[lbo-talk] the Kultur Krisis

James Leveque leveque.james at gmail.com
Wed Mar 17 12:30:43 PDT 2010


Doug Henwood wrote:

"even the Hollywood mainstream used to do a lot better. Sometimes crises can bring out the best in a society but that doesn't seem to be happening here in the USA. It's like everyone's brain dead."

I've been researching an paper on Charlie Chaplin. I watched The Great Dictator (for the first time) and was a little shocked at the final speech given by the barber (whom everybody thinks is the dictator Hynkel). I suppose the idealism is over the top, but it's as if it were beamed in from another planet it's so unrecognisable. I haven't seen anything come out of Hollywood that's so full-throated in its advocacy of peace, progress, equality, etc.I literally had to check and confirm that it was United Artists which had released that movie. It certainly had some propaganda value at the time, but it's clear that Chaplin was aiming for broader targets than just Germany and Italy. In any case, it didn't stop Chaplin from getting run out of the U.S. by the government.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcvjoWOwnn4

-- James Patrick Leveque MSc Student in Comparative & General Literature School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures University of Edinburgh



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