film

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• SOURCE: CNN
  12/19/2020
  

  How World War II Shaped 'It's a Wonderful Life'

  The now-classic movie was unsuccessful in its own time, perhaps because its expression of the uncertainty and fatigue of a nation emerging from a global war was not an upbeat or enjoyable theme. 

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• SOURCE: USA Today
  12/5/2020
  

  Historians Fact-Check 'Mank': Who Really Wrote 'Citizen Kane?' And Does 'Rosebud' Have A Hidden Meaning?

  Film historians suggest the new Netflix drama overstates Frank Mankiewicz's influence over the final form of "Citizen Kane" and takes some other liberties with the facts. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/16/2020
  

  Academy Museum Gives Debbie Reynolds Her Due as a Costume Conservator

  For reasons likely including institiutionalized sexism, costumes have been a neglected part of the preservation of cinematic history. The new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures hopes to work with the late Debbie Reynolds's son to change that. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vox
  11/10/2020
  

  Everything About Netflix’s Hillbilly Elegy Movie Is Awful (Review)

  "It strips out Vance’s sociopolitical commentary entirely, which, however you feel about the commentary, leaves the story without an all-important ingredient: a political and sociological point."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/5/2020
  

  Watch This 1897 Snowball Fight for a Jolt of Pure Joy

  The footage was captured in Lyon, in 1897, by the Lumière brothers, who were among the world’s first filmmakers. 

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• SOURCE: IndieWire
  11/2/2020
  

  Chris Rock Sounds Off on Hating Civil Rights Movies: ‘They Make Racism Look Very Fixable’

  Rock did not call out any Civil Rights movies by name, although his argument that such films “make racism look very fixable” were the same criticisms thrown at Best Picture winner “Green Book.”

• 
• SOURCE: Current Affairs
  10/22/2020
  

  The Real Abbie Hoffman

  by Nathan J. Robinson

  While The Trial of the Chicago 7 is sympathetic to Hoffman, it also softens him in a way that ultimately amounts to historical fabrication.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  10/21/2020
  

  Aaron Sorkin Sanitizes the Chicago 7

  by Jeet Heer

  According to Jeet Heer, "Sorkin takes many liberties with the facts, most of which are designed to make both the New Left and its conservative opponents more palatable to contemporary liberal viewers."

• 
• SOURCE: Forward
  10/19/2020
  

  Sacha Baron Cohen Interviewed a Holocaust Survivor for the New ‘Borat;’ Now Her Daughter’s Suing

  The producers of the "Borat" sequel insist the interview was used to mock Holocaust deniers; surviving relatives argue the use of her story for satirical purposes was deceptive and inappropriate.

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  10/19/2020
  

  Academy Museum Names Historian of Black Cinema as the New Chief Artistic Officer

  Jacqueline Stewart, a prominent historian of African American cinema, will join the Academy Museum in preparation for its April opening. She discusses how the museum will tell the story of film making and moviegoing. 

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• SOURCE: CBC
  10/17/2020
  

  Samuel L. Jackson's Enslaved and the Lost History of Canadian Slavery

  Canadian historian Charmaine Nelson says that many Canadians are overly accepting of the narrative of their nation as the endpoint of the Underground Railroad and unaware of the history of slavery in Canada. A new documentary by the famed actor highlights the need to push past comfortable understandings.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  10/12/2020
  

  Prof. Kiara Vigil: Why It Is Important To Highlight Roles Of Native Americans In History (audio)

  "This last spring, for the first time, I taught a class called Native Futures, and I thought that it would make sense to teach a class where Native people themselves not only are part of the past and the present, but they're going to be part of the future."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/10/2020
  

  A Famed Horror Director Mines Japan’s Real-Life Atrocities

  In a recent interview, Mr. Kurosawa, 65, said he found it hard to understand why Japan’s war crimes remained almost taboo among the country’s filmmakers 75 years after the conflict’s end.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  10/8/2020
  

  Why Americans Fall for Grifters: A Warning From a 1957 Film

  by Jake Tapper

  Journalist Jake Tapper reflects on the prescience of the 1957 Elia Kazan/Budd Schulberg film "A Face in the Crowd", which anticipated the power of inflammatory appeals in the mass media. 

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• SOURCE: KERA
  9/14/2020
  

  Hollywood’s Colorblind Illusion (audio)

  American Studies professor Justin Gomer, author of "White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights" discusses the political impact of Hollywood's treatment of race. 

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• 9/13/2020
  

  Native Actors Outside the Frame

  by Liza Black

  Liza Black's new book traces the lives of prominent and anonymous Native actors, examinng the way that Hollywood films exploited their labor and images while spinning narratives that justified the historical conquest of Native lands.

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• SOURCE: Broadway World
  8/31/2020
  

  PBS Will Air "Driving While Black" Documentary on October 13

  PBS will air a historical documentary examining the issue of mobility and freedom to travel as aspects of American racism.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Monthly
  9/1/2020
  

  Stanley Kubrick’s Calculated Rebellion

  A new biography of the acclaimed director focuses on his thematic obsession with rebellion and how it suceeds or fails.

• 
• SOURCE: WUNC
  8/26/2020
  

  Civil War And Southern Charm: How Hollywood Takes On The South (audio)

  Film experts Marsha Gordon and Laura Boyes talk about watching films that gloss over the darker parts of Southern history, but they also explore how more contemporary films resonate with viewers as true to their own experiences.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  8/6/2020
  

  'And The World Went Crazy': How Hollywood Changed After Hiroshima

  Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s wrestled with the idea of a planet without humanity. After "Dr. Strangelove" satirized any effort to treat nuclear war seriously on the big screen, Hollywood viewed the bomb through schlock and horror, until the 1980s revival of sentiment for disarmament and "The Day After."