So I’m teaching a new course, a freshman seminar, entitled “Socialism: Real and Imagined.” In the context of economic crisis and the willingness of the right to throw about the word “socialism”, the idea is to have first year students think through the different meanings of the word, examine some concrete experiments in socialism (Mondragon, Swedish wage-earner funds…) and then imagine feasible and plausible forms of socialism, applicable to highly industrialized democratic societies (i.e. societies like ours).In the imagining section of the course, I’d like to use some utopian novels and some movies that deal with socialism. I’d welcome any suggestions for either books or movies. I’m thinking of using Bellamy’s “Looking Backwards” and Le Guin’s “Dispossessed” for novels, but others would be welcome. In the movie category, I’m less interested in the Soviet experience than how socialism has been discussed or proposed in the West.Thanks for any help.
if ken loach’s land and freedom is now available on dvd i would recommend it highly. bread and roses might be good too, though it’s more specifically about unionization than about socialism in general.
Chris–it’s odd, I can think of many films dealing with unionization but few with the more general idea of socialism. I always liked The Molly Malones on the subject of how far one should go to organize and resist economic oppression.
Night and Fog in Japan is a highly interesting movie. It may try your students’ patience and, of course, it’s about Japan rather than the “west.”
Melville’s Army of Shadows is about the French Resistance. Of course, it’s not about socialism as a theory but it certainly poses the question of its necessity in action.
If I was feeling really adventurous I’d try to find and screen Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle.
Arnab, I was watching Land and Freedom on Youtube this morning for the collective farms debate; the whole thing is available (114 minutes) but without English subtitles. I’ve ordered a multi-region dvd.
Michael, that’s what I find strange: I can easily fill a class with movies about unions, but not socialism. I’ll check out your suggestions, esp. Molly Malones, which I have’t seen in a while.
China Mieville–a Brit sci-fi/fantasy writer–has this intriguing list: http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/50socialist/full/
I’d put in a plug for the Banks novel, for Jack London.
Godard’s last film was called Film Socialism — see http://mubi.com/films/24560
Together–maybe more of a commune film, but…
File this under “imagined.”
I forgot to add The Battle of Chile about Allende–I have the massive DVD set waiting for me…I don’t know if you want only fictional films or documentaries as well.
GREAT CLASS! i take you want a well-presented utopia rather than a grim dystopia, right?
Gio, yes I’d rather have depictions of interesting utopias. I could show 1984, but I don’t think it has much to do with socialism.
Ah, I thought you were looking for documentaries. But it’s fiction film you’re after? I think Arnab’s suggestion is good. There’s a lot of good Ken Loach. And maybe you could try some DEFA film from East Germany?
And what about REDS? Would that work?
ahem….of course, I meant to mention the movie The Molly Maguires –Molly Malone’s is a bar in LA where we used to get shitfaced.
also, I think it’s the name of the girl who sold “cockles and musseles, alive alive–o!”
Have you seen Lukas Moodysson’s Together (Tillsammans)? I think it would be a great film to watch and is very much about the general idea of socialism.
I liked Together a lot, and Reynolds also suggested it. I’ll try that, but first read up on college rules for showing nudity in class since my memory of the film is that there is a lot of it.
At Oberlin? I thought it was a requirement–part of the gen ed curriculum.
Hmmm . . . I show Catherine Breillat’s Fat Girl and Lynne Ramsey’s Ratcatcher (both of which contain adolescent nudity) in my Women and Film course (not to mention Mary Harron’s adaptation of American Psycho). I think if you set the kids up for the experience (and give them an out if they see fit), then you shouldn’t have any troubles.
i love together, but it seems to me more a film about people than about ideas. by the way, chris, there is no way to show movies without showing nudity. just put it on the syllabus.
have you seen the edukators?
i think (it’s been a long time) that miracolo a milano (de sica, 1951) might work for you. really utopian and sweet.
good morning, night is about the kidnapping of aldo moro by the red brigades, seen from the perspective of the red brigades.
Interesting ideas, Gio. Thanks. I really liked the Baader Meinhof Complex, but that too is more about the idea of revolution that of the society that might replace our current one.
I’m not sure this fits as Olivier Assayas’ portrait of Carlos, “The Jackal” (aka Ilich RamÃrez Sánchez), never really comes across as a true ideologue (more a sensualist/narcissist who gets off on the power and thrill of TERROR), but I managed to work my way through five and a half hours of Carlos (currently streaming on Netflix) and the word socialism was thrown around a lot. Critics really loved this film (originally a three-part French television series), and I’m not going to disagree. It is skillfully made and avoids a lot of biopic cliches. It is probably closer in spirit to Soderbergh’s Che films, but a lot more exciting and visually engaging (a globe-hopping action film which approaches its subject with journalistic precision while, paradoxically, declining all opportunities to explain much of anything). There is something of a narrative arc structured around the obligatory rise and fall (with Sánchez’ masterminding the PFLP’s 1975 raid on OPEC in Vienna its tour de force centerpiece). Still, at 319 minutes Assayas doesn’t feel the need to compress everything into a tidy, clearly articulated dramatic narrative, and the excess of detail is probably what makes it such a fascinating film to watch (you never really know where the action is going to take you from scene to scene and yet, impressively, Assayas rarely confuses). I guess you could say the film makes visible the banality of terrorism (and, to be honest, what makes it such a sexy enterprise), avoiding the psychological for a more surface exploration of idealism and corruption as two sides of the same broadsheet. Édgar RamÃrez is stunning in the central role (aging some thirty years, packing on the pounds when needed, exposing himself to the camera with no vanity whatsoever, seducing the audience with his audacity and good looks). It is a “De Niro” worthy performance, and it will be fun to see what he does next (Pablo Escobar according to Wikipedia).
I guess it’s also fair to say the film makes me want to blame Zionism for all the hell the planet’s gone through over the last fifty years or so. I’m not sure if that’s fair, but Carlos encouraged me to make such a conclusion.
Sorry to obsess . . . but Édgar RamÃrez performance in the film suggests what it might be like to be a Tom Cruise or a George Clooney on an international scale, only without, of course, the murder and explosions and full-tilt disregard for humanity and human lives. Still, this guy is framed like a superstar – a rock star anarchist. It’s heady stuff.
I just finished the third part of Carlos. I really enjoyed it, especially in the context of Baader Meinhof Complex and Che. Ramirez is, as Jeff says, just stunning. I’ll try to think of something more intelligent to say about the movie, but, again as Jeff says, it is the interplay between Carlos’ political commitments and his aesthetic and sensual ones that makes this so good.
I’m finally into Carlos, just finished part I, and came on to remind myself of the discussions on BMC–and see you guys started a while ago. I’m really struck by these varied exercises which enact as well as represent the intersections of aesthetics, politics, and revolution.
And, yeah, Ramirez is amazing, as is the occasional use of New Order (which seems incisive, as well as seductive).