Emma Goldman (June 27 [O.S. June 15] 1869 – May 14, 1940) was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century.
Born in Kovno in the Russian Empire (present-day Kaunas, Lithuania), Goldman emigrated to the US in 1885 and lived in New York City, where she joined the burgeoning anarchist movement. Attracted to anarchism after the Haymarket affair, Goldman became a writer and a renowned lecturer on anarchist philosophy, women's rights, and social issues, attracting crowds of thousands. She and anarchist writer Alexander Berkman, her lover and lifelong friend, planned to assassinate industrialist and financier Henry Clay Frick as an act of propaganda of the deed. Although Frick survived the attempt on his life, Berkman was sentenced to twenty-two years in prison. Goldman was imprisoned several times in the years that followed, for "inciting to riot" and illegally distributing information about birth control. In 1906, Goldman founded the anarchist journal Mother Earth.
Plot
When a series of package bombs show up on the doorsteps of prominent politicians and businessmen in the summer of 1919, U.S. Bureau of Investigation Agent William Flynn (Strathairn) is assigned the task of finding those responsible. He becomes immersed in an investigation that uncovers an anarchist plot to destroy democracy. Based on true events of the 20s the film sets the stage for a timely drama with resoundingly similar parallels to the contemporary war on terrorism and the role government plays to defeat it.
Keywords: 1919, art-film, bombing, dick-cheney, fbi, immigrant, independent-film, package-bomb, political-drama, politics
You Think You Know, But You Don't Know
Plot
Biopic of J. Edgar Hoover told by Hoover as he recalls his career for a biography. Early in his career, Hoover fixated on Communists, anarchists and any other revolutionary taking action against the U.S. government. He slowly builds the agency's reputation, becoming the sole arbiter of who gets hired and fired. One of his hires is Clyde Tolson who is quickly promoted to Assistant Director and would be Hoover's confidant and companion for the rest of Hoover's life. Hoover's memories have him playing a greater role in the many high profile cases the FBI was involved in - the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, the arrest of bank robbers like John Dillinger - and also show him to be quite adept at manipulating the various politicians he's worked with over his career, thanks in large part to his secret files.
Keywords: 1920s, 1930s, 1960s, 1970s, airplane, alvin-karpis, ambition, anarchist, anti-communism, archival-footage
The Most Powerful Man in the World
J. Edgar Hoover: Find Agent Purvis. He is to be demoted or, better yet, fired.
J. Edgar Hoover: What's important at this time is to re-clarify the difference between hero and villain.
J. Edgar Hoover: No one freely shares power in Washington, D.C.
Agent Stokes: The crimes we are investigating aren't crimes, they are ideas.
Harlan Fiske Stone: Lower the treble, son, you didn't call this meeting, I did.
J. Edgar Hoover: McCarthy was an opportunist not a patriot.
Albert Osborne: Is that all, Mr. Hoover? I have a 2:30 class to teach.::J. Edgar Hoover: No, you don't. Consider your pay doubled; you now work for your country. Congratulations, Dr. Osborne.
Annie Hoover: [Contemptuously to Edgar] I would rather have a dead son than a daffodil for a son.
J. Edgar Hoover: Do I kill everything that I love?
[first lines]::J. Edgar Hoover: Let me tell you something. The SCLC has direct Communist ties. Even great men can be corrupted, can't they? Communism is not a political party. It is a disease. It corrupts the soul, turning men, even the gentlest of men, into vicious evil tyrants.
Plot
This movie tells the true story of John Reed, a radical American journalist around the time of World War I. He soon meets Louise Bryant, a respectable married woman, who dumps her husband for Reed and becomes an important feminist and radical in her own right. After involvement with labor and political disputes in the US, they go to Russia in time for the October Revolution in 1917, when the Communists siezed power. Inspired, they return to the US, hoping to lead a similar revolution. A particularly fascinating aspect of the movie is the inclusion of interviews with "witnesses", the real-life surviving participants in the events of the movie.
Keywords: 1910s, 1920s, afi, anarchism, apology, arrest, art-gallery, based-on-book, cheating-on-boyfriend, chicago-illinois
Not since Gone With The Wind has there been a great romantic epic like it!
Emma Goldman: I think voting is the opium of the masses in this country. Every four years you deaden the pain.
Eugene O'Neill: I'd like to kill you, but I can't. So you can do whatever you want to. Except not see me.
Eugene O'Neill: If you were mine, I wouldn't share you with anybody or anything. It'd be just you and me. We'd be the center of it all. I know it would feel a lot more like love than being left alone with your work.
Eugene O'Neill: You dream that if you discuss the revolution with a man before you go to bed with him, it'll be missionary work rather than sex.
Louise Bryant: I'd like to see you with your pants off, Mr. Reed.
John Reed: Louise, I love you.::Louise Bryant: No, you love yourself! Me, you FUCK!
Louise Bryant: What as?::John Reed: Well, it's almost Thanksgiving. You could go as a turkey.
John Reed: Profits.
Max Eastman: I'll walk you home.::Emma Goldman: Why? I won't hurt anyone.
[repeated line]::Louise Bryant: Taxi's waiting, Jack.
Plot
'Emma Goldman (I)' (qv) has just arrived in New York City to join a small group of anarchists. She is excited to meet Johann Most, a left wing newspaper publisher, who is renowned within the movement. His primary mantra is espousing the eight hour work day. But as Emma becomes more involved with Most in both a personal sense and for the cause, it brings up the idealistic struggles within the movement between someone like Most who has the ear of the public, and Sasha Berkman, a younger anarchist who has his own thoughts about how best to forward the cause. Berkman, with who Emma would begin a personal relationship, believes that assassinating steel magnate Henry Clay Frick - who many see as the puppet for industrialist Andrew Carnegie - over the Homestead Steel strike would send an important message, one that Most believe foolish. From this struggle would emerge Emma's own voice within the cause.
Keywords: based-on-play