Capitalism, A Love Story: Workers Of The World, Unite!

By Ed Rampell Michael Moore is the foremost documentarian of our times. He is to 21st century America what the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, the director of the Kino Pravda (Film Truth) series, was to the Russian Revolution: the man with the movie camera, who see and chronicles social rights and wrongs, interpreting reality through a roving, relentless, restless, rabblerousing camera lens, determined to tell all to the folks out there in movie-land. The release of a new Moore doc is a major media event. Indeed, shortly before his latest work was released, the Oscar and Cannes winner appeared on Jay Leno’s revamped NBC-TV program and on Sept. 23 (the day it opened in L.A. and New York) was a guest on Larry King’s CNN gabfest, and scheduled to visit Bill Maher’s ”Real Time” HBO show at the end of the week. What other nonfiction cineaste has such ballyhoo heft and can say that? The good news is that Capitalism, A Love Story is another Michael Moore instant classic, and in his considerable, 20-year-long oeuvre – which spurred revitalization of the documentary as an art form, as well as an entertainment medium -- is second in quality and power only to his 2004 masterpiece, Fahrenheit 9/11. Premiering almost exactly a year after the financial meltdown, Capitalism, A Love Story has all of the usual suspects and ingredients of that film formula which makes Moore’s movie magic. It has the tongue and cheeky characteristic that has spread to TV parodies of news exemplified by the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert brand of topical comedy. Capitalism opens with security camera footage of real bank robberies – what better metaphor for bank bailouts and other debacles? (As well as a playful rumination on the nature of cinema verite by a practitioner of the documentary art form.) Then there are clips from other films – one on ancient Rome, another from an instructional piece on free enterprise, and hilarious “what would Jesus do” bits. Capitalism features some insider exposes and incisive investigative reporting – another hallmark of Moore’s filmmaking technique -- which in Sicko exposed healthcare insurance scams, and in Fahrenheit revealed the battlefield costs of the so-called “cakewalk” in Iraq. The quintessential ingredient in Moore’s motion picture recipe has been his own proletarian persona, which works because like many movie fat men, he’s funny, and unlike most U.S. leftists, he is literally a son of the industrial proletariat. There’s lots about his boyhood at Flint, Michigan, where both his father and uncle worked on GM assembly lines, mass producing cars in some bygone autotopia, once upon a time before America was de-industrialized, downsized, outsourced and union busted. Of course, there are the usual Moore merry prankster stunts – 20 years after Roger and Me, GM throws the prodigal proletarian son out of their HQ yet again. But correct me if I’m wrong: Moore’s current Wall Street shenanigans seem like replays of the escapades on his 1990s’ TV Nation and The Awful Truth television series, when he and Crackers, the corporate crime fighting chicken, confronted white collar criminals. While droll, Capitalism’s tomfoolery never rises to Sicko’s audacious, inventive level of Moore trying to bring a boatload of ailing Ground Zero survivors to the one place under U.S. jurisdiction that guarantees universal medical care: Guantanamo Bay, where suspected terrorists are imprisoned. (He transports them to Castro’s Cuba instead, where socialism provides free healthcare to all.) Nor does Moore’s return to the scene of the crime in the Financial District in Capitalism match the sheer panache of his dispatching actors clad as Salem witch-hunters to the home of Pres. Bill Clinton’s grand inquisitor, Kenneth Starr (now ensconced, god help us, at Pepperdine!) during the multi-million dollar probe of the Monica Lewd-insky scandal and impeachment imbroglio. Capitalism, A Love Story has its share of talking head notables – social critic Wally Shawn (of My Dinner With Andre fame), Catholic clergymen who denounce the capitalist system for its sinfulness, etc. But, more importantly and at the core of Moore’s movie method, is his putting the so-called “forgotten man” (and woman) front and center, giving them a prominent platform to tell their heartbreaking, gut wrenching stories of an America where uncontrolled greed has run amok, laying waste to the common people. (Moore defines capitalism as “legalized greed.”) Just as Roger and Me presented out-of-work autoworkers, including down on their luck Flint residents reduced to catching, skinning, eating and selling rabbits to survive in the wake of the economic cataclysm that destroyed their once thriving city. Here, in Capitalism, are Americans being evicted, including a family farmer close to snapping. As one victim of the capitalist system says onscreen: “There’s gotta be a rebellion between the people who it all and people who have nothing.” This compassion is the heart and soul of Moore’s movies, and indeed, of the man who dared denounce Pres. Bush as the Iraq War started on live TV during his Oscar acceptance speech for 2002’s Bowling at Columbine. In Capitalism Moore raises serious points about the free market, pondering why a so-called democracy allows so many dictatorial practices in the workplace. (Jean-Luc Godard once asked why one boss has more power than 100 workers.) Moore also rails against America’s disparity in wealth, wondering what’s democratic – and Christian – about 1% of the population owning as much as the “bottom” 95% of the people. Moore calls for an end to capitalism, but stops short of advocating revolution. He does not claim to have an economic blueprint to save us from unbridled greed and economic collapse, but he, more than any other popular artist and entertainer is asking the questions that need to be asked. Moore is a bellwether – his Fahrenheit preceded public disenchantment with Bush’s ill-fated war, while in Sicko he anticipated the healthcare debate we’re now having. Who knows where, a few years after his brilliant, must see Capitalism, the public debate will be at. Meanwhile, it’s interesting and amusing to note that the name of Godard’s next movie is Socialisme. Ed Rampell LA Journal Film historian and critic Ed Rampell was named after CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow because of his TV exposes of Sen. Joe McCarthy. Rampell majored in Cinema at Manhattan’s Hunter College. After graduating, Rampell lived in Tahiti, Samoa, Hawaii, and Micronesia, where he reported on the nuclear free and independent Pacific movement for “20/20,” Reuters, AP, Radio Australia, NewsWeek, etc. He went on to co-write “The Finger” column for New Times L.A. and has written for many other publications, including Variety, Mother Jones, The Nation, Islands, L.A. Times, L.A. Daily News, Written By, The Progressive, The Guardian, The Financial Times, AlterNet, etc. Rampell appears in the 2005 Australian documentary “Hula Girls, Imagining Paradise.” He co-authored two books on Pacific Island politics, as well as two film histories: “Made In Paradise, Hollywood’s Films of Hawaii and the South Seas” and “Pearl Harbor in the Movies.” Rampell is the sole author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States.” He is a co-founder of the James Agee Cinema Circle: [politicalfilmcritics.blogspot.com].

