Hollywood Asian: Philip Ahn and the Politics of Cross-Ethnic Performance

Book Description

In the postwar years, Italy underwent a far-reaching process of industrialization that transformed the country into a leading industrial power. Throughout most of this period, the Italian Communist Party (PCI) remained a powerful force in local government and civil society. However, as Stephen Gundle observes, the PCI was increasingly faced with challenges posed by modernization, particularly by mass communication, commercial cultural industries, and consumerism. Between Hollywood and Moscow is an analysis of the PCI’s attempts to cope with these problems in an effort to maintain its organization and subculture.
Gundle focuses on the theme of cultural policy, examining how the PCI’s political strategies incorporated cultural policies and activities that were intended to respond to the Americanization of daily life in Italy. In formulating this policy, Gundle contends, the Italian Communists were torn between loyalty to the alternative values generated by the Communist tradition and adaptation to the dominant influences of Italian modernization. This equilibrium eventually faltered because the attractive aspects of Americanization and pop culture proved more influential than the PCI’s intellectual and political traditions.
The first analysis in English of the cultural policies and activities of the PCI, this book will appeal to readers with an interest in modern Italy, the European left, political science, and media studies.

The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way

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One of the finest film studies of recent years
..includes controversial strikes, & (SAG) walkouts...
A great overview of Hollywood from the 1930s to 1950s

The Big Tomorrow: Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way
Lary May
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226511634

Book Description

In this daring reexamination of the connections between national politics and Hollywood movies, Lary May offers a fresh interpretation of American culture from the New Deal through the Cold War—one in which a populist, egalitarian ethos found itself eventually supplanted by a far different view of the nation.

"One of the best books ever written about the movies." —Tom Ryan, The Age

"The most exhilarating work of revisionist film history since Pauline Kael's Citizen Kane. . . . May's take on what movies once were (energizing, as opposed to enervating), and hence can become again, is enough to get you believing in them again as one of the regenerative forces America so sorely needs."—Jay Carr, Boston Globe

"A startling, revisionist history of Hollywood's impact on politics and American culture. . . . A convincing and important addition to American cultural criticism."—Publishers Weekly

"A controversial overview of 30 years of American film history; must reading for any serious student of the subject."—Choice

"A provocative social history of Hollywood's influence in American life from the 1930s to the 1950s. May argues persuasively that movies in the period offered a good deal of tough criticism of economic and social conditions in U.S. society. . . . May challenges us to engage in some serious rethinking about Hollywood's impact on American society in the middle of the twentieth century."—Robert Brent Toplin, American Historical Review

Customer Reviews:

One of the finest film studies of recent years.......2002-03-03

This is one of those books that is difficult to over praise. Over and over while reading this book, May helped me gain new insight into aspects of Hollywood cinema from the thirties, forties, and fifties, and continually suggested to me new areas of research to undertake. In the long run, I believe that his book is going to have a profound effect on the way that I view movies from those decades.

Before I move on to the considerable praise I want to heap on this book, let me dwell briefly on a couple of negatives. I think this book has a much broader appeal than the author might believe. The book takes an essentially popular subject, and couches it in an overly academic style. As someone with a strong graduate school background (albeit in philosopher rather than cultural studies), I managed to always make sense of his argument, but sometimes only with difficulty. There was also a too-heavy reliance on statistical data for my taste. Clearly he feels that the data gives greater force to and to a degree validates many of his arguments. But I feel that it also caused the book to drag at points.

But overall, this book is a stunner. The thesis of the book is a complex one, and any attempt to state it briefly will distort it to a degree. I will try to minimize my distortion. May begins by arguing that there was a radical shift in social and political outlook in Hollywood in the 1940s. The effort in Hollywood to eliminate political dissent and to promulgate a monolithic vision of America is well known. May argues that this was a break with the legacy of the thirties, in which the Hollywood talking film had developed as a mode of expressing an egalitarian, anticapitalist, and multicultural affirmation of the New Deal. Thirties films were highly critical of big business, with representatives of big business frequently appearing as villains in films. As America entered WW II, however, and began to unify in order to oppose first Hitler and Japan and then the Red Menace, movies reflected a different order, which was nonegalitarian, pro-big business (with big business disappearing as a villain in films), and nondissenting.

May attempts to tell this story in several ways. His brilliant first chapter dwells at length on the movie career of Will Rogers, who articulated a vision of America that varied greatly from the Anglo-Saxon dream that looked to Europe for models of success and social ordering. As May quotes on several occasions, in response to the New England social elite, Rogers, who identified with his Cherokee heritage, wrote, "My ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower--they met the boat." The second chapter of the book continues this to display many example of multicultural republicanism that permeated 1930s filmmaking. He then proceeds, in perhaps my favorite chapter in the book, to demonstrate how this egalitarian vision of America profoundly influenced American movie theater design. Rejecting the theater palaces that dominated 1920s theater design and which represented an affirmation of the social layering of the European model--with different prices of admission for various areas and separate entrances--American designers moved to a conception where all viewers paid a uniform price and seating was not restricted, with all viewers entering through the same entrance.

