Richard Porton
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780252043338
- eISBN:
- 9780252052217
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043338.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Hailed since its initial release, this book offers the authoritative account of films featuring anarchist characters and motifs. The book delves into the many ways filmmakers have portrayed ...
More
Hailed since its initial release, this book offers the authoritative account of films featuring anarchist characters and motifs. The book delves into the many ways filmmakers have portrayed anarchism's long traditions of labor agitation and revolutionary struggle. While acknowledging cinema's predilection for ludicrous anarchist stereotypes, the book focuses on films that, wittingly or otherwise, reflect or even promote workplace resistance, anarchist pedagogy, self-emancipation, and anti-statist insurrection. The book ranges from the silent era to the classics Zero de Conduite and Love and Anarchy to contemporary films like The Nothing Factory, while engaging the works of Jean Vigo, Jean-Luc Godard, Lina Wertmuller, Yvonne Rainer, Ken Loach, and others. This updated second edition reflects on several new topics, including the negative portrayals of anarchism over the past twenty years and the contemporary embrace of post-anarchism.Less
Hailed since its initial release, this book offers the authoritative account of films featuring anarchist characters and motifs. The book delves into the many ways filmmakers have portrayed anarchism's long traditions of labor agitation and revolutionary struggle. While acknowledging cinema's predilection for ludicrous anarchist stereotypes, the book focuses on films that, wittingly or otherwise, reflect or even promote workplace resistance, anarchist pedagogy, self-emancipation, and anti-statist insurrection. The book ranges from the silent era to the classics Zero de Conduite and Love and Anarchy to contemporary films like The Nothing Factory, while engaging the works of Jean Vigo, Jean-Luc Godard, Lina Wertmuller, Yvonne Rainer, Ken Loach, and others. This updated second edition reflects on several new topics, including the negative portrayals of anarchism over the past twenty years and the contemporary embrace of post-anarchism.
Richard Porton
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780252043338
- eISBN:
- 9780252052217
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043338.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
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 ...
More
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.Less
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.
