The political film is dead. The social mirror that we are still sporadically presented with comes from documentary makers. The IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, 20 Nov – 1 Dec 2013) is a good time to discuss this development. Guest columnist Helen Westerik gives beautiful examples of historical political films and calls on radical dreamers.
The relationship between politics and film is old. The early twentieth century saw a huge revival of experimental arts. The ballet Le Sacre du Printemps set to music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky turned 100 this year, Mondrian's purely abstract paintings are not much younger. There was also plenty of experimentation in the film, also and especially by committed filmmakers. In Russia, for example, filmmakers like Sergei Eisenstein sparked the revolution with films like October (about the Russian October Revolution in 1917) and Strike .
Not only was the content revolutionary, so was the form:Eisenstein used the first montage as a dramatic tool. Where until then editing was nothing more than sticking together pieces of film, Eisenstein discovered that the story became much more powerful through associative images and the addition of equations in the picture. The staircase scene from the film Armoured Crusader Potemkin has become famous from 1925 (see video).
The brutal slaughter of the Tsarist army is given an extra emotional charge by the editing:close-up images of dying elderly people, children being trampled and a crib rolling down the steps. Mounting had not been used so effectively until then. How can you not be inspired with revolutionary zest after seeing this film?
Movies for Nazis
But also Weimar films (named after the German Weimar Republic 1918-1933) cannot be seen outside their political context. These are dramatic black-and-white films with greatly magnified acting and sets, such as the science fiction film Metropolis from 1927. Where I Metropolis always seen as a Marxist critique of the alienation caused by the industrial process, the film has also historically been seen as a call for a strong man to lead the masses in the right direction.
National Socialists also appreciated Metropolis, but for very different reasons. It's both possible:the masses of workers revolt against the wealthy upper class, but it takes an intermediary from that upper class to calm everyone again. When Fritz Lang, the director of the film, was invited by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to become the Reichsfilmmaker, he did not immediately decline the invitation. Rumor has it that in that conversation Lang said, "But do you know I'm Jewish?" To which Goebbels seems to have replied:"We do determine who is Jewish here." The director knew he couldn't possibly make propaganda films for the Nazis, and realized he had to leave the country before the end of that day.
Gay and women's emancipation
Needless to say, political and social conditions have been incomparably different over the past fifty years. But even after the 1950s, there have still been radical filmmakers. Think, for example, of the queer and feminist waves from the 1970s. One of the most beautiful and penetrating films is Blue (1993) by Briton Derek Jarman. He made the film just before his death from AIDS and the film is, yes, blue.
For almost eighty minutes we only see a blue screen, but we hear a sound collage with music, sound effects, but especially Jarman reflecting on life, death and disease. Where the image has been brought back in the most radical way, the impact is enormous.
Radical dreamers
It seems that nowadays social involvement and experimentation have drifted apart. Where political films are often documentaries and activism has more to do with YouTube but has little to do with art, a gap has arisen that I don't know how to fill. Even big names like Spike Lee now have to pay for their new film through crowdfunding.
It has never been easy to make films that are not intended for mass audiences. But studios and producers have become more and more careful, films are becoming more conservative. If subsidizers also only go for the viewing figures, it will be a sad thing. Then a film like Blue are no longer made. social involvement doesn't sell, you can't make a game out of it. But with the bitter (cultural) political wind that is blowing right now, we actually benefit from people who kick us in the shins, hold up a mirror, put us on the wrong track. We need radical dreamers so that we can take a fresh look at our world.