Political Cinema in the narrow sense of the term is a cinema which portrays current or historical events or social conditions in a partisan way in order to inform or to agitate the spectator. Political cinema exists in different forms such as documentaries, feature films, or even animated and experimental films. Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to document reality. ... The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ...

The notion of political cinema

Political Cinema in the narrow sense of the term refers to political films which do not hide their political stance. This does not mean that they are necessarily pure propaganda. The difference to other films is not that they are political but how they show it. An Australian anti-conscription propaganda poster from World War One U.S. propaganda poster, which warns against civilians sharing information on troop movements (National Archives) The much-imitated 1914 Lord Kitchener Wants You! poster Swedish Anti-Euro propaganda for the referendum of 2003. ...

However, even ostentatively 'apolitical' escapist films which promise 'mere entertainment', an escape from every day life, fulfil a political function. The authorities in Nazi Germany knew this very well and organized a large production of deliberately escapist movies.

In other entertainment movies, for example 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. Hollywood Cinema, or more generally speaking so called Dominant Cinema, was often accused of misrepresenting black, women, gays and working class people. i like western films The Western is an American genre in literature and film. ...

More fundamentally not only the content of individual films is political but also the institution of cinema itself. A huge number of people congregate not to act together or to talk to each other but, after having paid for it, to sit silently, to be spectators separated from each other. (Of course the behaviour of the public is not always the same in all countries.) 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 tho he would make several movies portraying his ideas. Institutions are structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of two or more individuals. ... Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931, in Paris – November 30, 1994, in Champot) was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). ...

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. Hegemony (pronounced or ) (Greek: ) is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. ...

In Germany the Universum Film AG, better known as UFA, was founded to counter the perceived dominance of western 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. UFA logo Universum Film AG, better known as Ufa or UFA, was the principal film studio in Germany, home of the German film industry during the Weimar Republic and through World War II, and a major force in world cinema during its brief existence from 1917 to 1945. ... Frederick II (German: ; January 24, 1712 – August 17, 1786) was a King of Prussia (1740–1786) and an enlightened monarch of the Hohenzollern dynasty. ... Siegfried Kracauer (February 8, 1889, Frankfurt am Main, Germany – November 26, 1966, New York) was a German-American writer, journalist, sociologist, and cultural critic, particularly of media such as film, as well as the urban form. ...

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. Willi Münzenberg (August 14, 1889–October 21, 1940) was a leading propagandist for the KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Communist Party of Germany) in the Weimar Era. ... Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, Latvian: Sergejs EizenÅ¡teins) (January 23, 1898 – February 11, 1948) was a revolutionary Soviet film director and film theorist noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and Oktober. ... Dziga Vertov Dziga Vertov (Russian: , January 2, 1896–February 12, 1954) was a Russian documentary film and newsreel director. ...

Film and National Socialism

Leni Riefenstahl has never been able or willing to face her responsibility as a chief propagandist for National Socialism. Almost unlimited resources and her undeniable talent led to results which despite their hideous aims still fascinate some film aficionados. There is much controversy around her work, but it is generally accepted that Riefenstahl's main commitment was to moviemaking, rather than to the Nazi party. Proof of that might be seen by the portrayal of Jesse Owens' victory on the movie Olympia (about the Olympic games in Germany) and in her later work, mostly on her photographic expeditions to Africa. Riefenstahl, 1931 Helene Bertha Amalie Leni Riefenstahl (August 22, 1902 – September 8, 2003) was a German film director, dancer and actress, and widely noted for her aesthetics and advances in film technique. ... James Cleveland Jesse Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete. ... Olympia is a 1938 film by Leni Riefenstahl documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics. ...

The same is certainly not true of the violently antisemite films of Fritz Hippler. Other Nazi political films made propaganda for so-called euthanasia. Euthanasia (from Greek: ευθανασία -ευ, eu, good, θάνατος, thanatos, death) is the practice of terminating the life of a person or animal in a presumably painless or minimally painful way. ...