2008 JACC AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Ed Rampell Talks Progies On Burt Cohen's Roadside Radio Show: CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

RELIGULOUS: Recipient of The James Agee Cinema Circle Modern Times Award for Best Progressive Satire, is named after Charlie Chaplin, who made 1936's Modern Times and 1940's The Great Dictator. Religulous shares the award this year with War, Inc.

The Progies are the “un-Oscars” annually awarded by the James Agee Cinema Circle – an international group of left movie critics and historians -- for the Best Progressive Films and Filmmakers of conscience and consciousness.

1. THE TRUMBO: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE PICTURE is named after Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten, who was imprisoned for his beliefs and refusing to inform. Trumbo helped break the Blacklist when he received screen credit for "Spartacus" and "Exodus" in 1960.

MILK

2. THE GARFIELD: The Progie Award for BEST ACTOR is named after John Garfield, who rose from the proletarian theatre to star in progressive pictures such as "Gentleman's Agreement" and "Force of Evil," only to run afoul of the Hollywood Blacklist.

SEAN PENN (MILK)

3. KAREN MORLEY AWARD: For BEST ACTRESS. Named for Karen Morley, who was driven out of Hollywood in the 1930s for her leftist views, but who maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.

MELISSA LEO (FROZEN RIVER)

4. THE RENOIR: The Progie Award for BEST ANTI-WAR FILM is named after the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir, who directed the 1937 anti-militarism masterpiece "Grand Illusion."

WALTZ WITH BASHIR

5. THE GILLO: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE FOREIGN FILM is named after the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who lensed the 1960s classics "The Battle of Algiers" and "Burn!"

WALTZ WITH BASHIR

6. THE DZIGA: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE DOCUMENTARY is named after the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who directed 1920s nonfiction films such as the "Kino Pravda" ("Film Truth") series and "The Man With the Movie Camera."

TROUBLE THE WATER

7. ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: Named after brutally slain young actress, Adrienne Shelly. For the movie this year most opposing violence against women.

CHANGELING

8. LA PASSIONARA AWARD: For the most positive female images in a movie, and in light of the historically demeaning portrayal of women in movies

FROZEN RIVER

9. OUR DAILY BREAD AWARD: For the most positive and inspiring working class images in a movie this year.

BATTLE IN SEATTLE

10. THE ROBESON AWARD: Named after courageous performing legend, Paul Robeson. The award is for the movie that best expresses the people of color in light of the historically demeaning portrayal of them in films.

TROUBLE THE WATER

11. THE BRANDO: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE FILM ACTIVIST is named after Marlon Brando, who starred in movies such as the Black power-themed "Burn!" and 1987's anti-apartheid "A Dry White Season," and championed underdogs like the American Indian Movement offscreen.