The second half of the book deals with the undermining of the egalitarianism of the thirties by a new vision of Americanism in the forties. The first of two chapters devoted to this displays this by articulating the vision of a white consumer culture, where individuals look for freedom in a private realm emphasizing family and material comfort. The second chapter deals with the politics in Hollywood to help eliminate all those who dissented from this vision or who had a political history that did not conform to this vision. These were painful chapters to read, with the ruthless suppression of political dissent. May deals in some degree with the history of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), which in the 1930s strongly affirmed the ideals of the New Deal and egalitarian ideals. In particular, the career of the first appointed president of the SAG (in the 1930s, the president of the SAG was elected by the membership), Ronald Reagan (i.e., he was not elected by the membership at all) is dealt with at length. May ends his book with a discussion of film noir and its attempt to express dissent from the accepted and sanctioned cultural norm.

Anyone interested in cultural studies, the political climate and culture of the US in the thirties and forties, or the history of Hollywood should read this book. Easily one of the more compelling books I have read on film in the past two or three years.

..includes controversial strikes, & (SAG) walkouts..........2001-02-26

May is American Studies Prof. at U. of MN,& wrote: "Screening Out-the-Past" He dislikes Bob Hope-Bing Crosby's.."mindless' Road pictures,also Ronald Reagan,(head, Screen Actors Guild)for stifling emerging "left-wing",independent producers,& all those who were not 100% anti-communist. Hopefully, he'll prove his points by updating with coverage of post 60's Hollywood....

A great overview of Hollywood from the 1930s to 1950s.......2000-07-31

This book is a well researched account of Hollywood during the Depression, World War II and at the beginning of the Cold War. It is a must for everyone interested in the history of Hollywood.

"The Big Tomorrow" depicts Hollywood as a 'populist and progressive world that offered a vision of an egalitarian and humanitarian world in film' before the 1950s. The author demonstrates this on the example of actor Will Rogers, a Cherokee Indian, director Frank Capra, and others. May shows that not only film content had changed but the theatres as well. The central themes were gangsters, fallen women and ribald comics while the language and dialects of the folk were used. The theatres underwent a change from lavish, sumptuous ones, where seating was divided between the high-paying and low-paying, to democratic movie houses. The author uses several photographs to illustrate the changes. Inside Hollywood actors, directors etc. formed unions that supported New Deal reforms. The second part of the book explains why World War II and the Cold War reshaped politics and moviemaking in Hollywood. May discusses censorship and the role of CIA agents in Hollywood. Films presented a 'new' woman now. Female characters focused ultimately on a home life that preserved traditional gender roles, symbolized in the rise of 'patriotic domesticity' while during the Depression female characters of 'empowered women' fulfilled themselves. May also points out the change in the portrayal of African Americans and Asians. The rise of anti-communism and its effects are dealt with. Those who wouldn't or couldn't prove their belonging to the communists were suspended. However, they found a new market for a dark 'film noir' that challenged the consensus and set the stage for a youthful counterculture in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Stories Hollywood Never Tells
Howard Zinn
Manufacturer: AK Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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A People's History of the United States CD: Highlights from the 20th Century

The People Speak: American Voices, Some Famous, Some Little Known

People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)

ASIN: 1902593367

Book Description

What sort of view of our history do we get from Hollywood movies? Why are some stories told and others not? In this informal talk given at the Taos Talking Film Festival, Zinn turns his attention to Hollywood, the stories it tells and the ones it doesn't and makes a few suggestions for films he'd love to see.

Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s

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An Amazing Book
The Commies are Coming
Outstanding Book
You'll never see this movie made
Untangling Revisionism

Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s
Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley
Manufacturer: Prima Lifestyles
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0761513760
Release Date: 1998-10-28

Amazon.com

Here's what most people know about the clash between Washington, D.C., and Hollywood involving Communist influence over the film industry: the House Committee on Un-American Activities led an organized witch hunt against writers and actors with left-wing sympathies, creating an environment that led to a blacklist destroying many talented people's careers. But some insist this isn't the whole story. "It's a false parallel. Witch hunt!" wrote Molly Kazan, whose husband Elia testified before the committee, saved his career as a film director, and earned enmity from Hollywood liberals continuing to the present day. "The phrase would indicate that there are no Communists in the government, none in the big trade unions, none in the press, none in the arts.... No one who was in the Party and the left uses that phrase. They know better."

Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley works to fill in some of the historical gaps with Hollywood Party. The information on the role of Communist (and Communist- sympathetic) screenwriters is not particularly revelatory to those familiar with the basic outlines of the story, although Billingsley pushes the Communist angle hard, noting the Party's lockstep support of Stalin and what might charitably be called his "policies," as well as the vicious backlash against any leftist who spoke out against the Communists. His chronicle of Communist efforts to control the studio workers' unions, however, illuminates a less glamorous but perhaps more substantial aspect of the story. Those in search of celebrity dirt will be mildly disappointed; there are several star-studded scenes, but mostly mild anecdotes on the level of Ronald Reagan's gradual realization that, as an SAG activist, he was being played for a dupe by the Reds. Unless, that is, Billingsley is writing about a Communist or a fellow traveler, in which case no personal quirk, from screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's penchant for working in his bathtub to Bertolt Brecht's lack of hygiene to left-wing journalist Ella Winter's mannishly short hair, is overlooked. -- Ron Hogan

Book Description

In the fall of 1997 some of the biggest names in show business filled the Motion Picture Academy theater in Beverly Hills for Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist, a lavish production worthy of an Oscar telecast. In song, film, and live performances by stars such as Billy Crystal, Kevin Spacey, and John Lithgow, the audience relived a time some fifty years before, when, as the story has always been told, courageous writers and actors stood firm against a witch-hunt and blacklist that wrecked lives and destroyed careers. Left untold that night, and ignored in books and films for more than half a century, was a story not so politically correct but vastly more complex and dramatic.

In Hollywood Party the complete story finally emerges, backdropped by the great upheavals of our time and with all the elements of a thriller—wrenching plot twists, intrigue, betrayal, violence, corruption, misguided passion, and lost idealism. Using long neglected information from public records, the personal files of key players, and recent revelations from Soviet archives, Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley uncovers the Communist Party's strategic plan for taking control of the movie industry during its golden age, a plan that came perilously close to success. He shows how the Party dominated the politics of the movie industry during the 1930s and 1940s, raising vast sums of money from unwitting liberals and conscripting industry luminaries into supporting Stalinist causes.

In riveting detail, the shameful truth unfolds: Communist writers, actors, and directors, wealthy beyond the dreams of most Americans, posture as proletarian wage slaves as they try to influence the content of movies. From the days of the Popular Front through the Nazi-Soviet Pact and beyond World War II, they remain faithful to a regime whose brutality rivaled that of Hitler's Nazis.

Their plans for control of the industry a shambles by the mid-1950s, the Party nonetheless succeeded in shaping the popular memory of those days. By chronicling what has been left on the cutting-room floor, from "back story" to aftermath, Hollywood Party changes those perceptions forever.

"Mr. Billingsley's book is the best exploration I've seen of the Hollywood blacklist and the Communist Party's role in that conflict. Hollywood Party covers it all with insight, meticulous research, and some wry perceptions."

—Charlton Heston

"For years we've been treated to the left-wing version of the Hollywood blacklist. Now Lloyd Billingsley has provided us with the rest of the story."

—David Horowitz, author of Radical Son

"Now the whole story can be told; the blacklist was never black and white after all, but can only be depicted accurately in shades of gray. From this day forward, no future backstage history of Hollywood can be called complete without taking into account the evidence that Lloyd Billingsley has uncovered."

—Gary McVey, film curator, former director of the Los Angeles International Film Festival

"Hollywood Party is an absolutely captivating achievement."

—Richard Grenier, columnist and author of Capturing the Culture

About the Author

Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley is the editorial director of the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. He has served as California correspondent for the Spectator (London) and written for the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Daily News, San Francisco Chronicle, and many other publications. He currently divides his time between Sacramento, the Bay Area, and Southern California.

Customer Reviews:

An Amazing Book.......2007-09-01

All the 5-star reviews here say it better than I could. This book is invaluable at shattering the myths surrounding the "Hollywood 10" and their comrades, who supported a political ideology so murderous that in terms of body count made Nazi Germany look like a drive-by shooting in comparison. Look at the numbers if you don't believe me. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, etc. I especially liked the quotes from Ayn Rand, a brilliant woman who- unlike these fanciful Hollywood types- actually LIVED under communist rule and offered a firsthand account of it's terrors. Her testimoney was completely unassailable- and completely ignored by the Hollywood Commies, who continued to refer to Russia as "The Motherland"(see Lillian Hellman)and championed it's "culture". Rand's response to this drivel was typically sharp and to the point: "What culture? The culture of concentration camps? DON'T let yourself be fooled when Reds tell you that what they want to destroy are men like Hitler or Mussolini. What they want to destroy are men like Shakespeare, Chopin and Edison."

