While the C.S.A. doesn't usually approve when people tout their personal preferences as though they were newsworthy, it seems worthwhile to throw in some lighthearted material along with all the dour news and analysis found here. So in the interest of amusement and propagandizing, here are ten films with themes that may appeal to anarchists and the anarcho-curious. Feel free to disparage/endorse these choices or add your own recommendations in the comments.10. Office Space (1999) by Mike Judge. Although lacking any sort of analysis whatsoever, "Office Space" is surprisingly awash in anti-work themes. While the protagonist eventually abandons white collar cubicle work for the supposed honesty and security of blue collar labor--a cop-out obviously taken because the filmmakers didn't have any better ideas--the portrayal of white collar misery is uncompromising and hilarious. The tacit endorsement of workplace theft and arson are gravy on the potatoes.
9. A Scanner Darkly (2006) by Richard Linklater. Set in a near-future dystopia filled with drug-addiction, hi-tech surveillance, police infiltration, (well-founded) paranoia, deteriorating suburbs, and crony capitalism that thrives on destruction. While Philip K. Dick's novels are uniformly better than the films made from them, Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson are memorably comic as paranoid drug addicts, and the quasi-animation is neat.
8. Wag The Dog (1996) by Barry Levinson. It's hard to believe this movie was made before 9/11, such is its prescience. Almost every lame trick that has popped up in the media during the last two wars seems to have been lifted directly from this surprisingly sharp and cynical movie. The acting alone makes it worth watching.
7. Wattstax (1973) by Mel Stuart. An amazingly astute, penetrating look at Black America in the early '70s. This documentary about the 100,000 people who attended the Stax Records-promoted 1972 concert in L.A. billed as the "Black Woodstock" features captivating interviews with regular people on virtually everything from the cops to personal relationships, incredible (and hilarious) commentary by Richard Pryor, and music that will blow the doors off your life.
6. Eraserhead (1977) by David Lynch. Ever felt like your brain were going to implode during the course of a routine but soul-crushing bourgeois interaction? Ever wondered what it would be like if that interaction were ridiculed and caricatured in the most bizarre but insightful way by a demented visionary? Well, here you have it. The result is like a cross between a snuff film and "Meet The Parents", if that synthesis were filmed by a schizophrenic coming down from a peyote trip.
5. They Live (1988) by John Carpenter. Not a B movie, or even a C movie, but a D movie with what could easily be described as an anti-authoritarian agenda. Rowdy Roddy Piper stars as the hero who lands in a mutual aid-based homeless encampment in Los Angeles, only to discover by sci-fi happenstance that the world is awash in messages encouraging conformity, mindless reproduction, and blind obedience to cops and the rich. What ensues is difficult to summarize since it doesn't make a great deal of sense, but a quote from Piper gives a hint: "I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubble gum."
4. Children Of Men (2006) by Alfonso Cuarón. This futuristic thriller is of greatest interest for its portrayal of authoritarian Leftists, who appear as brutish psychos willing to adopt the worst features of their enemies in pursuit of a millenarian armed revolution. Hard to argue with that. The heroes are self-determined, critical thinkers caught between the Leftists and the dominate neo-fascists, ultimately hoping to meet up with an underground group of single-minded world savers.
3. Do The Right Thing (1989) by Spike Lee. Perhaps the only major film to address gentrification in a believable, interesting way, Spike Lee refused easy conclusions and tidy plots for a multi-faceted look at life in a changing ghetto in New York. Race, violence, and Rosie Perez dancing better than you could ever hope to.
2. Putney Swope (1969) by Robert Downey Sr. 85-minutes of sheer, unadulterated genius. A painfully funny, surreal satire of the 1960's advertising revolution that created hip capitalism. It's genius lies in its skewering of both '60s radicals and the white power structure they sought to attack. After watching it, read The Conquest Of Cool by Thomas Frank (written while he was still in his The Baffler/situationist-tinged phase, rather than his contemporary run-of-the-mill liberal phase.)