SEAN PENN

12. THE TOMAS GUTIERREZ ALEA AWARD: Named after the late legendary Cuban filmmaker. For best depicting mass popular uprising or revolutionary transformation in a movie.

CHE

14. THE SERGEI: The Progie Award for Best Progressive LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT is named after the Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, who created Russian revolutionary classics such as 1925's "Potemkin" and 1927's "10 Days That Shook the World."

PAUL NEWMAN

15. THE LAWSON: The Progie Award for BEST ANTI-FASCIST FILM this year, is named after screenwriter John Howard Lawson, one of the Hollywood Ten, who wrote Hollywood's first feature about the Spanish Civil War, 1938's "Blockade," with Henry Fonda, and anti-Nazi movies such as 1943's "Sahara," starring Humphrey Bogart.

DEFIANCE

16. THE MODERN TIMES: The Progie Award for Best Progressive Film SATIRE is named after Charlie Chaplin, who made 1936's "Modern Times" and 1940's "The Great Dictator."

TIE:

RELIGULOUS

WAR, INC.

17. THE ORSON: The Progie Award for BEST OVERLOOKED OR THEATRICALLY UNRELEASED [seen at festivals, or on TV or DVD only] Progressive Film is named after actor/director Orson Welles. After he directed the masterpiece "Citizen Kane" Welles had difficulty getting most of his other movies made.

THE REAL GREAT DEBATERS

18. THE LORENTZ: The Progie Award for Best ENVIRONMENTALIST film is named after Pare Lorentz, who directed the Depression era classic documentaries "The Plow That Broke the Plains" and "The River."

WALL-E

19. THE PASOLINI: The Progie Award for Best PRO-GAY RIGHTS Film is named after Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who directed 1964's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" and "The Decameron" and "The Canterbury Tales" in the 1970S

MILK

20. THE LENNON: The Progie Award for Best Progressive MUSICAL OR FILM ABOUT MUSIC is named after peace activist and musician John Lennon, who co-starred in the 1967 satire "How I Won the War" and the 2006 doc "The U.S. vs. John Lennon."

CADILLAC RECORDS

ELIA KAZAN HALL OF SHAME 2008: Citations for the worst anti-workingclass and right wing movies of the year.

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE: For its reinforcement of the status quo on mass-es and un-Critic-call levels. And for its colonialist mentality, including refusal to honor or recognize for awards the Indian co-director Tandan Loveleen, and for not compensating the still impoverished Indian children playing impoverished Indian children in Slumdog Millionaire, while the movie amasses millions in profits.

CHE: Patronizing and exploitive artsy distortion of the real life and struggle of Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution. Cultural imperialism, alive and well at the movies.

ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED: A premeditated act of promotional propaganda masquerading as a balanced documentary. And in the service of exonerating - with a creative genius defense - the noted fugitive from justice filmmaker's rape of a drugged child.

THE LIFE BEFORE HER EYES: Orthodox family values in fake free spirit female coed Columbine comeuppance clothing. Or in other words, a woman's place is in the delivery room. Not exactly a road movie, but certainly an anti-abortion mandatory teen motherhood guilt trip. All that's missing are the pamphlet tables in the theater lobbies.

HOUSE OF THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES: A movie that might have been more aptly titled, Sexually Desirable When Drugged, the film allows lewd elderly director Vadim Glowna to star himself as molester and rapist of a series of nude adolescent slumbering sex slaves, in what may or may not be a fantasy brothel for necrophiliacs. Nothing less than a romanticized and lusty aesthetic portrayal of date rape.

DOUBT: African American mom confesses that she doesn't mind if her son is being molested by a pedophile priest, as long as he gets to graduate. Will all the mothers in the audience who have ever heard such an idea even hinted at from the lips of a fellow female parent, please raise your hands.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON: For those black mammies still showing up on the screen, even when they're men. Include Hounddog, Nights In Rodanthe, The Secret Life Of Bees, and Miracle At St. Anna.

AN AMERICAN CAROL: Hyper-reactionary rant. And cast member John Voight, a once fine actor, for backing the insupportable Rudolph Giuliani, the left-baiter at the GOP convention, for president.

AND.....

Military recruitment ads in theaters and on television.

Rick Warren's video on his church's website the week of Dec. 21st.

Mel Gibson, for his un-repented anti-Semitism.

The JACC Anti-Oscars Take LA By Storm

JACC Member Lisa Collins Screens Film At Oscar Micheaux Event In NYC

The Columbia University School of the Arts Film Program, The Film Society of Lincoln Center, and University Seminars on Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation at Columbia University are presenting a landmark film event, Faded Glory: Oscar Micheaux And The Pre-War Black Independent Cinema. The series takes place February 6th and 7th, and conferences are free and open to the public.

