Search Results

This afterword argues that despite fondness of many anarchist academics for popular culture, the most salient examples of twenty-first-century anarchist cinema and media have not originated from Hollywood or even from the increasingly conformist realm of so-called independent cinema. Although it is best to avoid facile dichotomies, there is clearly a widening gap within anarchist-inspired visual culture between “provisional” activist media and the avant-gardist tendency that still covertly believes in art as redemptive, even as it outwardly endorses an “anti-art” agenda. Moreover, it might not be too hyperbolic to claim that post-1999 anarchist film culture is less preoccupied with the schism between high and low culture than with dividing lines between collective, frequently anonymous, unsigned work and traditional auteur-driven cinema. To be sure, contradictions abound even in the most anti-authoritarian corners of the Internet where sites often feature both anonymous works that inspire activists, as well as films, both short and feature length, which are signed and reflect a specific directorial sensibility. What unites most of these films, though, is their widespread availability online.

This introductory chapter provides a brief background of anarchism. The competing varieties of anarchism endeavor to reconcile the seemingly conflicting claims of individual autonomy and collective struggle. Despite significant differences between the classical anarchists, the term “communal individuality” allows one to recognize affinities between the evolving connotations of anarchy embedded in the works — and deeds — of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin. In addition, a productive tension between individuality and communal solidarity fuels the fascinatingly contradictory work of two thinkers sometimes not considered part of mainstream anarchism — William Godwin and Max Stirner. In the years since the first edition of this book was published in 1999, the so-called “post-anarchist” turn has posed a challenge, in both activist and academic circles, to the canonical anarchism of Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin. The book focuses on links between anarchist self-activity and films that not only reflect, but often actively promote, workplace resistance, anarchist pedagogy, and anti-statist insurrections. It also broadens the definition of “anarchist cinema” to include discussion of films not made and produced by anarchists.