The Last Word: Hatewatch’s 4th Annual Smackdown Awards
by Mark Potok
Southern Poverty Law Center
A skirt-chasing neo-Nazi huffs about the sexual mores of “the Jews.” An infamous Fox News personality predicts that one quarter of Americans will be starving come New Year’s Day. A Southern heritage group initiates a festive commemoration of the war that left more Americans dead than any other. A woman who took a walking tour of Auschwitz six decades after the Nazis ran it describes it as a luxurious and friendly work camp. All ’round, it’s been quite a year on the domestic radical right, and our intrepid staffers have had quite a time keeping up with it all. But as we do every year, we’ve hiked up our pants, put on our wading boots, and plunged into the sewers in an effort to bring you a hair-raising assortment of the very worst of the radical right in 2010. Here, with apologies to Keith Olbermann, is a countdown of the list dredged up by Hatewatch’s 4th Annual Smackdown Awards Committee:
To Read the List
Showing posts with label NAZI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NAZI. Show all posts
Monday, December 27, 2010
Monday, December 06, 2010
Sam Mithani: The Hollywood Left -- Cinematic Art and Activism in the 1930s
THE HOLLYWOOD LEFT: CINEMATIC ART AND ACTIVISM IN THE 1930s
by Sam Mithani
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CINEMA-TELEVISION—CRITICAL STUDIES)
December 2007
ABSTRACT
The dissertation re-examines the Thirties in its artistic, cultural and political
specificity to place leftist cultural productions in their complex contexts, particularly the ideological. It concentrates on radical/proletarian fiction and Hollywood leftist cinema as expressions of prevalent “crisis” conditions, such the Great Depression and the New Deal, anti-Semitism, anticommunism, labor unionism, racism in the South, and the rise of fascism/Nazism. It demonstrates how the leftist favored genres in literature (proletarian fiction) and cinema (the social-problem film) underwent transformations in response to the changing national and global conditions, leftist political positions and debates on the inter-relations between art, ideology and culture. Working in the tradition of American social criticism, the Hollywood Left responded productively to the challenges by creating a vibrant cinematic counterdiscourse. Leftists strived to create a “popular Marxism” and a “leftist populism” by interpellating their critique within popular Hollywood genres, albeit subject to the commercial mandate of the studio system and its heavy-handed censorship apparatus. This contentious and creative engagement produced some of the most memorable “critical” works of Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” such as I am a Fugitive
from a Chain Gang, Fury and Dust Be My Destiny. The dissertation critically examines these films, compares them to the mainstream “populist cinema” of Frank Capra, and argues that the Hollywood Left creatively reworked this populism to fashion a far more critical, even abrasive, cinema, giving rise to the foundational works of American film noir. The dissertation also frames leftist cinema as a committed response to the remarkable changes in race, class, gender and ideology taking places within American culture. In particular, the totalitarian ideologies of fascism and Nazism presented grave challenges to democracy. The Hollywood Left led the filmic battle against these forces and produced energetic cinematic propaganda in films like Blockade (1938), Juarez (1939) and Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), which are the focus of this work. In essence the dissertation calls for a re-evaluation of the “Red Decade” as one of great cultural and artistic renaissance for American culture and the Left rather than one of disappointment, disillusion and disenchantment as has been popularized by conservative critics.
Chapter One: Dissertation premise, method and organization
Chapter Two: The “Red Decade” and its Influence on American
Cinema, Literature and Culture
Chapter Three: A “Marxist” Cinema in Hollywood? Leftist cultural
productions in their Social, Political and Cultural Contexts
Chapter Four: Antifascism, the Hollywood Left and the transformation
of the social-problem film
Chapter Five: Leftist anti-Nazism, Warner Bros. studios and the further
transformation of the social-problem film
Chapter Six: Further research on Leftist studies of the Thirties
To Read the Dissertation
by Sam Mithani
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CINEMA-TELEVISION—CRITICAL STUDIES)
December 2007
ABSTRACT
The dissertation re-examines the Thirties in its artistic, cultural and political
specificity to place leftist cultural productions in their complex contexts, particularly the ideological. It concentrates on radical/proletarian fiction and Hollywood leftist cinema as expressions of prevalent “crisis” conditions, such the Great Depression and the New Deal, anti-Semitism, anticommunism, labor unionism, racism in the South, and the rise of fascism/Nazism. It demonstrates how the leftist favored genres in literature (proletarian fiction) and cinema (the social-problem film) underwent transformations in response to the changing national and global conditions, leftist political positions and debates on the inter-relations between art, ideology and culture. Working in the tradition of American social criticism, the Hollywood Left responded productively to the challenges by creating a vibrant cinematic counterdiscourse. Leftists strived to create a “popular Marxism” and a “leftist populism” by interpellating their critique within popular Hollywood genres, albeit subject to the commercial mandate of the studio system and its heavy-handed censorship apparatus. This contentious and creative engagement produced some of the most memorable “critical” works of Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” such as I am a Fugitive
from a Chain Gang, Fury and Dust Be My Destiny. The dissertation critically examines these films, compares them to the mainstream “populist cinema” of Frank Capra, and argues that the Hollywood Left creatively reworked this populism to fashion a far more critical, even abrasive, cinema, giving rise to the foundational works of American film noir. The dissertation also frames leftist cinema as a committed response to the remarkable changes in race, class, gender and ideology taking places within American culture. In particular, the totalitarian ideologies of fascism and Nazism presented grave challenges to democracy. The Hollywood Left led the filmic battle against these forces and produced energetic cinematic propaganda in films like Blockade (1938), Juarez (1939) and Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), which are the focus of this work. In essence the dissertation calls for a re-evaluation of the “Red Decade” as one of great cultural and artistic renaissance for American culture and the Left rather than one of disappointment, disillusion and disenchantment as has been popularized by conservative critics.