This unique presentation will focus on the work by the influential African-American filmmaker, Oscar Micheaux. Newly discovered prints and materials will be shown and discussed for the the first time ever by speakers at this conference. The Film Society at Lincoln Center will screen Micheaux's movies in conjunction with the conference.

A special event will be the presentation by Lisa Collins of her work-in-progress film short, Oscar's Comeback, on Friday February 6th at 3:45pm at Columbia's Schermerhorn Hall, Room 501. It's a sly, complex non-fiction feature set in rural South Dakota about a small, all-white town celebrating its most famous ‘native’ son - black, controversial early 1900s film pioneer Oscar Micheaux. Lisa is a member of The Women Film Critics Circle and the James Agee Cinema Circle, and she produced this film in collaboration with Mark Schwartzburt. A more extensive bio of Lisa Collins is below.


Lisa and Mark (center) shooting on location in Gregory, South Dakota

Professors and film critics and scholars from Columbia University, Yale University, University of Puerto Rico, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Emory University, Duke University, CUNY Graduate Center, Brooklyn College, Northwestern and more, will appear.

It has been more than fifteen years since the last conference on Micheaux's work, and a new generation of critical thinking and writing has since emerged. The full daytime conferences and evening screening schedule, and a full list of presenters, can be viewed at http://arts.columbia.edu.

Tickets for the screenings are available through the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The venues are: Columbia University Campus, Broadway and 116th Street, Schermerhorn Hall Room 501, and Saturday, February 7th, at The Film Society, 70 Lincoln Center Plaza. For all public inquiries, please contact SoAevents@columbia.edu

* Brooklyn-native, Lisa Collins earned her MFA in Screenwriting & Directing from Columbia University Film School, with a BA from Yale University in American Studies & Photography. She’s developing several feature projects and a TV pilot.

An all-round media-maker, Lisa is Sr. Editor/Sr. Segment Producer for Hollywood.com and Hollywood.com TV. Lisa wrote, directed and has produced two shorts: Miss Ruby's House, a mockumentary, which played in festivals across the country; and Tree Shade, a surreal black comedy that garnered the Gold Medal for Best Alternative Film at the Student Academy Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Top honors include: a DGA East Coast Filmmaker award, Best American short at Avignon’s Film Festival, Polo Ralph Lauren Award, and two Rockefeller Foundation nominations. When broadcast, her film headlined PBS’s “Reel New York” series.

With a sharp eye for filmmaking, Lisa has been invited to speak at universities, museums and on panels about her film work; as well she’s been asked to serve on various film juries for festivals and grant fellowships. She also served as a teaching assistant at Columbia University, and has mentored other students. Lisa is a member of the James Agee Cinema Circle and the Women Film Critics Circle.

Lisa Collins was named by Filmmaker Magazine: 'One of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film.' She was invited to workshop her feature-length script, The Grass Is Greener at the Sundance Writers, Filmmakers and Producers Labs, respectively. The project was also invited to participate in the IFFM / IFP’s No Borders Feature Project program.

Currently, Lisa is in post-production with Oscar’s Comeback. She is director/producer on the film with co-director/producer Mark Schwartzburt for Right on Time Productions. So far, the film-in-progress was awarded a prestigious NYSCA grant and two South Dakota Humanities Council grants, with Women Make Movies as its fiscal sponsor. In April 2007, the documentary’s 'presentation trailer' was invited to screen as part of a special program, Creatively Speaking, at BAM. In spring 2008 at Tribeca All Access Awards, Oscar’s Comeback won 2nd Top Prize for Creative Promise (Honorable Mention). Shortly thereafter, it was invited to screen at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

JACC Nominations Announced On WBAI Radio

TAKE-OUT: Nominated for OUR DAILY BREAD AWARD, for the most positive and inspiring workingclass images in a movie, and also for THE GILLO for Best Progressive Foreign Language Film, named after the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo who lensed the 1960s classics, The Battle of Algiers and Burn! TAKE-OUT signifies a commendable new direction in US filmmaking, in long overdue recognition of the multicultural reality of this country, as a foreign language film entry about the United States.


CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW

The JACC Progie nominations, also known as *THE ANTI-OSCARS* were presented with commentary on Pacifica Radio's WBAI Arts Magazine in NY 99.5 FM at 2pm, on 1/27/09 and archived at WBAI.org. The winners will be announced in mid-February on Air America Radio, just prior to and in oppositon to the Academy Awards.