film

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/1/2021
  

  ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ is the Film to Help Us Understand 2021. Here’s Why

  by John Beckman and Theo Zenou

  Abbie Hoffman used his conspiracy trial as a guerrila theater stage, the peak of his career as an activist who used absurdity and wit to expose the hypocrisies of American society. 

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• 2/28/2021
  

  History and Film: Reflections on Konchalovsky’s “Dear Comrades!”

  by Walter G. Moss

  Andrei Konchalovsky's film "Dear Comrades" examines the struggles of ordinary people in the Soviet Union to find truth amid ideology and fear. 

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• SOURCE: Bright Lights Film Journal
  2/23/2021
  

  A Star Is Shorn: Thanks to Woefully Underinformed Campus Activists, Acting Legend, Badger Alum, and Civil Rights Champion Fredric March Is Suddenly “Off Wisconsin”

  by George Gonis

  In 2018, the University of Wisconsin stripped actor Fredric March's name from a campus theater because of his brief affiliation in 1919 with a campus society called the Honorary Ku Klux Klan. The author argues that this misconstrues the nature of the society, which was not affiliated with the "Invisible Empire" KKK, and erases March's steadfast support for civil rights and opposition to Nazism.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/16/2021
  

  Is This the Most Radical Film Ever Produced by Hollywood?

  “Judas and the Black Messiah” is the rare Hollywood film to explore a vision of Blackness that has nothing to do with white audiences.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/10/2021
  

  "Judas and the Black Messiah" Is an American Tragedy

  The performances of the lead actors in "Judas and the Black Messiah" elevate the story of Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton's assassination by the police and FBI to a complex story of the Black freedom movement. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/4/2021
  

  And in the Beginning, There Was Gordon Parks

  "What astounded the actor Richard Roundtree about Parks when he was cast to play a suave and unflappable Harlem detective — and, in a sense, the first Black superhero — in “Shaft,” was how closely the character resembled the director himself."

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• SOURCE: CNN
  12/19/2020
  

  How World War II Shaped 'It's a Wonderful Life'

  The now-classic movie was unsuccessful in its own time, perhaps because its expression of the uncertainty and fatigue of a nation emerging from a global war was not an upbeat or enjoyable theme. 

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• SOURCE: USA Today
  12/5/2020
  

  Historians Fact-Check 'Mank': Who Really Wrote 'Citizen Kane?' And Does 'Rosebud' Have A Hidden Meaning?

  Film historians suggest the new Netflix drama overstates Frank Mankiewicz's influence over the final form of "Citizen Kane" and takes some other liberties with the facts. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/16/2020
  

  Academy Museum Gives Debbie Reynolds Her Due as a Costume Conservator

  For reasons likely including institiutionalized sexism, costumes have been a neglected part of the preservation of cinematic history. The new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures hopes to work with the late Debbie Reynolds's son to change that. 

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• SOURCE: Vox
  11/10/2020
  

  Everything About Netflix’s Hillbilly Elegy Movie Is Awful (Review)

  "It strips out Vance’s sociopolitical commentary entirely, which, however you feel about the commentary, leaves the story without an all-important ingredient: a political and sociological point."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/5/2020
  

  Watch This 1897 Snowball Fight for a Jolt of Pure Joy

  The footage was captured in Lyon, in 1897, by the Lumière brothers, who were among the world’s first filmmakers. 

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• SOURCE: IndieWire
  11/2/2020
  

  Chris Rock Sounds Off on Hating Civil Rights Movies: ‘They Make Racism Look Very Fixable’

  Rock did not call out any Civil Rights movies by name, although his argument that such films “make racism look very fixable” were the same criticisms thrown at Best Picture winner “Green Book.”

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• SOURCE: Current Affairs
  10/22/2020
  

  The Real Abbie Hoffman

  by Nathan J. Robinson

  While The Trial of the Chicago 7 is sympathetic to Hoffman, it also softens him in a way that ultimately amounts to historical fabrication.

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• SOURCE: The Nation
  10/21/2020
  

  Aaron Sorkin Sanitizes the Chicago 7

  by Jeet Heer

  According to Jeet Heer, "Sorkin takes many liberties with the facts, most of which are designed to make both the New Left and its conservative opponents more palatable to contemporary liberal viewers."

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• SOURCE: Forward
  10/19/2020
  

  Sacha Baron Cohen Interviewed a Holocaust Survivor for the New ‘Borat;’ Now Her Daughter’s Suing

  The producers of the "Borat" sequel insist the interview was used to mock Holocaust deniers; surviving relatives argue the use of her story for satirical purposes was deceptive and inappropriate.

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  10/19/2020
  

  Academy Museum Names Historian of Black Cinema as the New Chief Artistic Officer

  Jacqueline Stewart, a prominent historian of African American cinema, will join the Academy Museum in preparation for its April opening. She discusses how the museum will tell the story of film making and moviegoing. 

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• SOURCE: CBC
  10/17/2020
  

  Samuel L. Jackson's Enslaved and the Lost History of Canadian Slavery

  Canadian historian Charmaine Nelson says that many Canadians are overly accepting of the narrative of their nation as the endpoint of the Underground Railroad and unaware of the history of slavery in Canada. A new documentary by the famed actor highlights the need to push past comfortable understandings.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  10/12/2020
  

  Prof. Kiara Vigil: Why It Is Important To Highlight Roles Of Native Americans In History (audio)

  "This last spring, for the first time, I taught a class called Native Futures, and I thought that it would make sense to teach a class where Native people themselves not only are part of the past and the present, but they're going to be part of the future."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/10/2020
  

  A Famed Horror Director Mines Japan’s Real-Life Atrocities

  In a recent interview, Mr. Kurosawa, 65, said he found it hard to understand why Japan’s war crimes remained almost taboo among the country’s filmmakers 75 years after the conflict’s end.

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/8/2020
  

  Why Americans Fall for Grifters: A Warning From a 1957 Film

  by Jake Tapper

  Journalist Jake Tapper reflects on the prescience of the 1957 Elia Kazan/Budd Schulberg film "A Face in the Crowd", which anticipated the power of inflammatory appeals in the mass media.