Posted on 05/02/2007 11:47:26 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
Where Are the Anti-Communist Movies?
By David Boaz: May 2, 2007
The new movie The Wind That Shakes the Barley, about the Irish struggle for independence in the early 1920s, has beautiful Irish cinematography and effectively shows us the poverty of Ireland, the commitment of the rebels, the conflicts inevitable in any political movement, and the brutality of the British occupiers. Critics complain it goes overboard on that last point. Michael Gove protested in the Times of London that it portrays the British Black and Tans as "sub-human mercenaries burning thatched cottages, torturing by using pliers to rip out toenails [actually fingernails] and committing extreme violence against women." It's not the first movie to be criticized for making the British out to be more brutal than they actually were. Mel Gibson's The Patriot depicted the British army herding all the residents of a town into a church and then setting it on fire. Never happened, historians say.
But hey, the British Empire committed plenty of crimes over the centuries, so I'm not so upset that the Australian right-winger Mel Gibson and the English left-winger Ken Loach may have overreached on the details. What I'm wondering about is, Where are the films depicting Communist atrocities?
Anti-Nazi movies keep coming out, from Confessions of a Nazi Spy and Hitler, Beast of Berlin in 1939 and on through The Great Dictator, The Mortal Storm, The Diary of Anne Frank, Sophie's Choice, Schindler's List, right up to the current Black Book. And many of these have included searing depictions of Nazi brutality, both physical and psychological.
But where are the anti-communist movies? Oh, sure, there have been some, from early Cold War propaganda films to such artistic achievements as The Red Danube, Ninotchka, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Killing Fields, East-West, and Before Night Falls. But considering that National Socialism lasted only 12 years in one country (and those it occupied), and Communism spanned half the globe for 75 years, you'd think there'd be lots more stories to tell about Communist rule.
No atrocities, maybe? Nazis and Brits were vicious, but Communists were just intellectually misguided? Well, that seems implausible. They murdered several times as many people. If screenwriters don't know the stories, they could start with the Black Book of Communism. It could introduce them to such episodes as Stalin's terror-famine in Ukraine, the Gulag, the deportation of the Kulaks, the Katyn Forest massacre, Mao's Cultural Revolution, the Hungarian revolution, Che Guevara's executions in Havana, the flight of the boat people from Vietnam, Pol Pot's mass slaughter—material enough for dozens of movies.
Lloyd Billingsley wrote about the great stories, the great villains, and the great books that might inspire movies about Communism:
"Though of global dimension, the conflict encompasses millions of dramatic personal stories played out on a grand tapestry of history: courageous Solidarity unionists against a Communist military junta; teenagers facing down tanks in the streets of Budapest and Prague; Cuban gays oppressed by a macho-Marxist dictatorship; writers and artists resisting the kitsch of obscurantist materialism; families fleeing brutal persecution, risking their lives to find freedom.
"Furthermore, great villains make for great drama, and communism's central casting department is crowded: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hönecker, Ceaucescu, Pol Pot, Col. Mengistu--all of cosmic megalomania--along with their squads of hacks, sycophants, and stooges, foreign and domestic.
"A few English-language films have drawn on this remarkable material, especially book-into-film projects based on highly publicized works, among them One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (a 1971 British-Norwegian production) and, of course, Doctor Zhivago (1965). But many other natural book-to-film projects remain untouched, from the story of Stalin's daughter Svetlana (who left Russia for the West) to works by such high-ranking defectors as Polish Ambassador Romuald Spasowski (The Liberation of One), KGB agent Arkady Schevchenko (Breaking With Moscow), and persecuted Cuban poets Armando Valladares (Against All Hope) and Heberto Padilla (Heroes Are Grazing in My Garden). In light of the most recent revelations concerning the espionage of Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers' Witness is another obvious candidate."
