25 Films to Help Understand the US Today
For The Guardian, the film critic Guy Lodge has complied a list of 25 films that “shed light on the US under Trump”. From the introduction by filmmaker Alex Gibney:
This is a dire moment in the US. It’s a moment where there’s an opportunity for people with a lot of money to rip apart all of the guidelines enacted by the Roosevelt administration, way back in the day, to guard against the brutality of unfettered capitalism. Capitalists like to have all the power that they want, whenever they want it. They’re not much interested in democracy either, it turns out. Nor, apparently, the rule of law. The government is not the solution — it’s the problem. And now a vengeful president who just wanted a get-out-of-jail-free card is going to punish his enemies and show us all how to destroy the American administrative state by using the big stick of Elon Musk’s chequebook.
Here are a few of the films and their trailers — you can check out the article for the rest.
I Am Not Your Negro (Raoul Peck, 2016):
Election (Alexander Payne, 1999):
White Noise (Daniel Lombroso, 2020) {Note: this is not the DeLillo adaptation}:
American Factory (Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, 2019):
I’m curious…what films would you add to the list?
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If we're not careful, we'll have to add Alain Resnais' "Nuit et brouillard" ("Night and Fog").
Children of Men, Network, The Sorrow and the Pity, Fight Club, Malcolm X. Not a movie but The Sopranos is a better take on masculinity than Joker.
Someone has to say it: Idiocracy
The difference is that they recognized there was a problem and were trying to do better.
Am I weird for having Dr. Strangelove come to mind immediately?
I recently saw the streamed-to-cinemas National Theatre production of "Dr. Strangelove," with Steve Coogan playing all of the Peter Sellers roles. At intermission I said to my friend, "Was this written yesterday?" It couldn't possibly be more timely. https://drstrangelove.ntlive.com/synopsis/
Jesus Camp
Her, a prescient window into our love affair with too much technology.
"Killing Them Softly," even if only for Brad Pitt's closing monologue: "This is America. And in America, you're on your own."
Nomadland, maybe
Join or Die, the documentary on Robert Putnam, seems pretty important. Worth watching if you don't know who he is, but also worth watching if you do...
For a broader context: Exterminate All the Brutes. (Technically a multi-part series). I've never been able to look at the US the same, every little thing looks different through this lens. Bonus: I learned about it from here.
Everybody needs to watch The Parallax View and A Face in the Crowd. The most prophetic non-sci-fi movies ever made.
I rewatched The Big Short recently and it really depressed me. It really shows how much power the richest Americans have over the poorest and how they’re able to evade any responsibility, and how the Government has its hands tied, even with well-intentioned regulations and laws.
I’d never heard of American Factory, but it reminds me of Gung Ho from 1986. Most interesting is that it shows that American manufacturing has been in decline for 40+ years and it’s still a huge political issue.
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