Le Cinema

[berlitz23]

Our eyes see very little and very badly – so people dreamed up the microscope to let them see invisible phenomena; they invented the telescope…now they have perfected the cinecamera to penetrate more deeply into he visible world, to explore and record visual phenomena so that what is happening now, which will have to be taken account of in the future, is not forgotten.-Dziga Vertov

The film drama is the Opium of the people…down with Bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios…long live life as it is! -Dziga Vertov

This post is regarding cinema on this board which i see needs a dramatic reevaluation, slogging through innumerable threads on this website I am seeing the grossful neglection of socialist and Soviet Union film. I see most people are watching cinema that is trying to pass of the bourgeois dreams as reality and depicintg the 'larger than life' aspect the masses aspire to live. Several people on this board saw watchmen which again is perpetuating the hollywood's totalitarian and advantageous position in the economic system which is instrumental in permitting the inequities in the distibution of wealth. We need to realize these films function as ideological weapons used by the owning class to extend the market for the dreams which it sells. These 'hollywood' mainstream 'european films'' induce us subtly, insidiously, unconsciously to participate in the dreams and fantasies that are marketed by bourgeois capital. I propose if any of us are filmmakers out there or assidious film watchers, we need to scope in on films that prompt dialogue and don't manipulate our emotions or unconscious, from now we needs to emphasize films that require all our faculties and capacity to analyze. So if we are filmmakers out there post your films here or recommendations on socialist cinema:

These are mine:

Weekend(JLG)
TOUT VA BIEN(JLG)
La Chinoise(JLG)
le gai saivor (JLG)
2 Or 3 Things I know About Her(JLG)
Man With A Moving Camera(Vertov)
Enthusiasm(Vertov)
Battleship Potempkin(Eisenstein)
Viva La Mexico(Eisenstein)

More Later

[x359594]

...We need to realize these films function as ideological weapons used by the owning class to extend the market for the dreams which it sells...

I sympathize with your misgivings about popular commercial cinema comrade.

Even radicals are beguiled by the stories being told rather than looking at the way they're being told. And if the story has some seemingly radical content, eg, Slumdog Millionaire, it gets a pass even though a careful examination will show that its politics are regressive in the final analysis.

Another great Soviet filmmaker is the Ukranian Alexandr Dovzhenko:
Zvenigora (1928)
Arsenal (1928)
Zemlya (1930)
Aerograd (1935)

[berlitz23]

unfortuantely noone is responding

[berlitz23]

A majority of people on this website have no taste for film.

[x359594]

A majority of people on this website have no taste for film.

Apparently most people here are not interested in the film form and how formal strategies can deconstruct or reinforce bourgeois ideology.

[Korchagin]

recommendations on socialist cinema:Among my favorite in socialist cinema are the films of the Maksim trilogy by the directors Kozintsev and L. Trauberg:


The Youth of Maksim
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In 1910, a revolutionary underground group spreads leaflets featuring anti-tsarist slogans. Maksim, a young, happy-go-lucky worker and his comrades help the teacher Natasha, who was engaged in illegal activities in the factory, hide from the authorities. Maksim's friend Andrei and another worker lose their lives. Their funeral turns into a huge demonstration which is brutally suppressed by the police. Numerous people are arrested, among them Maksim, who subsequently becomes Social Democratic activist.


The Return of Maksim
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In July 1914, the Bolsheviks and Mensehviks compete for representation of the working-class in the Duma. Maksim, who just returned from exile, calls the workers to strike as a protest against the firing of six of their colleagues. The traitor Platon Dymba assaults Maksim, wounding him severely. When the strike unfolds the workers demonstrate by the thousands, the news of the outbreak of World War I suddenly arrives. Maksim gets drafted.

The Vyborg Side
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Following the Russian Revolution, Maksim is appointed state commissar in charge of the national bank. With great efforts, he learns the complexies of the banking trade and begins to fight off sabotaging underlings. Dymba, now a violent enemy of the Republic, tries to rob a wine store but is arrested with Maksim's help. Maksim also exposes a conspiracy of a group of tsarist officers who prepare an attempt against Lenin. He then join the Red Army in its fight against the German aggressors.

[pierrotlefou]

*points to user name* :D

the vertov group films like le weekend are by far JLG's best. I'll have to check out the Eisenstein films that were listed.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Yes comrade fantastic post. It seems you have posted many of the films I was thinking of, in particular Tout Va Bien.

I really like the quotations you have included, the second Vertov one is so true.

Death to bourgeois cinema!

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

I'm a big fan of Italian cinema. Neo-realism, commedia all'Italiana of the 60s and 70s
many film makers with class consciousness dedicated to making cinema that revealed and explored the class antagonisms of the capitalist regime
some of the more widely renowned titles...
Ladri di biciclette by Vittorio de Sica
Le notti di Cabiria by Fellini
Una giornata particolara by Etore Scola
some other gems...
Un borghese piccolo piccolo by Monicelli
Le mani sulla citta by Francesco Rosi
La classe operaria va in paradiso by Elio Petri
Prima della rivoluzione by Bertolucci

some are quite accessible, others are more dense

Ettore Scola made another movie in recent years titled Concorrenza sleale, which is in my humble opinion, also a great political movie
may appear less artistically and politically daring than his earlier works, but it's nonethless a great movie, I think

[Pirate Utopian]

All Quiet On The Western Front.
It's a good anti-war movie about WW1, check it out on video google.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Vittorio de Seta also made a great movie not long ago called Lettere dal Sahara
highly recomended