Revolution in 35mm

Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960–1990 examines how political violence and resistance was represented in arthouse and cult films from 1960 to 1990.

This historical period spans the Algerian war of independence and the early wave of postcolonial struggles that reshaped the Global South, through the collapse of Soviet Communism in the late 1980s. It focuses on films related to the rise of protest movements by students, workers, and leftist groups, as well as broader countercultural movements, Black Power, the rise of feminism, and so on. The book also includes films that explore the splinter groups that engaged in violent, urban guerrilla struggles throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as the promise of widespread radical social transformation failed to materialize: the Weathermen and the Black Liberation Army in the United States, the Red Army Faction in West Germany and Japan, and Italy’s Red Brigades. Many of these movements were deeply connected to culture, including cinema, and they expressed their values through it.

Twelve authors, including film critics and academics, deliver a diverse examination of how filmmakers around the world reacted to the political violence and resistance movements of the period and how this was expressed on screen. This includes looking at the production, distribution, and screening of these films, audience and critical reaction, the attempted censorship or suppression of much of this work, and how directors and producers eluded these restrictions.

Including over two hundred illustrations, the book examines filmmaking movements like the French, Japanese, German, and Yugoslavian New Waves; subgenres like spaghetti westerns, Italian poliziotteschi, Blaxploitation, and mondo movies; and films that reflect the values of specific movements, including feminists, Vietnam War protesters, and Black militants. The work of influential and well-known political filmmakers such as Costa-Gavras, Gillo Pontecorvo, and Glauber Rocha is examined alongside grindhouse cinema and lesser-known titles by a host of all-but-forgotten filmmakers, including many from the Global South that deserve to be rediscovered.