Political cinema

 ( Cinema ) 

Political cinema, in the narrow sense, refers to cinema products that portray events or social conditions, either current or historical, through a partisan perspective, with the intent of informing or Agitprop the spectator.

Political cinema exists in different forms, such as documentary film, , , experimental films, and even animated cartoons.

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Concept In the narrow sense of the term, political cinema refers to films that do not hide their political stance. In this sense, they differ from other films not because they are political, but because of the way in which their politics is presented. As such, a film does not necessarily have to be pure Propaganda film to be considered 'political cinema'.

The broader meaning of 'political cinema' is argued to be that "all films are political;"Zimmer, Christian, and Lee Leggett. 1974. "All Films Are Political." SubStance 3(9):123–36. . .Wayne, Mike. 2001. Political Film: The Dialectics of Third Cinema. London: Pluto Press. p. 1. even films that are ostensibly 'apolitical' and Escapist fiction, merely promising 'entertainment' as an escape from everyday life, can be understood as fulfilling a political function. The authorities in Nazi Germany, for instance, knew this very well and organized a large production of deliberately escapist films. In other 'entertainment' films, such as westerns, the ideological bias is evident in the distortion of historical reality. A "classical" western would rarely portray black cowboys, although there were a great many of them in the American frontier. Hollywood film cinema, which can be understood as the dominant industry of cinema, was often accused of misrepresenting black, female, gay, and working-class people. More fundamentally, not only are the contents of individual films political, but the institution of cinema itself can also be taken as political as well. A huge number of people congregate, not to act together or to talk to each other, but to sit silently, after having paid for it, to be spectators separated from each other. Guy Debord, a critic of the 'society of the spectacle', for whom "separation is the alpha and omega of the spectacle," was therefore also violently opposed to cinema, even though he would make several films portraying his ideas.

In order to differentiate between the narrow and broad notions of 'political cinema', film scholar Ewa Mazierska suggested to divide all such films into the categories of conformist or oppositional and marked or unmarked:Mazierska, Ewa. 2014. " Introduction: Marking Political Cinema." Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 55(1):35–44. .

• Conformist films "accept the political status quo;" while oppositional films reject it.
• Marked political films are willing to reveal to their viewers the party/ideology "they serve"; while unmarked films prefer to hide it.

From this point of view, it is the oppositional and marked political films that the most viewers regard as 'political', as discussions about politics in film typically single out these two categories.

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History

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Cinema, World War I and its aftermath Before World War I French cinema had a big share of the world market. Hollywood used the collapse of the French production to establish its hegemony. Ever since it has dominated world film production not only economically but has transformed cinema into a means to disseminate American values.

In Germany the Universum Film AG, better known as UFA, was founded to counter the perceived dominance of American propaganda. During the Weimar Republic many films about Frederick II of Prussia had a conservative nationalistic agenda, as Siegfried Kracauer and other film critics noted.

Communists like Willi Münzenberg saw the Russian cinema as a model of political cinema. Soviet films by Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov and others combined a partisan view of the bolshevist regime with artistic innovation which also appealed to western audiences.

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National Socialism Leni Riefenstahl has never been able or willing to face her responsibility as a chief propagandist for National-Socialism, i.e., Nazism. Almost unlimited resources and her undeniable talent led to results, which, despite their hideous aims, still fascinate some aficionados of film. While there is much controversy around her work, it is generally accepted that Riefenstahl's main commitment was to filmmaking, rather than to the Nazi Party. Proof of this might be seen by the portrayal of Jesse Owens' victory in her film about the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin, Olympia (1938), and in her later work, mostly on her photographic expeditions to Africa.

The same is certainly not true of the violent anti-Semitic films of Fritz Hippler. Other Nazi political films made propaganda for so-called euthanasia.

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Third Cinema

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Recent films Especially in the last decades of the 20th century, many filmmakers considered focusing on remembrance of and reflection upon major collective crimes such as the Holocaust, slavery and disasters such as the Chernobyl disaster to be their political and moral duty.

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Globalization and related world issues Political cinema of the 21st century seems to focus on controversial topics such as globalization, AIDS, and other health-care concerns, issues pertaining to the environment, such as world energy resources and consumption and climate change, and other complex matters pertaining to discrimination, capitalism, terrorism, war, peace, religious and related forms of intolerance, and civil and political rights, as well as other human rights.

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Forms The form has always been an important concern for political filmmakers. While some, like pioneering Lionel Rogosin, argued that radical films, in order to liberate the imagination of the spectator, have to break not only with the content but also with the form of Dominant cinema, the falsely reassuring clichés and stereotypes of conventional narrative film making, other directors such as Francesco Rosi, Costa Gavras, Ken Loach, Oliver Stone, Spike Lee or Lina Wertmüller preferred to work within mainstream cinema to reach a wider audience.