1. Harold And Maude (1971) by Hal Ashby. A gooey and heart-warming tale of love and loss within a blisteringly funny critique of upper class social mores. A totally endearing and amusing film in every way, it is a true classic of counterculture filmmaking. Brilliant soundtrack by Cat Stevens, who went on to make lots of bad pop music before converting to Islam.
14 comments:
Here are some more great movies:
If.... - Crazy movie from 1968 made by a subversive surrealist inspired director about a British boarding school and the protagonist troublemakers who go to it. The movie climaxes with them taking up arms and engaging in a deadly battle with the forces of law and order and the administration.
Over the Edge - Matt Dillon's first big movie, a story of pissed off kids in a newly created suburb in the middle of nowhere that decide to revolt by locking all their parents, teachers, and town police in the school and then setting all their cars on fire, seizing the guns of the police to use against them. Endorsed by the Evasion kid as "the most punk movie ever."
Hate (La Haine in French) - Amazing film from 1995 about ongoing riots in the French suburbs. Very relevant to today's struggles there for anyone interested in that, a must see.
The Edukators - German film about anti-capitalists who break into the homes of the rich as a humorous strategy of intimidation to let them know they're not safe in their castles. They end up kidnapping one rich guy by accident setting the story for the rest of the movie. None of the characters sell out in the end, because it's a European movie.
What to do in case of fire (Was tun, wenn's brennt? in German) - A mainstream movie about anarchist squatters that is surprisingly well researched and entertaining. Just like the Edukators (In typical European style as opposed to American), they don't sell out in the end.
Fight Club - Need I say more?
Waking Life - Great weird film inspired by anti-work and situationist themes as well as a general disenchantment with society and desires of people to mold the world as they can a lucid dream.
But I'm a Cheerleader - Arguably the best queer movie ever made. The story features a girl sent to a boarding school meant to teach homosexuals how to be straight. Hilarious jabs at heteronormativity and plenty of sexual liberation type themes.
scrap metal antics as economy collapses! let's hear it for meth and capitalism!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95440401
Anarchist movies!
The Wind that Shakes The Barley- Ken Loach. Awesome movie about the early days of the IRA, the dilemmas of armed revolution, and the risk of putting war and militarism ahead of the social revolution.
Land and Freedom- Ken Loach. Another awesome movie covering the same themes, this time against the background of the Spanish Civil War.
To Be Or Not To Be- Ernst Lubitsch. Not to be confused with the Mel Brooks remake, this hilarious movie from 1942 follows a group of Polish actors resisting Nazi occupation.
Network- Sidney Lumet. Dark satire of television with a side plot about a BLA type group. For those of you who are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore!
The Postman- Kevin Costner. Ok, it's a little too patriotic, and gets absurdly cushy at the end. But that part where Olivia Williams picks up the AR-15 and starts dropping fascists with well placed head shots is awesome. And yes, Kevin Costner is still hot, even after the apocalypse. Focuses on how tyranny relies on isolation and lack of information.
Pan's Labyrinth- Guillermo del Toro. Spanish resistance to Franco's fascism with subplot about a girl's fantasy world; or vice versa, depending on who you ask.
Red Dawn- John Milius. Totally a right-wing propaganda flick, but worth watching nonetheless. Jennifer Grey is a real badass. Wolverines!
ooh ooh ooh ...
"The Spook Who Sat Behind The Door"
60s black radical infiltrates the CIA and then uses their tactics to start a guerilla war with ghetto youths. bad ass.
You forgot 'Can Dialectics Break Bricks?', with its hilarious conclusions on the inefficiencies of detourn'ed cinema.
Brewster's Millions - Ok, so the premise is very capitalistic, but Richard Pryor inherits 13 million dollars from a dead uncle. The catch is he must spend it all without accumulating any assets with in like 3 months in order to get 300 million dollars. Among all the crazy spending he starts a mayoral campaign titled "None of the Above" where he convinces the voters not to vote for anybody, not even himself. It's been a far over-looked movie in anarchist subculture for far too long. Richard Pryor, John Candy, Hackensack New Jersey. You can't beat it.