Forms of Political Cinema

Form has always been an important concern for political film makers. While some 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. Francesco Rosi (born November 15, 1922 in Naples) is an Italian film director. ... Constantinos Gavras (born February 12, 1933, Loutra-Iraias, Greece), better known as Costa-Gavras, is a Greek-French filmmaker best known for films with overt political themes. ... Ken Loach Kenneth Loach (born June 17, 1936), known as Ken Loach, is an English television and film director, known for his naturalistic style and socialist themes. ... William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946), known simply as Oliver Stone, is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director and screenwriter. ... Shelton Jackson Lee (born March 20, 1957 in Atlanta, Georgia), better known as Spike Lee, is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor noted for his films dealing with controversial social and political issues. ... Lina Wertmüller (born Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmüller von Elgg Spanol von Braueich on 14 August 1926) is an Italian film director of aristocratic Swiss descent. ...

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’age 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. A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ... The 1920s is a decade sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties, usually applied to America. ... Luis Buñuel Portolés (February 22, 1900 – July 29, 1983) was a Spanish-born filmmaker who worked mainly in Mexico and France, but also in his native country and the United States. ... This article is about revolution in the sense of a drastic change. ... Jean Vigo (April 26, 1905 – October 5, 1934) was a short-lived French film director, who helped in the establishment of poetic realism in film in the 1930s and went on to be a posthumous influence on the French nouvelle vague of the late 1950s and early 1960s. ...

Against Hollywood

Classical documentary started by supporting the bolshevist regime or promoting a statist agenda in a rather paternalistic way (John Grierson). Both were opposed to 'bourgeois' feature film making. John Grierson (April 26, 1898 - February 19, 1972) is often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. ...

Direct Cinema was a form of documentary film with a more liberal agenda. Using new techniques of sound recording, talking with ordinary people (as opposed to talking about them) became a central concern. Techniques of direct cinema were also used in early feminist cinema. Direct cinema is a form of documentary film which emerged in the late 1950s and the 1960s. ... Feminism is a collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies largely motivated by or concerned with the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. ...

In the 1960s emerged Third World Cinema or Third Cinema and other forms of radical cinema which were not only concerned with immediate observation (like direct cinema) but rather with political and historical analysis and calls to action. The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... Third Cinema is a cinema which decries neocolonialism, the capitalist system, and the Hollywood model of cinema as mere entertainment to make money. ...

As Amos Vogel and other have pointed out, the subversion of dominant ideologies can even happen by formal means without an explicit political content. Amos Vogel (*1921 in Vienna, Austria) had to leave Austria in 1938. ... Look up subversion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Remembering

Especially in the last decades of the twentieth century many film makers saw remembrance and reflection upon major collective crimes (like the Holocaust) and disasters (like the Chernobyl disaster) as their political and moral duty. ... Chernobyl reactor 4 after the disaster, showing the extensive damage to the main reactor hall (image center) and turbine building (image lower left) The Chernobyl disaster was a major accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986 at 01:23 a. ...

Current topics

Since a few years a renewed interest in openly addressing current problems is apparent, especially in the context of the controversial discussions about globalization. A KFC franchise in Kuwait. ...

Films (selection)

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since March 2007.

• 1915 The Birth of a Nation

D. W. Griffith's highly controversial film, which glorifies the Ku Klux Klan, is widely considered to be a masterpiece because of its impact on the development of the cinema. The basic structure consists of a description of an idealized lost idyll ("the Old South"), the disruption of this order during Reconstruction after the 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 Ku Klux Klan secures his private happiness too and the alleged idyll is restored. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... The Birth of a Nation is a famously controversial film which promoted the superiority of the white race. ... Members of the second Ku Klux Klan at a rally during the 1920s. ... An idyll is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocrituss short pastoral poems, the Idylls. ... Reconstruction was the attempt from 1865 to 1877 in U.S. history to resolve the issues of the American Civil War, when both the Confederacy and slavery were destroyed. ... White supremacy is a racist ideology which holds the belief that white people are superior to other races. ...