Communism is evil, folks. I'd rather deal with Nazis because at least that breed is honest with their evil. Nazis let you know right up front who they are, what they stand for and what they intend to do. Unlike communists, who come as your "friends" and want to "take care" of all you poor, lost souls....

That's when the knife gets inserted into your back.

The Commies are Coming.......2006-05-22

Like all good conspiracy theories emerging from the U.S. (JFK being the most notorious), Billingsley's account of communist conspiracy in Hollywood has just enough facts to offer support for the rickety structure of hyperbole and paranoia that structures *Hollywood Party*. Yes, there were communists in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. And, yes, they did attempt to influence screen content while they were there. But beyond these two fairly obvious statements, Billingsley finds his argument in treacherous waters of circumspection, anecdote, and purple prose.

Let me state up front: I am Left; I am a film professor, and my scholarship concerns investigating the Left in Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1940s. In all of the works I have read about Communism in Hollywood, Billingsley offers nothing new, albeit his writing is slightly more engaging for a lay reader than the typical histories on this period. Even more ironic is the fact that Left academics offer much better accounts of this period than Billingsley, though he seesm grossly unaware that such studies have been made. One of the best studies is Larry Ceplair's and Steven Englund's *The Inquisition in Hollywood*, written twenty years before Billingsley's book (1979) and far more superior.

The real problem with Billingsley's book is that he sniffs out communist in any vestige of Left activity: within studio strikes, influencing all screen content, support of emigres from Nazi Germany. Communists did indeed have a presence within Hollywood, yet their control is far from the extensive web of control that Billingsley supposes. Communists actually were of the minority within Hollywood. The majority were the Popular Fronters: individuals who either were liberal, socialist, anarchist, social democratic, Christian socialist, New Dealers, and so on who at times became "fellow travelers" with Communists in their attempts to stop fascism, be pro-union, and fight racism. The story Billingsley tells (and the one that is still by far the predominant one told today) is that these fellow travelers were DUPED by the communists, unwittingly led astray by Moscow Gold and smoke-and-mirrors. But the real story of Hollywood (and the 1930s in general) were how the Communist Party USA needed to become more moderate in its stance to adopt to a general liberalism that permeated the entire nation. And if one is going to critique the CPUSA for its at times firery rhetoric, then one must also critique the American Legion, a bastion of patriotism and conservatism, that wrote in 1932, "The principal causes of the present situation are in general such that they cannot be promptly and efficiently met by existing political methods." So, although it might be true that Communists wanted to influence Hollywood films in more liberal directions, so too did hundreds of other non-Communist actors, directors, writers, etc.

The question really isn't: how did the communists get control of Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s? Instead it is: what made some aspects of communism and their political fights appealing to a large segement of the studio community? And, in essence, this leads one to the question of: what was the Popular Front that united communists, socialists, catholics, liberals, New Dealers into a powerful formation that felt it could influence Hollywood in progressive directions? The only book to take into account this question is Michael Denning's *The Cultural Front*, one of the best books on this period and its relation to Left politics. Other good resources are: Daniel Aaron's *Writers on the Left,* Gerald Horne's, *Class Struggle in Hollywood,* and Saverio Giovacchini's *Hollywood Modernism: Film and Politics in the Age of the New Deal*.

It would be much more informative and useful for a reader to explore the aforementioned works than waste one's time with Billingsley, unless you are looking for a good laugh, or for conservative vitrol to simply support one's ignorance.

As for the one reviewer who claims that liberal professors offer a general elegy for the poor blacklistees, I suggest that he/she immediately transfer from the college he/she is in and go to a better school where the faculty is more well-informed. Although McCarthyism was nothing short of a legalized crime, Left film-workers most certainly wanted to influence Hollywood films in progressive directions where non-whites would not be stereotyped, where community was as valued as the individual, and where the trials and tribulations imposed upon everyday laboring Americans by their employers were represented. If the Hollywood Communists were guilty of anything, it was in their naivety in believing that the U.S. provided an ideal land where anyone could hold any political view without the fear of imprisonment, retaliation, or persecution (a fact that the Red Scare of 1919-1920 should have quickly disabused them of). Their attempt to challenge the mandates of American hyper-capitalism led them into the proverbial frying pan when the country regained its economic balance after WWII. One must remain accountable for the political fights one makes-- this is the true lesson of the Blacklist. As for lamenting what happened to the Hollywood Blacklistees, I heed Heywood Broun's dictum, "Don't mourn. Organize."

Outstanding Book.......2005-02-11

This book is outstanding,the author tells the story of the union - studio wars of the late 1940's and the Communist Party's role in the conflict. The author forever shatters the myth that the infamous "Hollywood Ten" were innocent victims of a witch hunt. One area I would love to have seen the author delve into more was people's attitudes torward Communism at the time. Another myth the book destorys is that the communists were defeated by right-wing MC Carthyites. The heroes who saved the labor movement in Hollywood from falling into Communist control were the New Deal era liberals of the time.

