a controversial subject to Hollywood, and they are
not prepared to admit that there were real, flesh-and-blood people, who
opposed the Vietnam War and who chose the other side in the Cold War.

It remains to be seen exactly what artistic or symbolic form the 'leftist
political break-out' will take.  Some of my friends think that the film "The
Cradle Will Rock" is some kind of candy-assed attempt at this break-out, but
I think it is a flop.  Why? Because if the break-out film does not release a
tidal wave of pent-up artistic resistance against censorship (as with the
'Spartacus' film) then it simply has done nothing more than made a few
dollars and tossed out a few political platitudes. Besides, "The Cradle Will
Rock" is about political/ideological censorship as if it were a bygone
historical issue, which it is not. It does not really challenge current
thinking on the subject of censorship nor does it symbolically challenge any
part of the current mythology of our time period. The idea that 'politics is
boring and unmarketable' is the current form of ideological censorship and
this is never challenged by "Cradle". Thus, 'break out' films liberate the
film-makers, perhaps more-so than they educate/stimulate the audiences.

Some of the contributors to this discussion point out that films, like
cameleons, change their message depending upon the time period in which they
are viewed. I would submit that if you watch a film in one time period and
get one message, while watching it again in another time period (when you
are older) and get or see a deeper message, well comrades, that is a damn
good film ( . . . and it may mean that the deeper message was always there
even though you never caught it years ago). In fact, I suspect that this is
the only way 'leftists' can make films which sell tickets while still
remaining true to their principles.

If the films 'Matrix' and 'Fight Club' are these types of films, I must say
that I just don't see it yet. I furthermore doubt that any 'aging' period
for these films will release the hidden, deeper, political messages. I just
don't think that the film-makes of these movies are that sophisticated, but
that is just my opinion.

Perhaps, "Fight Club" can be considered to be some sort of artistic
commentary on 'Late Capitalism' and the types of alienated people it can
produce. Yet we have to speak truthfully and say that it is the film-makers
(screenwriters, _et_al_) who appear to be the most-alienated, not the
characters in the film, for they do not appear to be real people in
real-life situations. No matter what the plot devices are, this is a formal
diatribe against the 'touchy-feely' ideologies and pasttimes of today. This
'anti-touchy-feely' reaction is definitely a focus of the Patriot Movements
and the Neo-Nazi Movement in America today (I can provide extensive
documentation for this statement from the anti-fascist struggles going on
right now). It does not absolve the screenwriters for their diatribe when
the main character comes to his senses and overcomes his alter ego. This
'psychological epiphany' plot device is the escape hatch for the
film-makers, it is their moral disclaimer for throwing fascist garbage at
the audience ( . . . granted that they did not portray anti-racism as a
'bleeding heart' issue. So they omit racism from the garbage that they threw
at us, big deal!). Can we all see this, or am I assuming too much here?

Adios
George
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