Detailed information: http://www.filmsite.org/birt.html

• 1924 Stachka - Srike

Director: Sergei Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (Russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, Latvian: Sergejs Eizenšteins) (January 23, 1898 – February 11, 1948) was a revolutionary Soviet film director and film theorist noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and Oktober. ...

• 1925 Bronenosets Potyomkin - The Battleship Potemkin -

Director: Sergei Eisenstein

• 1927 The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty- Director: Esfir Shub

• 1929 Chelovek s kino-apparatom - The Man with a Movie Camera -

Director: Dziga Vertov Esfir Shub (1894 to 1953) was a Soviet film director and editor. ... Dziga Vertov Dziga Vertov (Russian: , January 2, 1896–February 12, 1954) was a Russian documentary film and newsreel director. ...

• 1931 Mädchen in Uniform (Girls in uniform) - Director: Leontine Sagan

• 1932 Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt? - To Whom Does the World Belong? - Director: Slatan Dudow

• 1933 Borinage - Director: Joris Ivens and Henri Storck

Militant film about the misery of Belgian coal miners See also:Les Enfants du borinage - Lettre à Henri Storck, Director : Patric Jean, 2000 Leontine Sagan (born Leontine Schlesinger, 1889 in Vienna, Austria , died 1974 in South Africa) was a German actress. ... Joris Ivens (November 18, 1898 - June 28, 1989) was a Dutch documentary filmmaker and devout communist, and is generally respected as one of the foremost documentarists of the twentieth century. ...

• 1935 Triumph des Willens - Triumph of the Will - Director: Leni Riefenstahl - Technically brilliant propaganda film about the Reichsparteitag in Nuremberg 1934

• 1940 „Der ewige Jude. Ein Filmbeitrag zum Weltjudentum“ - The Eternal Jew - Director: Fritz Hippler - Virulently antisemitic

• 1948 Strange Victory - Director: Leo Hurwitz

"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'." Richard M. Barsam Riefenstahl, 1931 Helene Bertha Amalie Leni Riefenstahl (August 22, 1902 – September 8, 2003) was a German film director, dancer and actress, and widely noted for her aesthetics and advances in film technique. ... Nuremberg (German: Nürnberg, Polish: Norymberga) is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. ...

• 1953 Salt of the Earth

Regie: Herbert J. Biberman Legendary documentary feature film about a strike 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. For other uses, see Salt of the earth. ...

• 1954 Ernst Thälmann - Sohn seiner Klasse. Ein Farbfilm der DEFA.

Director: Kurt Maetzig, socialist realism - German Democratic Republic style Ernst Thälmann memorial in Weimar. ...

• 1956 On the Bowery

Director: Lionel Rogosin An important film about Alcoholism, here homeless people in New York City. Alcoholism is the consumption of, or preoccupation with, alcoholic beverages to the extent that this behavior interferes with the drinkers normal personal, family, social, or work life, and may lead to physical or mental harm. ...

• 1964 The Cool World - Director: Shirley Clarke — the cruel reality of street life in the U.S.

• 1965 Obyknovennyy fashizm - Ordinary Fascism - Director: Mikhail Romm

• 1967 Titicut Follies

Director: Frederick Wiseman - In his first film Wiseman shows the inhumane conditions in Bridgewater State Hospital in Massachusetts. For more than 20 years the film could not been shown in the USA. Cover of Romms book of memoirs Mikhail Romm (Михаил Ромм) (January 24, 1901 - November 01, 1971) was a Russian film director. ... Titicut Follies is a 1967 documentary film about the mistreatment of patients at Bridgewater State Hospital in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ...