-runrevolt
hey yo, nice post. here are some of my favorites, although they are not all hollywood as the title of your article suggests...
- blade runner
- the idiots (dogma 95)
- a grin, without a cat (by chris marker)
- sans soleil (by chris marker)
some thoughts...
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Our ideas and theories of the world and life all manage to flow into one another in some way, shape, or form. It is common to the idea that everything is related to each other somehow and that everything manages to flow together, in the end creating one large functioning experience. This is my “theory of flow”, of which I probably I’m not the first to come up with – however, I realize that different “theories of flow” might exist, such as the bio-behavioral theory of the flow experience. In order to better understand world cinema I believe it is necessary to think about this theory of flow.
We live in a world of capital, where everyday most of our daily lives are dictated by this flow of capital from hand to hand. Some of us have a lot and then there are those of us who have a little, but no matter how much you have you are drastically affected by it in everyday life. The majority of people will never see much of this capital and instead they will only see it in the new strip mall going up or in their dreams at night. This global circulation of capital has the power to create and destroy on a level never witnessed before in history. The USA can spend billions of dollars in order to design the perfect weapon, which it will later use in order to destroy the “other” who poses a “threat” and then give those same people it has helped destroy a blank check in order to rebuild. For many the flow of capital has taken precedence over god. It is a brute force that is supplanting its hold onto societies across the world, in what seems to be a stronghold that is difficult to escape from. With this flow of capital, technology has been created and developed to the extent that, these same places of devastatingly rich capital now hold onto power through the exercise and exploitation of these vary same technologies upon the human mass.
One such area is that of world cinema, which seems to flourish in these areas of extreme wealth and capital. A large part of this course for me has been viewing these movies made outside of the USA and examining their messages by comparing and contrasting them to my own experience of watching American movies. It seems that outside of the USA, world cinema has developed the heaviest in pockets of capital and wealth, in which people have the time and expenses to endeavor on certain tasks that are not necessary for the basic survival of humankind. Therefore, these messages through the medium of cinema can often be seen as the dominant thought of certain groups who hold power, yet at the same time, I feel that a lot of the movies we have watched in class are refutations of this idea power, for example Sans Soleil by Chris Maker. In which, the ideas of time and space are evoked by the series of islands that flow together with one another. Japan has also witnessed unspeakable amounts of destruction in the past, yet somehow they have managed to revive themselves and now are some of the great holders of this global flowing capital.
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and lastly, here is a review i like of one of your favorites "do the right thing"
*****
Do the Right Thing: By Any Means Necessary, or As You Promised?
In 1989 Universal Pictures released Spike Lee’s critically acclaimed movie, Do the Right Thing. The movie looks into the multi-ethnic relationships of Brooklyn, New York on the hottest summer day. When the movie was released many people believed that it might cause rioting within the black communities of New York, however this proved to be just another great white-hype. In the movie there is an Italian-American pizzeria in a predominantly African-American-Caribbean-Latino community. For this Spike Lee presents a look inside the community of Bedford-Stuyvestant (Bed-Stuy) during the late 1980’s.
This is not a documentary, but rather a movie that tells a certain story, thus leaving certain aspects out. For example, no comment about crack/cocaine is to be found throughout the movie, yet during the early 80’s Bed-Stuy was notorious[1] for crack, although its wide-spread was said to diminish in the late 80’s, it has never disappeared. On the other hand, the movie does present real-life struggles of love and hate and perhaps the issue of drugs was left out for a reason. Do the Right Thing touches on everything from intense global warming[2], police brutality, inner-community conflict and the mixture of cultures, to the struggle of everyday survival in an inherently violent system.