You'll never see this movie made.......2004-06-11

The fact that it is called the "red scare" or "McCarthyism" says a lot about how the post World War II communist problem is looked at from the modern perspective. From the earliest times I can remember gavels coming down by angry congressmen as meek witnesses calmly express their disagreement with a committee that would make them "name names." The witnesses seemed real pathetic and the committee chairmen all come off as power mad scoundrels looking for a headline. The poor Hollywood Ten went to jail or fled to Europe to write movies under fictitious names.

What none of the pictures or narration ever told me was that every member of the Hollywood Ten had been a communist at some point in his life and that half of the Hollywood ten were still communists when they went to jail for contempt of court. Since they weren't making the defense in front of Congress that they had the right to be communists, the event was portrayed as a "witch hunt." These were just misunderstood new deal liberals that wanted more socialism than the House Un-American Activities Committee.

What Mr. Billingsley shows in his excellently researched book is that they weren't just a bunch of artistic idealists, but a group of avowed Marxists being funded by and taking orders from Moscow. It's not an open question. They were given orders to get collectivist messages into Hollywood films. They were told not to portray capitalism or businessmen in a good light. Writer Budd Schulberg was criticized by the party because his book "What Makes Sammy Run?" didn't achieve any of the party's goals. Some of these guys were even writing articles for the communist Daily Worker under their own names.

Modern Hollywood liberals make the communist party members the victims of some horrible black period in American history without any thought to what Stalin was doing to his people in Russia (or would have liked to have done here). Somehow, the liquidation and forced starvation of millions is nothing compared to a few screenwriters that have to write under an alias.

Quick can you name one innocent blacklisted person whose life was ruined? I can only think of the fictional Robert DeNiro character from Guilty by Suspicion. The character had to be fictional in order prove their dramatic point. Had they made the movie about a real person who went through such things he would have had to have been an actual communist. DeNiro plays a clueless liberal that is blacklisted because he was at a few parties. There weren't any of these misunderstandings in real life.

Until I read Mr. Billingsley's book I had no idea that Hollywood was plagued by violent strikes in the 1940s whose purpose was bringing all the Hollywood trade unions under the control of communist, Herbert Sorrell. John Howard Lawson was trying to gain control of the Screenwriters Guild at the same time with the overall plan of controlling the content of Hollywood movies. Isn't it a little scary that this was being funded by a totalitarian government?

None of the facts of this period are ever discussed. It's simply boiled down to communists as idealists and anti-communists as opportunists. In order to perpetuate that myth, Hollywood has since ignored the many opportunities to present the horrors of Communist Russia the way they have presented the horrors of Nazi Germany. The recent film, The Pianist, about Jewish life in World War II Warsaw, Poland doesn't even once mention that the Nazis and Russians divvy up Poland at the beginning of the war. All you hear is that the Germans invade in 1942 and the Russians liberate in 1945. That misses the whole point of what happened to Poland in the 20th Century. But it does perpetuate the myth.

The tactic used in front of the committee hearings was to pretend that it was no one's business what their political affiliation was. That's cute, but would Hollywood have stood up for Nazis or Ku Klux Klan members under the auspices of first amendment freedom? The answer is readily available today. Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of Christ" was roundly criticized for having the "wrong kind" of independent thought. They tend to like the kind of independent thought that also coincides with their prejudices like "Fahrenheit 911." Now that's free expression worth getting behind.

Mr. Billingsley's book is so on target with what isn't discussed by Hollywood when they cry about the blacklist that it will forever be an indictment of those people who perpetuate the common myth.