Chapter One: Dissertation premise, method and organization
Chapter Two: The “Red Decade” and its Influence on American
Cinema, Literature and Culture
Chapter Three: A “Marxist” Cinema in Hollywood? Leftist cultural
productions in their Social, Political and Cultural Contexts
Chapter Four: Antifascism, the Hollywood Left and the transformation
of the social-problem film
Chapter Five: Leftist anti-Nazism, Warner Bros. studios and the further
transformation of the social-problem film
Chapter Six: Further research on Leftist studies of the Thirties
To Read the Dissertation
Sunday, September 05, 2010
Chris Hedges: Reinterpreting War
Reinterpreting War
On the Media
Vasily Grossman covered the Eastern Front of WWII for the Soviet Union and fictionalized his reporting as the novel “Life and Fate.” Curzio Malaparte covered the Eastern Front for the Axis Powers and fictionalized his reporting as the novel “Kaputt.” Veteran correspondent Chris Hedges talks about the two books and why he thinks fiction is the better way to capture the full scope of war.
To Listen/Read
On the Media
Vasily Grossman covered the Eastern Front of WWII for the Soviet Union and fictionalized his reporting as the novel “Life and Fate.” Curzio Malaparte covered the Eastern Front for the Axis Powers and fictionalized his reporting as the novel “Kaputt.” Veteran correspondent Chris Hedges talks about the two books and why he thinks fiction is the better way to capture the full scope of war.
To Listen/Read
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Anne Nelson: The Obligations of History: Accuracy versus irony in depictions of the Holocaust
The Obligations of History: Accuracy versus irony in depictions of the Holocaust
by Anne Nelson
Moving Image Source
Somewhere in time, between 1994 and 2010, it became permissible in Hollywood to treat the subjects of the Nazi era and the Holocaust with irony and bombast, instead of the reverence that was formerly expected. Not everyone is comfortable with the shift; Inglourious Basterds, which fictionalizes the end of World War II, failed to harvest its predicted array of Oscars, and a number of critics and historians have regarded it with distaste. But it has pulled in vast audiences and profits around the globe—unlike the more serious films that continue to explore the Holocaust's actual historical legacy.
For decades a debate has quietly raged as to whether the Holocaust should be depicted artistically at all. Even films as reverent as Schindler's List have been criticized for any departure from the historical record. At the same time, there are fears that the Holocaust could be forgotten by future generations, or subsumed into the long list of 20th-century atrocities. Holocaust education is explicitly mandated in 24 states in the U.S. and implicitly required in many others; educators are increasingly using film in the classroom to engage their students.
But today's students encounter radically divergent treatments of Holocaust themes in popular culture. On one side is a wave of dramas and documentaries that explore the historical record more thoroughly than ever before. At the other extreme is a new generation of feature films that take unprecedented liberties with history, treating the period as a vehicle for entertainment—the most obvious example being Inglourious Basterds.
As various critics have noted, Quentin Tarantino's riff on the Nazi era is more homage to film history than to world history. The Basterds score showcases Ennio Morricone's spaghetti-western themes, and the script is a pastiche of action-film genres. In Tarantino's manic vision, Hitler and the Nazi leadership are—very ahistorically—gathered into a Parisian movie theater for a Jewish revenge fantasy. Tarantino's plot device of linking a Holocaust crime to a Jewish revenge fantasy echoes the 2006 film Black Book, by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. Verhoeven's film also features a (fictitious) beautiful Jewish heroine whose family is murdered by the Nazis. She joins a resistance group, only to be catapulted into Grand Guignol
fantasies of brutality and revenge.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
by Anne Nelson
Moving Image Source
Somewhere in time, between 1994 and 2010, it became permissible in Hollywood to treat the subjects of the Nazi era and the Holocaust with irony and bombast, instead of the reverence that was formerly expected. Not everyone is comfortable with the shift; Inglourious Basterds, which fictionalizes the end of World War II, failed to harvest its predicted array of Oscars, and a number of critics and historians have regarded it with distaste. But it has pulled in vast audiences and profits around the globe—unlike the more serious films that continue to explore the Holocaust's actual historical legacy.
For decades a debate has quietly raged as to whether the Holocaust should be depicted artistically at all. Even films as reverent as Schindler's List have been criticized for any departure from the historical record. At the same time, there are fears that the Holocaust could be forgotten by future generations, or subsumed into the long list of 20th-century atrocities. Holocaust education is explicitly mandated in 24 states in the U.S. and implicitly required in many others; educators are increasingly using film in the classroom to engage their students.
But today's students encounter radically divergent treatments of Holocaust themes in popular culture. On one side is a wave of dramas and documentaries that explore the historical record more thoroughly than ever before. At the other extreme is a new generation of feature films that take unprecedented liberties with history, treating the period as a vehicle for entertainment—the most obvious example being Inglourious Basterds.
As various critics have noted, Quentin Tarantino's riff on the Nazi era is more homage to film history than to world history. The Basterds score showcases Ennio Morricone's spaghetti-western themes, and the script is a pastiche of action-film genres. In Tarantino's manic vision, Hitler and the Nazi leadership are—very ahistorically—gathered into a Parisian movie theater for a Jewish revenge fantasy. Tarantino's plot device of linking a Holocaust crime to a Jewish revenge fantasy echoes the 2006 film Black Book, by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. Verhoeven's film also features a (fictitious) beautiful Jewish heroine whose family is murdered by the Nazis. She joins a resistance group, only to be catapulted into Grand Guignol
fantasies of brutality and revenge.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
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