Event

Red Hollywood

(Thom Andersen and Noël Burch, USA, 1996, Beta-SP, 120 min)

Director in attendance!

Monday, Mar 28 at 07:00PM

Thom Andersen and Noël Burch's provocative documentary looks with fresh eyes at "Red" Hollywoodfilms by screenwriters and directors who were communists, ex-communists or sympathizers, and who were in some way implicated by the Hollywood investigations of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Drawing on their extensive research and an array of arresting film clips, as well as on the reminiscences of blacklisted artists Paul Jarrico, Ring Lardner, Jr., Alfred Levitt, and Abraham Polonsky, the video reveals the degree to which the Hollywood left was able to tint movies with its political convictions.

Taking issue with Billy Wilder's oft-quoted put-down, "Of the Unfriendly Ten, only two had talent, the other eight were just unfriendly," Red Hollywood reveals a largely neglected Hollywood legacy: films committed to raising questions regarding class, gender and racism, and films that questioned "the system" itselfwhether capitalism or the studioand were answered with the blacklist.