>--- Original Message ---
>From: Van Gosse/Eliza Reilly <reillygosse at igc.org>
>To: H-RADHIST at H-NET.MSU.EDU
>Date: 3/22/01 10:13:57 PM
>
>From: "Jesse Lemisch" <utopia1 at attglobal.net>
>Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 18:56:31 -0500
>
>
>My critique of "Rebels With a Cause," a new film about Students
for a
>Democratic Society, apppears in Film & History, 31.1 (March
2001), as
>"Students for a Democratic Society, Heroically Portrayed, Before
the
>Inexplicable Fall: Consensus History in a Left Film" (to see
the article,
>click "Students..." for plain text or "Setup..." for pdf. In
order to read
>the PDF file you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader present on
your system.
>For a free copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, go
>to:http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html).
>
> For information about Film & History, see its website,
>www.filmandhistory.org.
>
> While "Rebels With a Cause" is often moving and evocative,
I also find
>it stunningly uncritical, self-congratulatory, first-person
heroic,
>triumphalist -- and thus at odds with much that the SDS I knew
stood for.
>Largely avoiding the question of why SDS collapsed, and presenting
little
>about internal conflicts within SDS, the film won't help younger
people who
>encounter related conflicts and dangers in the new movements
that they are
>building.
>
> Focusing on but moving beyond the film itself, my critique
also deals
>with larger issues of left aesthetics and truth-telling. Why
can't we build
>conflict into our films? Can't we get beyond old-time Popular
Front
>agitprop? Can't we move beyond this stodgy stuff to edgier left
film-making?
>And why can't we tell the truth?
>
> This critique is in some ways continuous with an article
that I
>published in The Nation, "Pop Front Culture: I Dreamed I Saw
MTV Last
>Night," October 18, 1986. This created a great deal of controversy,
to which
>I responded in a second article, "The Politics of Left Culture,"
The Nation,
>December 20, 1986.
>
> I welcome comments, criticism, discussion, forwardings,
postings, etc.
>
> Jesse Lemisch utopia1 at attglobal.net
>
>Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora-reillygosse\attach\Setup for
Lemisch.pdf"
>
>Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora-reillygosse\attach\Students
for a Demo.doc"
>
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>