Some might say that the Soviet Union is no more, this is ancient history, and we should let bygones be bygones. But Ken Loach's new movie depicts events of the 1920s, and the Nazi regime fell in 1945. The Soviet Union continued until 1991, and communism continues in Cuba, China, and Vietnam. Besides, as the great historian Lord Acton knew, the historian must be a moral judge. The muse of the historian, he thought (in the words of his colleague John Neville Figgis), is not Clio, but Rhadamanthus, the avenger of innocent blood. The victims of communism, and its heroic resisters, deserve to have their stories remembered.
David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of Libertarianism: A Primer.
Beatty is a leftist and has been for decades. I just objected to the idea of the film being a ‘Valentine’ to the commnists. Ever see some Stalin era Soviet films? Those are Valentines.
I took at as anti-communist, because the mother dealt with her guilt of not leaving for the West by giving in and accepting the Communist system, as a way of coping. At least that’s how I saw it. The movie may have taken some shots at capitalism, but that doesn’t necessarily make it pro-communist, maybe it was nostalgia more than anything.
I still think it’s one of the 5 best movies I’ve ever watched.
“I just objected to the idea of the film being a ‘Valentine’ to the commnists. Ever see some Stalin era Soviet films? Those are Valentines.”
I disagree - Beatty’s “Reds” is a valentine, the movies you cite were artistic fellation.
A Valentine to the Soviet Union? Sorry I disagree. A Valentine to misguided 1910s era American radicals? That I would buy.
Eleni. Rent it if you can. And keep the tissue handy.
Yes! You’ve got it right! From the 80s on Eastern Europe has produced many anti-Communist movies. And it makes sense! They lived it; what Hollywood dunderhead has?
Speaking of Harris, he was in another good anti-Commie flick, "To Kill A Priest", which was about the murder of Father Popieluszko in Poland. Of course, he played the Commie agent responsible for the murder, how appropriate.
That’s the one (googled it after I saw your post). Don’t know if it’ll play in theaters where I live, but it looks like a good one for DVD rental.
A good subject for a movie might be the Polish people’s struggle for freedom from Communism, including the the brutal murder of the priest, Fr. Jerzy Popiewousko (spelling?). Sorry I have trouble with spelling many Polish names.
The Poles were a very determined gruop who resisted Communism for 45 years.
How did he forget North Korea. Last I heard, the Pathet Lao controlled Laos.
They all have one party rule, even though China, Vietnam and Laos finally chose capitalist economies.
Does “Red Dawn” count?
They still believe communism works... it just hasn’t been tried by the right people yet.
Aw, common. An anti-communist movie wouldn’t “advance the agenda.”
However, I know of a couple good little movies that were anti-communist in orientation.
White Nights (Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, Helen Mirren)
Moscow on the Hudson (Robin Williams)
I love the way this rationalization just flies in the face of the basic premise of their fairy tale utopia -- that man is basically good and there are no bad people (except for Bush and all Republicans)
Because Hollywood is owned by foreign interests, they have no vested interest in preserving American values and opposing communism. In fact they appear to have an interest in promoting communism to suit their foreign owners.
Why are foreign governments and corporations allowed to own domestic American media? It all has to do with “free trade” which is a wealth redistribution program for third wold countries. If you can deplete the West of their economic independence and wealth, at the same time giving it over to the third world like china and India, you can use that wealth (global communism) to boost the incomes of people in India and china. This, at the expense of America’s economy, creates markets for these foreign governments, and foreign or transnational corporations of billions of people.
Hollywood is supplying a service— propaganda for a need— global communism— which allows the global corporations to control more and more of global wealth. There is no need to be anticommunist, because communism is the goal of the parent corporations who own Hollywood.
If it does, how about the most recent version of 1984?
Prior to 9/11 and the WoT, COmmieweird never had that trouble.
If the President was a liberal DEM, I guarantee you we will see some stupid movie about Christian fanatics and Muslim extremists joining forces to overthrow America.
But we can’t ever support a Republican, esp a >shudder< Christian conservative.
Ever seen Red Dawn?
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