The movie goes great lengths at commenting about violence and at the end one is presented with two seemingly differt perspectives on the issue, Martin Luther King (MLK) or Malcolm X. Perhaps, I'm wrong, but it seems that even though the quotes at the end of the movie by M.L.K. and X seem to communicate they same idea, if one is to look more closely at their lives the diversity between them can be striking (at least that is what my American education has taught me). In the movie, the Italian owners of the pizzeria are engaged into a physical fight with the African-American customers. Eventually the police show up and end up killing Radio Raheem (the black man who originally was fighting with the Italian owner). “Mookie” who is played by Spike Lee then throws an empty garbage can through the window of the pizzeria and the crowd of angry Radio Raheem supporters began to completely destroy the pizzeria, eventually burning it down. Is burning down the pizzeria a violent act or is it just an act of property destruction that is only financial? Is this revengeful property destruction[3] worth the same kind of violence as taking a life?
Do the Right Thing points to a very strong point within NYC and the rest of North America (perhaps further) surrounding the issue of police brutality. The police exist to enforce the will of the powerful and the police from NYC have been infamously racist, known for killing many innocent people. The film also points out that the police are no more integral to hierarchy than the oppressive dynamics in our own communities; they are simply the external manifestation, on a larger scale, of the same phenomena. For, as a whole, the community of Bed-Stuy has a lot of internal conflict. When there is internal conflict in a community it is nearly impossible to also conquer conflicts outside of the community, like the police or other forms of oppression. Folks who are privileged or submissive often don’t see the powers that be the same way as someone who has to deal with oppression, violence, and the struggle for justice on a daily basis.
In the end, it is either MLK’s “Freedom, as you promised” or Malcolm X’s “Freedom, by any means necessary.” Is self-defense a form of violence and what would MLK think? Some critics believe that violence is more American than cherry pie, while others ask where violence has gotten us. As me mum once said, “no one ever truly wins a war.”
[1] Notorious BIG is also from Bed-Stuy, along with many other famous rappers
[2] People have had visions of the end forever, natural disasters are just some of
them
[3] Real liberation struggles do not focus on exacting revenge but rather on solving problems so that all might have better lives.
Uhh, V for Vendetta? No stellar politics here but the end is sure to make any of us smile with glee.
-Pseudonym
Libertarias. Great Spanish film about the civil war focusing on women fighting in the front lines.
My favorite Hollywood flick inspired by/inspiring anarchist ideals:
Pump Up The Volume (1990)
dir. Allan Moyle
Starring Christian Slater (!!!)
from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100436/releaseinfo:
Mark (Christian Slater) runs a pirate radio station and causes an uproar when he speaks his mind and enthralls fellow teens.
This film has it all: rants against authority, youth liberation, Indymedia and pirate radio, fleeing the cops, riots against teachers, a boisterous punk in a circle-A shirt telling the principal to fuck off, critiques of ex-radical sellouts, and an incredibly inspiring message about fighting the alienation of modern American culture through expressing how we experience the world and banding together to oppose authority and create something different.
One of my faves is Accepted ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0384793/) about a bunch of kids who self-organize a university. It sells out a bit in the end, but its a great feel-good flick.
Also a favorite is Serenitiy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379786/), the film continuation of Firefly, with its small band of outlaws defying a fascist interplanetary government.
Also worth mentioning is Punishment Park (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067633/) and Wild In The Streets (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063808/) both dystopian visions, the first of the right, and the second of the left. Good fun nevertheless.
Bandits (2001) - Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. It's a comedy about robbing banks and getting away with it -- the bank robbers become folk heroes, and never sell out.
Newsies (1992) - A Disney musical, of all things, about organizing a newsboy strike at the end of the 1800s. I've never seen it myself, but plenty of friends rave about it. I hear, if you turn it off about 5 minutes before the end, the movie is way more anarchist.
Every movie ever made by John Waters
Tetsuo: The Iron Man I see this film to be basically about the industrialization of humyns.
I second the everything by John Waters.
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