The subversive tradition dates back at least to the French avant-garde of the 1920s. Even in his more conventional films Luis Buñuel stuck to the spirit of outright revolt of L'Âge d'or. The bourgeoisie had to be expropriated and all its values destroyed, the surrealists believed. This spirit of revolt is also present in all films of Jean Vigo.

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Selected filmography

The following is a listing of notable political films or political films made by notable directors:

+ Political filmography
The Birth of a Nation	1915	D. W. Griffith	United States	Feature	" Birth of a Nation." filmsite.org. Griffith's highly controversial film, which glorifies the Ku Klux Klan, is widely considered to be a masterpiece due to its impact on the development of cinema. The basic structure consists of a description of an idealized lost idyll ("the Old South"), the disruption of this order during reconstruction post-Civil War, and the restoration of white supremacy, which is shown a legitimate goal that unites the former enemies. In the end, the leader of the KKK secures his private happiness too and the alleged idyll is restored.
Stachka ( Strike)	1925	Sergei Eisenstein	Soviet Union	Feature
Bronenosets Potyomkin ( Battleship Potemkin)	1925	Sergei Eisenstein	Soviet Union	Feature
Padenie dinastii Romanovykh ( The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty)	1927	Esfir Shub	Soviet Union	Feature
Chelovek s kino-apparatom ( Man with a Movie Camera)	1929	Dziga Vertov	Soviet Union	Documentary
Mädchen in Uniform ( Girls in Uniform)	1931	Leontine Sagan	Weimar Republic	Feature
Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt? ( To Whom Does the World Belong?)	1932	Slatan Dudow	Weimar Republic	Feature
Misère au Borinage ( Penury in the Borinage)	1934	Joris Ivens and Henri Storck	Belgium	Short documentary	Militant film about the misery of Belgian coal miners. Cf. Les Enfants du borinage: Lettre à Henri Storck, Director: Patric Jean, 2000.
Triumph des Willens ( Triumph of the Will)	1935	Leni Reifenstahl	Nazi Germany	Propaganda	Technically brilliant propaganda film about the Reichsparteitag in Nuremberg 1934.
Der ewige Jude. Ein Filmbeitrag zum Weltjudentum ( The Eternal Jew)	1940	Fritz Hippler	Nazi Germany	Propaganda	Virulently Antisemitism.
Strange Victory	1948	Leo Hurwitz	East Germany	Documentary	"He creates the image of an America that is complacent in its victory, prosperity and racism; the narrator warns: 'Nigger, kike, wop, take my advice and accept the facts – the world is already arranged for you' " (Barsam).
Salt of the Earth	1954	Herbert Biberman	United States	Feature	Legendary documentary feature film about a Strike action in New Mexico. Not only do the workers have to fight against the company, but also their women against their macho attitude in order to be "allowed" to support them fully.
Ernst Thälmann – Sohn seiner Klasse ( Ernst Thälmann – Son of his Class)	1954	East Germany	Kurt Maetzig	Feature	Socialist realism – German Democratic Republic style.
Ernst Thälmann – Führer seiner Klasse ( Ernst Thälmann – Leader of his Class)	1955	East Germany	Kurt Maetzig	Feature	Socialist realism – German Democratic Republic style.
On the Bowery	1956	Lionel Rogosin	United States	Docufiction	An important film about alcoholism and the homeless in New York City.
The Cool World	1964	Shirley Clarke	United States	Feature	Focuses on the cruel reality of street life in the U.S.
Obyknovennyy fashizm ( Ordinary Fascism)	1965	Mikhail Romm	Soviet Union	Documentary
La battaglia di Algeri ( The Battle of Algiers)	1966	Gillo Pontecorvo	Italy Algeria	Feature
Entranced Earth ( Entranced Earth)	1967	Glauber Rocha	Brazil	Feature	(2014). 9780810880368, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 9780810880368
( The Chinese, or, rather, in the Chinese manner: a film in the making)	1967	Jean-Luc Godard	France	Feature
Titicut Follies	1967	Frederick Wiseman	United States	Documentary	Wiseman shows the inhumane conditions at the Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts. The film was banned in the United States for over two decades.
La hora de los hornos ( The Hour of the Furnaces)	1968	Fernando Solanas	Argentina	Feature
In the Year of the Pig	1968	Emile de Antonio	United States	Documentary	A compilation film about the Vietnam War.
Teorema ( Theorem)	1968	Pier Paolo Pasolini	Italy	Feature	The power of desire disrupts a rich family.
if....	1968	Lindsay Anderson	United Kingdom	Feature
Z	1969	Costa-Gavras	Algeria/France	Feature
Yawar Mallku ( Blood of the Condor)	1969	Jorge Sanjinés	Bolivia	Feature