• 1968 La Hora de los hornos: Acto para la liberación: notas, testimonios y debate sobre las recientes luchas de liberación del pueblo argentino - The Hour of the Furnaces - Director: Fernando Solanas

• 1968 In the year of the pig - A compilation film about the Vietnam war - Director: Emile de Antonio

• 1968 Teorema - Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini - The power of desire disrupts a rich family

• 1969 Yawar mallku - Blood of the Condor - Director: Jorge Sanjinés

• 1969 Salesman - Directors and Editing: Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin

Four men try to sell the Bible; one of the most important films of Direct Cinema Fernando Ezequiel Pino Solanas (b. ... It has been suggested that Package film be merged into this article or section. ... Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam People’s Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000... Emile de Antonio Emile de Antonio (1919-December 16, 1989) was a director and producer of documentary films, usually detailing political or social events circa 1960s - 1980s. ... Pier Paolo Pasolini (March 5, 1922 - November 2, 1975) was an Italian poet, intellectual, film director, and writer. ... Direct cinema is a form of documentary film which emerged in the late 1950s and the 1960s. ...

• 1970 Le chagrin et la pitié - The Sorrow and the Pity - Director: Marcel Ophuls - Politically a pathbreaking documentary about collaboration in France during the German occupation

• 1970 Warum läuft Herr R. Amok? - Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder - The humiliating madness of ordinary life Collaboration is the process wherein units work together to achieve outcomes for shared stakeholders, quicker and more cost effectively than if they worked on their own, without having to change the how codes of any of the participating Units. ... Rainer Werner Fassbinder (May 31, 1945 – June 10, 1982) was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor, one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema. ...

• 1971 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

Director: Rosa von Praunheim - This film started the second gay movement in Germany

• 1971 The Woman's Film - Directors: Louise Alaimo, Judy Smith

• 1971 L’aggettivo donna, Annabella Misuglio, Italy, documentary film - In the early seventies many feminist documentary films were made. L’aggettivo donna analysizes the double exploitaion of women workers, the isolation of housewives and mothers, the rote training of children caged in schools, separated froom the others ...

• 1971 Wanda; Director: Barbara Loden

• 1972 Sambizanga - Director: Sarah Maldoror — feature film about the liberation movement in Angola

• 1973 La Société du spectacle - The Society of the Spectacle - Director: Guy Debord

• 1974 Angst essen Seele auf - Ali: Fear Eats the Soul – A poignant feature film film about racism, sexuality, love and ageism - Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

• 1975 Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles - Every day life of a housewive – a feminist classic -Director: Chantal Akerman

• 1976 Harlan County, U.S.A. - Director: Barbara Kopple

• 1978 Baara (Work) - Director: Souleymane Cissé

• 1984 Before Stonewall - Directors: John Scagliotti and Greta Schiller

• 1986 Shoa - Director: Claude Lanzmann

• 1989 Camp de Thiaroye - Director: Ousmane Sembène

• 1991 American Dream Director: Barbara Kopple

• 1992 Lumumba: La mort du prophète - Lumumba: Death of a Prophet - Director: Raoul Peck – A moving and very intelligent poetical reflection on the presence of apparently bygone hopes and disasters.

• 1998 At the Sharp end of the Knife - Director Barbara Orton

„Filmmaker Barbara Orton's emotional documentary follows Scottish activist Cathy McCormack's journey into the impoverished townships of post-apartheid South Africa. Along the way she draws interesting parallels between the conditions in the devastated regions of South Africa and her own experiences with poverty in the centralised ghetto of Easterhouse, one of Scotland's most deprived estates.” Freya Barbara Loden was born on July 8, 1932 in Marion, North Carolina, USA. She died of cancer on September 5, 1980. ... Sarah Maldoror, born Sarah Ducados in Condom, Gers, France is a black french film director. ... Guy Ernest Debord (December 28, 1931, in Paris – November 30, 1994, in Champot) was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). ... Chantal Akerman (born June 6, 1950) is a Belgian filmmaker and director based in Paris, who is known for her deconstructive style and pessimistic humor. ... Barbara Kopple is an Academy Award-winning American film director. ... Souleymane Cissé (April 21, 1940 in Bamako - ) is a Malian film director. ... Claude Lanzmann is a Paris-based filmmaker and professor of documentary film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland where he conducts a summer workshop. ... Ousmane Sembène (b. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Barbara Kopple is an Academy Award-winning American film director. ... http://www. ...

