Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Porton, Richard

Titel

Film and the anarchist imagination

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

1996

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This dissertation examines the relationship of film and anarchism. A variety of films from disparate genres are discussed and attention is paid to the ways in which these works illuminate important currents within the history of anarchism. Given the dissertation's broad scope, it becomes necessary to outline a critical typology flexible enough to deal with two separate tasks: a critique of stereotypical portrayals of anarchism and anarchists and an adjacent consideration of anarchist self-representation by committed documentary and avant-garde filmmakers. These issues are addressed with the aid of a non-auteurist, primarily contextualist approach which does not, however, ignore the stylistic nuances of pivotal films. The first chapter opens with a detailed discussion of philosophical and political anarchism. This prologue is a departure point which allows a transition to concrete analyses of films by, among others, Brownlow and Mollo, Borden, Rainer, and the Pacific Street Film Collective. The second chapter's focus on anarchist heroes and martyrs is somewhat narrower. The initial section enumerates the flaws of well-intentioned film biographies of Joe Hill and Sacco and Vanzetti and moves on to consider how the cinematic representation of anarchism changed after the Russian Revolution. The remainder of the chapter foregrounds films which deal with the predominantly anarchist Spanish Revolution of the Thirties (with particular attention given to the films produced by the CNT-FAI) and the allegorical implications of several European films inspired by anarchist communal experiments. The second half of the dissertation is less concerned with the conscious intentions of particular filmmakers. With the important exception of Jean Vigo, most of the films highlighted in these two chapters are unwittingly anarchistic. Films of various non-anarchists such as Godard, Petri and Clair are included because of their ability to illuminate two important anti-authoritarian currents: the contemporary "revolt against work" and anarchist pedagogy. A brief conclusion ponders the nature of the elusive anarchist aesthetic in the work of Bunuel, Debord, and several American independent filmmakers.