The Aesthetics of Antifascist Film Radical Projection |
|
| Author:
| Barker, Jennifer Lynde |
| Series title: | Routledge Advances in Film Studies |
| ISBN: | 978-0-415-89915-4 |
| Publication Date: | Oct 2012 |
| Publisher: | Routledge
|
| Book Format: | Hardback |
| List Price: | AUD $259.00 |
Book Description:
|
Through a series of detailed film case histories ranging from The Great Dictator to Hiroshima mon amour to The Lives of Others, The Aesthetics of Antifascist Film: Radical Projection explores the genesis and recurrence of antifascist aesthetics as it manifests in the WWII, Cold War and Post-Wall historical periods.
Emerging during a critical moment in film history--1930s/1940s Hollywood-- cinematic antifascism was representative of the international nature of antifascist...
More Description
Through a series of detailed film case histories ranging from The Great Dictator to Hiroshima mon amour to The Lives of Others, The Aesthetics of Antifascist Film: Radical Projection explores the genesis and recurrence of antifascist aesthetics as it manifests in the WWII, Cold War and Post-Wall historical periods.
Emerging during a critical moment in film history--1930s/1940s Hollywood-- cinematic antifascism was representative of the international nature of antifascist alliances, with the amalgam of film styles generated in émigré Hollywood during the WWII period reflecting a dialogue between an urgent political commitment to antifascism and an equally intense commitment to aesthetic complexity. Opposed to a fascist aesthetics based on homogeneity, purity and spectacle, these antifascist films project a radical beauty of distortion, heterogeneity, fragmentation and loss. By juxtaposing documentation and the modernist techniques of surrealism and expressionism, the filmmakers were able to manifest a non-totalizing work of art that still had political impact.
Drawing on insights from film and cultural studies, aesthetic and ethical philosophy, and socio-political theory, this book argues that the artistic struggles with political commitment and modernist strategies of representation during the 1930s and 40s resulted in a distinctive, radical aesthetic form that represents an alternate strand of post-modernism.