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TrixRabbi posted:Or howabout a heavy pro-Socialist film like Salt of the Earth? Which did have a budget. A film isn't capitalistic in process because it has a budget. The mainstream American film industry has its roots in a Fordian factory-line understanding of mass production. There's a long list of great, radical creative voices that have been stamped out by this system. If you don't play their game, or at least try to mask your subversive content, you're out.
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Sep 15, 2014 16:48
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Jack Gladney posted:So maybe there will be untamed media platforms, assuming net neutrality sticks around.  I mean, we can hope, but it's just another set of tools that will get (and really has already gotten) taken away from us and monetized beyond usefulness for a radical cause. I really hope this thread keeps going because I'm doing all kinds of research on American documentary in the 30s and boy howdy, was Hollywood not fond of the idea of anyone else makin' movies.
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Sep 15, 2014 23:37
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Egbert Souse posted:Tarantino is this generation's Godard - and I'm pretty sure someone else has made that observation first. He takes the last century of cinema and creates "mixtapes" with his movies. That's what a huge chunk of avant-garde cinema has been, too. HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Any good tidbits? So I've been reading all about Pare Lorentz and the three socialist cameramen from the film group Nykino that went with him and shot The Plow That Broke the Plains out across the country in 1935. This was a government-funded project with the not-entirely unique aim of making a film with goals of what people from the time period would either call social/educational documentary or leftist propaganda. There was plenty of tension on the set between these collaborators, and it almost got the point where Leo Hurwitz, Paul Strand, and Ralph Steiner wanted their names taken off the picture because the film wasn't focused enough on the injustices of the Great Depression. When they finished shooting the on-location stuff Lorentz went to L.A. with the hope of being able to mix his own stuff with some archival material. The thing is, no archive would give him access to their footage. If you rewind back a few years, Lorentz got his start in New York as a film critic. As a New Deal democrat he wasn't exactly an agitator in the political arena, but as far as what he thought about Hollywood, he was flagrant and public in his low opinion of it. In his various film reviews in the twenties and thirties, he openly criticized the rise of censorship practices in the industry, and even called out Will Hays by name on several occasions. Well, guess who had the power to tell everyone to shut their doors in this dude's face when Lorentz came looking to make an educational social documentary. Not only did Hays prevent anyone from the private sector from working on this movie, but the companies at large used their muscle to prevent any theater owners from showing it. Not only was there a vindictive element, but the idea of the government butting into their coffers and nabbing screentime was particularly odious to those in power on the west coast. While persistence paid off (aided, no doubt, by the fact that FDR was fully behind the film upon seeing it), Lorentz did himself no favors simply because he was outspoken. In addition, the brief legacy of pre-war government-sponsored film and photography would all face similar difficulties and eventually die off as a movement. And I think that's all hosed up. Kull the Conqueror fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Sep 18, 2014 |
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Sep 18, 2014 04:13
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TrixRabbi posted:I never knew much about Lorentz. I saw Plow That Broke the Plains in a film class and was always fascinated by it, but I never really read up on him. Do you know if there's anywhere I can read his film criticism? Luckily some of it is conveniently collected. It's really good stuff.
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Sep 18, 2014 13:28
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