Untangling Revisionism.......2003-12-31

We all think we know it, because we've seen the newsreels, we've heard the interviews with the "Unfriendly 10" and read the ghastly legacy of what we assumed was the only "blacklist" that kept Hollywood craftsmen and women out of important films during the 20th century. But with a careful layout of the truth as it shows up in American Communist and Moscow newspapers, citing of interviews of actors who felt that they were "duped" by the Communists to paint HUAC and the US government in general as evil and disregarding craftsmens' rights Lloyd Billingsley creates a credible argument that we do not know the whole story. Perhaps most troublingly, Billingsley systematically cites evidence of American Communists in Hollywood marching strictly to a tune from Moscow, not their own masses: galvinizing the Anti-Fascist (eg Anti-Nazi) effort whole heartedly....until the day Stalin signed the anti-agression pact with Hitler. Suddenly, Pete Seger was singing peace-at-any-cost songs instead of string-the-fuehrer-up songs; Lillian Hellman was silenced when she had been so vocal about our duty to protect what she was heard to call "the motherland". Then, when Hitler invaded Hellman's precious "Motherland", Hollywood elite's communists' tune changed again, as evidenced by The Daily Worker and New Masses....a Communist paper popular in Hollywood. Could there be better evidence that CPUSA was the marionette in Stalin's paws?
And what a prize for him! Being able to use Hollywood as his vessel for agit-prop must have made Goebbels a little jealous, talented as Lenni Riehfenstahl was. Aside from the fact that socialist rhetoric often runs amok in 30's and 40's films --- capitalists bad, poor people good----Billingsley lists at least 3 unapologetically pro-Soviet films made during the war, ostensibly to boost understanding of our ally, but laced with untruth.
The book is not just a review of the early years of the House Un-American Committee ( another myth dispelled: this was pre-McCarthy, who came onto the committee long after the Hollywood 10 were dispersed for refusing to simply admit they were in the Communist Party....which of course, was not a crime.) It is a survey, through earlier interviews, articles from The Daily Worker and New Masses, and material available for a brief period after the collapse of the Soviet Union that verified the ties between the Soviet and American parties and the US party's dependence on "Moscow gold", which of course made it hard for them to disobey "Moscow's demands". Explanations are given for seemingly popular leaders stepping down suddenly; for Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Santy lying about the Ukranien famine (he was being blackmailed); for people recanting when they wrote articles stating perhaps we shouldn't worry about making sure so much Marxist dialectic gets into our films (other Hollywood elites would lock them in a house and basically "debrief" them until they came to the "right" conclusion....or,until they simply stormed out and said "this is b.s.").

It is also about learning of "ambassadors" like Paul Robeson, who betrayed Jewish friends when for the hundredth time he travelled to the USSR and when told they were to be murdered, came back here & assured us that Russia was purely pro-Semitic. (His friends were murdered soon after; Robeson, in an anguished memoir, recanted his mistake years later).

In brief, this is a book that gives us a sight of very normal people in fancy clothes; union leaders, communist bosses, congressional committee members, actors and actresses, with heroism and weaknesses on all sides. Billingsley's seemingly "revisionist" telling is well cited in thourough end notes that I've enjoyed following up on in the texts mentioned, especially those drawing from the briefly-opened KGB archives.

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Behind the Movie Screen

How the American public has come to accept imperialism as a just cause

The Hollywood War Machine: U.S. Militarism and Popular Culture
Carl Boggs , and Tom Pollard
Manufacturer: Paradigm Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The War Film (Rutgers Depth of Field Series)

ASIN: 1594512981

Book Description

In this unique book, the authors provide a hard-hitting, radical critique of the growing culture of American militarism, focusing on the post–Cold War years. Analyzed in historical context and drawing on a broad mix of theoretical, political, and cultural sources, The Hollywood War Machine explores the U.S. film industry and its deepening impact on the popular and political culture. Through the lens of filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Jonathan Mostrow, Edward Zwick, Tony Scott, and John Woo, the volume deconstructs the narratives and images of nearly 200 combat and war-related movies, along with related consumer fare such as television and video games, in the context of the permanent war economy, security state, recurrent military interventions abroad, and the expansion of U.S. global power. Topics include cinematic representations of terrorism, the return of “good war” motifs, the phenomenon of disguised militarism, the relationship between cinema and technowar, depictions of the Gulf War and the current war in Iraq, and general media spectacles of warfare as well as unique perspectives on films related to World War II, the Cold War, and Vietnam.

Customer Reviews:

Behind the Movie Screen.......2007-05-14

Anyone coming of age during the conformist 1950's knows how the movie screen can nourish unquestioning patriotism. Then, it was the proverbial piece of cake for a film industry coming off the hugely patriotic WWII. War films of the 50's-- including the darker ones such as Attack (1956) or Bridges of Toko-Ri (1954)-- never raised serious questions about America' going to war, any war. Even Korea, an unpopular conflict, raised no doubts behind that misnamed "police action". Ditto, the assumed right to annihilate a native population as portrayed in the hundreds of "combat" Westerns of the same period. What followed, it can be argued, was a backlash during the Vietnam years when many movie myths were finally exposed. And that's the overriding strength of this analysis. The authors never for a moment buy into the popular legends surrounding America's expansionist role in world affairs. Thus a critical distance opens between the authors and their Hollywood subject, a very necessary distance for getting at the propaganda dimension.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't really hit stride until Chapter 3 on Vietnam. Too much in the first 50 pages tends to be repetitive and could have been honed down. At the same time, Chapter 2-- though strengthened by an illuminating definition of the "good war"-- suffers from sloppy scholarship in surveying the pre-Vietnam period. Most errors amount to inconsequential matters of names and dates (e.g. John Wayne was not in Battle Cry, p.72; Detour was released in 1945, not 1949, p.80); a more serious gaffe refers readers to the mutant grasshopper epic Beginning of the End {1957}, p.84, instead of the more pertinent atom-bomb saga Beginning or the End (1947). Such errors are not pointed out just to be picky. Rather they suggest the authors are not as interested in the pre-Vietnam war films as they are in more recent periods, and frankly, the quality of that early text shows it.

