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Part
VI: Can Films Be Socially Critical?
21. The
Politics of Representation by Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner
22. But Would You Want You Daughter To Marry One? Politics
and Race in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner by Thomas E. Wartenberg
23. Stella at the Movies: Class, Critical Spectatorship, and
Melodrama in Stella Dallas by Angela Curran
| The essays in this section raise
the issue of whether or not a particular style of film- making
goes with a certain political viewpoint. A film such as Godard's
Week End ( recommended for Part I) has an unconventional
narrative structure and eschews empathy with characters, and
also has a politically leftist social vision. A classic leftist
movie such as Born In Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983)-a
sci-fi film set in a futuristic society ten years after a
socialist revolution- has an overt, leftist political agenda
and no central protagonist. |
Brother From Another Planet (John Sayles, 1984) |
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (Stanley Kramer,
1967) |
But other films-such as Renoir's
The Grand Illusion, Victor Nunez's Ruby in Paradise
(1992)- also convey a social critique in spite of their more
conventional uses of characters and narrative. Pairing one
of these films with a film that has an unconventional form
would be a good way of getting at the issue of the relationship
between film making practices and political content. Guess
Who's Coming to Dinner is required viewing, of course,
for Thomas Wartenberg's essay, as is Stella Dallas
for Angela Curran's essay.
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| Several excellent choices to
use with the Kellner and Ryan readings are Sayles' whimsical,
Brother From Another Planet and his Matewan,
as well as Costa Garvas' Missing. Robert Altman's
Nashville is an excellent example of a film that
has multiple characters rather than a single central protagonist.
Finally, an interesting recent film to consider would be Maria
Full of Grace (Joshua Marston, 2004), which depicts the
story of a young woman from Columbia who becomes a drug "mule"
in order to escape from her country to the United States. |
Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937) |
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