• 2001 Intimacy - Director: Patrice Chéreau - Intensive feature film on solitude, alienated sexuality and an impossible love

• 2002 War and Peace/Jang aur Aman - Director: Anand Patwardhan - On nuclear madness in India and Pakistan and their efforts to imitate Big Brother, USA.

• 2003 Gujarat: A Laboratory of Hindu Rastra, Fascism- Director: Suma Josson

• 2004 Black Panthers (in Israel) speak out

Israel, Director : Eli Hamo, Sami Halom Chetrit Patrice Chéreau (born November 2nd, 1944 in Lézigné, France) is a French director, film maker, actor, and producer. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Anand Patwardhan (b. ... Suma Josson was born in Kerala and graduated in English Literature from Minnesota, USA. She began her career as a journalist and switched over to the visual media. ...

• 2004 Ratziti Lihiyot Gibor – On the Objection Front, Documentary about the refuseniks movement in Israel i.e. soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories, Director: Shiri Tsur

• 2004 Memoria del saqueo - Social Genocide , Director: Fernando E. Solanas – A passionately partisan survey of the history of neoliberalism in Argentina

• 2004 Darwin's Nightmare Director: Hubert Sauper 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.

• 2006 Atos dos Homens / Acts of Men, Director: Kiko Goifman, Brazil/Germany, 75 min.

Originally conceived as a documentary about the history of death squadrons in Brazil, the film of anthropologist Kiko Goifman concentrates on a recent massacre, police officers committed in 2005. Goifman interviews also a killer, who sees himself on a mission to keep order. Fernando Ezequiel Pino Solanas (b. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Hubert Sauper was born in Tyrol, Austria. ... A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ...

• 2005 Un Monde Moderne, Directors: Sabrina Malek, Arnaud Soulier, France, Documentary, 84 min.

• 2006 The Road to Guantanamo, Director: Michael Winterbottom

• 2006 The last communist, Director: Amir Muhammad Muhammad based his documentary on the autobiography of Chin Peng, born in 1924, the last chairman of the forbidden communist party of Malaysia (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’.

• 2006 The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez, Director: Heidi Specogna

Winterbottom at the Toronto International Film Festival. ... José Antonio Gutierrez was the second American to die in the Iraq war. ...

References

See also

• Political films category
• Political Film Society
• African Cinema
• Documentary film
• List of racism-related films
• Women's cinema

The Political Film Society is a nonprofit corporation that exists to recognize Hollywood films ability to raise awareness in political matters in the world. ... The term African cinema usually refers to the film production in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa following formal independence, which for many countries happened in the 1960s. ... Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to document reality. ... This is a list of films that deal with the topic of racism or race. ... The term womens cinema usually refers to the work of women film directors. ...

Bibliography

• James Baldwin, The Devil Finds Work, Delta 2000 (first published in 1976), ISBN 0-385-33460-5
• Erik Barnouw, Documentary. A History of the Non-Fiction Film, Oxford University Press 1993 - still a useful introduction
• Amy L. Unterburger, ed., The St. James Women Filmmakers Encyclopedia: Women on the Other Side of the Camera, Paperback, Visible Ink Press 1999
• Amos Vogel, Film as as subversive art, Paperback ed. , Distributed Art Publishers (DAP), 2006, ISBN 1-933045-27-2

James Baldwin may refer to: James Baldwin (schoolbook editor and author) (1841–1925) James Baldwin (writer) (1924–1987) James Baldwin (baseball player) (born 1971) J. Baldwin (born 1934), industrial designer, author, educator James Mark Baldwin (1861–1934), philosopher and psychologist James Baldwin (abolitionist), early American Abolitionist This human name article... Erik Barnouw (*1908, in Den Haag; † 2001 in Fair Haven, Vermont, USA) was an american media historian. ... Amos Vogel (*1921 in Vienna, Austria) had to leave Austria in 1938. ...

External links

• Documentary Is Never Neutral
• Cinema Politica