However-- getting on to the stellar chpter 3-- just how anti-war are the so-called anti-war films of the Vietnam era. Here alone the book earns its purchase price. The authors show in both concise summary and compelling detail how Hollywood served the imperial war machine, despite popular beliefs to the contrary. Sure, dark and bloody films like Platoon did nothing to help Pentagon recruitment drives. On the other hand, none of these dramas question the central political or historical context of the war itself. Instead, as the authors show, the soldiers' plight is framed by abstractly dark forces beyond human control, thereby avoiding the touchy topic of who makes war and why. In short, forget about Johnson, the Repubocrats, and imperial ambitions-- rather the chaos results from an unavoidable cosmic condition beyond our collective reach. Thus the fault lies not in the people but in the proverbial stars. At the same time, the authors point out how battlefield portrayals-- no matter how gruesome or unflattering-- never rise beyond the isolated American experience. As a result, the enemy stands as little more than a faceless demonic force, to be exterminated at will. In sum, these Vietnam-era films are stripped of those larger contexts that might raise embarrassing questions. As a consequence, the central myth of America's Manifest Destiny goes unquestioned, even now as it dodges around the streets of downtown Baghdad.

Essentially similar themes are applied throughout the remainder of the book, ending with the calamitous Iraq adventure, circa 2006. The analytic proves very effective in examining such later films as Steven Spielberg's "good war" series, especially the spectacularly brutal Saving Private Ryan. Of course, many critics will use WWII stereotypes to dismiss the work as anti-American, at the same time as the often hidden history of that war is neglected as well. The fact is that neither we nor the enemy are faceless nor without historical context-- a seemingly unassailable truism. However, Hollywood's dark genius has been to get around these paramount truths in undeniably entertaining fashion. Nevertheless, propaganda remains propaganda, no matter how artfully dressed up. The great strength of the Boggs-Pollard study to show how propaganda can happen even when it is not the intended result. All in all-- an indispensible work.

How the American public has come to accept imperialism as a just cause.......2007-03-25

"The Hollywood War Machine" by Carl Boggs and Tom Pollard offers a penetrating critique of the significant role that the culture industry plays in legitimizing the U.S. military/industrial complex. Mr. Boggs and Mr. Pollard's sober narrative of growing U.S. militarism and political hegemony over the course of the early 20th century to today provides a solid foundation upon which hundreds of noteworthy Hollywood films are discussed and analyzed. The authors succeed in demonstrating how Hollywood has consistently produced movies that have overwhelmingly promoted a celebratory but uncritical perspective on U.S. military aggression, helping us understand how the American public has come to accept imperialism as a just cause and, by extension, how the decline of meaningful democratic debate about the U.S.' relationship with the world community has come about.

Mr. Boggs and Mr. Pollard recount the historical legacy of the movie industry to show how the orientation of films has become progressively more militarized as the U.S. has grown to become the preeminent world power. We discover that prior to WWI, the few films produced about war tended to depict a revulsion to violence; during the war, Hollywood at best promoted a positive image of the U.S. military but not about combat. Few films were produced about war until WWII, when an abundance of propagandistic but wildly successful films helped break U.S. isolationism and promote the idea of a 'good war' mobilized against the fascist threat to democracy. Interestingly, the authors connect popular post-war genres such as westerns, sci fi, spy, thrillers and film noir with increasingly militarized scripts in which struggles between good and evil were overwhelmingly depicted in sexist, racist and nationalistic terms. The authors argue that the repetition of such images have tended to instill an uniquely skewed and nativistic worldview among audiences, which in turn has afforded U.S. policy makers with opportunities to regularly invoke claims of exceptionalism and to increasingly declare war against America's perceived enemies at little risk of public opposition.

While one might think that some of the Vietnam-themed movies that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s presented a more critical view when compared with prior Hollywood fare, Mr. Boggs and Mr. Pollard contend that almost none of these films goes beyond depicting the horrors of war to more challenging discussions of U.S. imperialistic motivations or Vietnamese perspectives. In fact, the authors point out that a significant number of Vietnam-themed films such as the 'Rambo' series preposterously attempted to recast the U.S.' effort in heroic terms. In perhaps the book's most compelling passage, the chapter on Vietnam concludes with a powerful critique of the misgivings expressed by Robert McNamara in the documentary film 'Fog of War', in which the authors explain why it is imperative for the U.S. to face up to its legacy of war crimes as requisite to restructuring its relations with the rest of the world.