Burn! ( Queimada)	1969	Gillo Pontecorvo	Italy/France	Feature
Salesman	1969	Albert and David Maysles Charlotte Zwerin	United States	Documentary	Four men try to sell the Bible; one of the most important films of direct cinema.
Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto ( Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion)	1970	Elio Petri	Italy	Feature
Le Chagrin et la Pitié ( The Sorrow and the Pity)	1970	Marcel Ophüls	France West Germany Switzerland	Documentary	Politically a pathbreaking documentary about collaboration in France during the German occupation.
Ghoroub wa Shorouq ( Sunset and Sunrise)	1970	Kamal El Sheikh	Egypt	Feature
Warum läuft Herr R. Amok? ( Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?)	1970	Rainer Werner Fassbinder	West Germany	Feature	Concerns the humiliating madness of ordinary life.
Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt ( It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives)	1971	Rosa von Praunheim	Germany	Documentary	This film started the second gay movement in Germany.
Wanda	1971	Barbara Loden	United States	Feature
La classe operaia va in paradiso ( The Working Class Goes to Heaven)	1971	Elio Petri	Italy	Feature
Μέρες του '36 ( Days of '36)	1972	Theo Angelopoulos	Greece	Feature
Il Caso Mattei ( The Mattei Affair)	1972	Francesco Rosi	Italy	Feature
Sambizanga	1972	Sarah Maldoror	Democratic Republic of the Congo	Feature	Follows the liberation movement in Angola.
La Société du Spectacle ( The Society of the Spectacle)	1974	Guy Debord	France	Documentary
( Ali: Fear Eats the Soul)	1974	Rainer Werner Fassbinder	West Germany	Feature
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles ( Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels)	1975	Chantal Akerman	Belgium France	Feature	(2012). 9781444396430 . ISBN 9781444396430
Karnak	1975	Ali Badrakhan	Egypt	Feature
Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma ( Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom)	1975	Pier Paolo Pasolini	Italy France	Feature
All the President's Men	1976	Alan J. Pakula	United States	Feature
Harlan County, USA	1976	Barbara Kopple	United States	Documentary
Yarınsız Adam ( The Man Without Tomorrow)	1977	Remzi Aydın Jöntürk	Turkey	Feature
Satılmış Adam ( The Sold Man)	1977	Remzi Aydın Jöntürk	Turkey	Feature
Yıkılmayan Adam ( The Indestructible Man)	1978	Remzi Aydın Jöntürk	Turkey	Feature
Baara ( Work)	1978	Souleymane Cissé	Mali	Feature
Reds	1981	Warren Beatty	United States	Feature
The Wave	1981	Alex Grasshoff	United States	Feature
Yol ( The Road)	1982	Şerif Gören Yılmaz Güney	Turkey	Feature
	1984	Greta Schiller	United States	Documentary
Nineteen Eighty-Four	1984	Michael Radford	United Kingdom	Feature
Shoah	1985	Claude Lanzmann	France	Documentary
Camp de Thiaroye ( The Camp of Thiaroye)	1988	Ousmane Sembene Thierno Faty Sow	Senegal	Feature
American Dream	1990	Barbara Kopple	United States United Kingdom	Documentary
JFK	1991	Oliver Stone	United States	Feature
In the Name of the Father	1993	Jim Sheridan	United States	Feature
Land and Freedom	1995	Ken Loach	United Kingdom Spain Germany Italy France	Feature
Lumumba	2000	Raoul Peck	France Germany Belgium Haiti	Feature	A moving and very intelligent poetical reflection on the presence of apparently bygone hopes and disasters.
Intimacy	2001	Patrice Chéreau	France United Kingdom Germany Italy	Feature	Intense erotic film on solitude, alienated sexuality and an impossible love.
Jang Aur Aman ( War and Peace)	2002	Anand Patwardhan	India	Documentary	On nuclear madness in India and Pakistan and their efforts to imitate Big Brother, USA.
Gujarat: A Laboratory of Hindu Rashtra, Fascism	2003	Suma Josson	India	Documentary
Fahrenheit 9/11	2004	Michael Moore	United States	Documentary
Social Genocide ( Social Genocide)	2004	Fernando Solanas	Argentina	Documentary	A passionately partisan survey of the history of neoliberalism in Argentina.
Darwin's Nightmare	2004	Hubert Sauper	Austria France Belgium	Documentary	Using the effect of fishing the Nile perch in Tanzania's Lake Victoria as an example, Sauper shows how Africa functions today, how famine, wars and aids, European "aid" and the ruthless plundering of African resources are connected.
500 Years Later	2005	Owen Alik Shahadah	United Kingdom United States	Documentary	An African American documentary on race and the social impact of slavery.
Syriana	2005	Stephen Gaghan	United States	Feature
The Road to Guantánamo	2006	Michael Winterbottom Mat Whitecross	United Kingdom	Docudrama