The authors go on to discuss how the 'good war' theme has more recently been recycled in movies about terrorists, the Gulf War, and a slew of nostalgic and hyper-patriotic films about WWII. Mr. Boggs and Mr. Pollard believe that the emergence of the U.S. as the sole superpower and the rise of the corporate media have conspired to present the spectacle of technowar as a glorification and legitimation of violence in service of U.S. corporate interests. Furthermore, we learn that Hollywood's close working relationship with the video game industry has produced intensified narratives that may be conditioning the public to accept war by remote control; the authors point to the deployment of robots to combat zones and weapons into space as evidence of this trend. However, the authors believe that the asymmetric response of the Iraqis and others to the U.S. military machine demonstrates the limits to power, suggesting that the public would be far better supported by a media that promotes peace and democracy instead of conflict, violence and domination.

I highly recommend this outstanding book to everyone.

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Jeff Hart's review of American Politics and Hollywood Film

American Politics in Hollywood Film
Ian Scott
Manufacturer: Edinburgh University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0748612467

Book Description

This is the first book to investigate Hollywood's treatment of American politics, politicians and political institutions. The author explains the influence - through creative, ideological and financial means - that Hollywood has on politics, and vice-versa. Key questions of agenda setting are addressed, as are the value-oriented frames of reference that Hollywood has helped shape in educating and directing the American public about politics and democracy.

American Politics in Hollywood Film is structured thematically, introducing sub-genres of election films, political biographies, action, adventure and thriller films. There is an overarching chronological pattern, beginning in the 1930's and ending in the 1990's, allowing the reader to trace the progression of the genre. 25 black/white film stills are included.

Customer Reviews:

Jeff Hart's review of American Politics and Hollywood Film.......2002-03-08

This is a good book on an important topic. Not only does it carefully describe and analyze a large number of Hollywood films on American politics, it also provides brief discussions of relevant film theories. As a result, the book might be quite useful in undergraduate courses where the instructor wants to provide a gentle entry point for students to film theory while also engaging them in debates about American politics.

Chapter 1 is devoted to an exposition of theory. Chapter 2 introduces the reader to a number of films of the 1930s and 1940s that have been forgotten in an effort to put classic films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Citizen Kane into historical context. Chapter 3 focuses on films that deal with electoral campaigns. Chapter 4 deals with "conspiracy films" - including most of Oliver Stone's work, but also films like Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men, and Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor. Ian Scott discusses these films as part of the larger genre of action thrillers, but also does a good job of parsing their political messages. Chapter 5 focuses on political biographies, particularly on films about specific presidents like Wilson, Sunrise at Campobello, JFK, and Nixon. Chapter 6 deals with the strange satirical political films of the 1990s like Wag the Dog, Bob Roberts, and Primary Colors. The book lacks a concluding a chapter.

The argument put forward in this book is that Hollywood "...has served to ground many of the fundamental principles and beliefs of the nation into the consciousness of its citizenry through symbolic as well as pedagogic means." More negatively, the author argues that Hollywood "has somehow been complicit in the simplification of the democratic debate..." [p. 3]

Scott notes that Hollywood uses existing myths/symbols to make filmic statements. In most Hollywood films about U.S. politics, liberal use is made of important monuments. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, for example, the Lincoln Memorial is used to symbolize integrity in democratic leadership. The colossal but benign image of Lincoln is associated with "triumph in the face of adversity, with sacrifice, and with preservation of the republic in a time of great upheaval." In Oliver Stone's movie Nixon, there is an important scene in which Richard Nixon debates with antiwar protesters at the Lincoln Memorial.

Book Description

Despite the economic hardship of the thirties, people flocked to the movies in unprecedented numbers. At the same time, the Roosevelt Administration was trying to implement the New Deal and increase the influence and power of the federal government. Weaving together film and political history, Giuliana Muscio traces the connections between Depression Era Hollywood and the popularity of FDR, asserting that politics transformed its public into spectators while the movie industry transformed its spectators into a public. Hollywood's New Deal reveals the ways in which this reciprocal relationship between politics and film evolved into a strategic effort to stabilize a nation in the clutches of economic unrest by creating a unified American consciousness through national cinema.

Muscio analyzes such regulatory practices as the Hays Code, and the government's scrutinizing of monopolistic practices such as block booking and major studio ownership of movie theaters. Hollywood's New Deal, focusing on the management and structure of the film industry, delves deep into the Paramount case, detailing the behind-the-scenes negotiations and the public statements that ended with film industry leaders agreeing to self regulate and to eliminate monopolistic practices.

Hollywood's acquiescence and the government's retreat from antitrust action show that they had found a mutually beneficial way of preserving their own spheres of power and influence. This book is indispensable for understanding the growth of the film industry and the increasing political importance of mass media.

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