The Last Communist	2006	Amir Muhammad	Malaysia	Documentary	Documentary film based on the autobiography of Chin Peng, born in 1924, the last chairman of the forbidden Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) but this is not a conventional biographical film. Key elements in the film are the songs Hardesh Singh composed for the occasion. This is an often funny film about a difficult chapter in Malaysian history which is still taboo "back home".
The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez	2006	Heidi Specogna	Switzerland	Documentary
An Inconvenient Truth	2006	Davis Guggenheim	United States	Documentary
Persepolis	2007	Marjane Satrapi Vincent Paronnaud	France Iran	Feature	Animation biographical film based on the graphic novel of the same name.
Unrepentant: Kevin Annett and Canada's Genocide	2006	Louie Lawless	Canada	Documentary	Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust: The Untold Story of the Aboriginal Genocide . Hidden from History.org. Accessed 4 March 2009.
Sicko	2007	Michael Moore	United States	Documentary
What Would Jesus Buy	2007	Morgan Spurlock	United States	Documentary
The World Without US	2008	Mitch Anderson and Jason J. Tomaric	United States	Documentary	Released in 2008, the documentary explores what might happen if the United States were to leave the international arena, rescind its global reach and become an isolationist nation for the first time since the early 20th century.Trailer and "About the film" at
Religulous	2008	Larry Charles	United States	Documentary
Milk	2008	Gus Van Sant	United States	Feature
	2009	Michael Moore	United States	Documentary
	2009	Nicolas Rossier David Ridgen	United States	Documentary
The Yes Men Fix the World	2009	Andy Bichlbaum Mike Bonanno Kurt Engfehr	United States	Documentary
Motherland	2010	Owen Alik Shahadah	United States	Documentary	An African documentary on the history and contemporary state of Africa and African people.
The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975	2011	Göran Hugo Olsson	Sweden	Documentary
The Ides of March	2011	George Clooney	United States	Feature
ToryBoy The Movie	2011	John Walsh	United Kingdom	Documentary
	2012	Dinesh D'Souza	United States	Documentary
No	2012	Pablo Larraín	Chile France United States	Feature
The Pervert's Guide to Ideology	2012	Sophie Fiennes	United Kingdom	Documentary	with Slavoj Žižek
	2014	Dinesh D'Souza John Sullivan	United States	Documentary
Spotlight	2015	Tom McCarthy	United States	Feature
	2017	Dinesh D'Souza Bruce Schooley	United States	Documentary
The Death of Stalin	2017	Armando Iannucci	United Kingdom France Belgium	Feature
Death of a Nation	2018	Dinesh D'Souza Bruce Schooley	United States	Documentary
Fahrenheit 11/9	2018	Michael Moore	United States	Documentary
Vice	2018	Adam McKay	United States	Feature
Friend of the World	2020	Brian Patrick Butler	United States	Feature
The Hunt	2020	Craig Zobel	United States	Feature
Infidel	2020	Cyrus Nowrasteh	United States	Feature
Trump Card	2020	Dinesh D'Souza Debbie D'Souza Bruce Schooley	United States	Documentary
Absolute Proof	2021	Brannon Howse Mike Lindell	United States	Documentary
Don't Look Up	2021	Adam McKay	United States	Feature
2000 Mules	2022	Dinesh D'Souza	United States	Documentary
Hemet, or the Landlady Don't Drink Tea	2023	Tony Olmos	United States	Feature

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See also

• Political films category
• Cultural industry
• African cinema
• Documentary film
• List of films dealing with Anarchism
• Social criticism
• Women's cinema

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Bibliography

• Baldwin, James. 1976 2000. The Devil Finds Work. New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks (Dell Publishing). .
• Erik Barnouw. 1993. Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford UP. . (A useful introduction.)
• Richard Barsam 2003. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. . (Book and CD-ROM eds.)
• Daressa, Larry. 2008 May 10. " The Political Film and Its Audience in the Digital Age: Newsreel at Forty And Zero." California Newsreel.
• Rosenbaum, Jonathan. 1997. Movies as Politics. University of California Press. .
• Unterburger, Amy L., ed. 1999. The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia: Women on the Other Side of the Camera. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. .
• Amos Vogel. 2006. Film as a Subversive Art. London: CT Editions. .
• Zaniello, Tom. 2003. Working Stiffs, Union Maids, Reds, and Riffraff: An Expanded Guide to Films about Labor. Cornell University Press.

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External links

• Documentary Is Never Neutral
• Cinema Politica

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