Arts Review
Turkish regime imprisons and harasses artists, journalists and academics after coup attempt
By Sandy English, 8 August 2016
In the aftermath of the July 15 attempted coup, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has imprisoned artists, banned books and frozen academic relations with other countries.
Lady Dynamite and other Netflix comedies
By Ed Hightower, 6 August 2016
A number of new comedies on Netflix offer mixed results.
All Quiet on the Western Front: A generation haunted by war
By Isaac Finn, 5 August 2016
Erich Maria Remarque’s seminal work, All Quiet on the Western Front, deals with a generation thrown into World War I and the confusion and depression of those who survived.
A comment on the recent San Diego Comic-Con International
By Kevin Martinez, 4 August 2016
The convention attracts over 150,000 people each year to attend panels, workshops and events celebrating comic books and science fiction. What does this say about the official culture?
HBO’s Veep: Lots of profanity, but not enough of what’s truly ugly
By Carlos Delgado, 2 August 2016
The popular HBO television comedy stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, a hopelessly inept and unprincipled US vice president who ascends to the presidency.
Captain Fantastic: An anti-establishment superhero?
By Joanne Laurier, 30 July 2016
Writer-director Matt Ross’s film is a semi-anarchistic tale about a family’s “off-the-grid” existence in the Pacific Northwest.
Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War
By Eric London, 26 July 2016
A 2008 book by Professor David Williams provides a mountain of evidence refuting the claim that the recent film Free State of Jones, directed by Gary Ross, presented “a quasi-historical” approach to the American Civil War and social conflict in the Confederacy.
Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, season 4: Does the positive outweigh the negative?
By Ed Hightower, 26 July 2016
The fourth season of the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, the comedy-drama set in a fictional women’s federal prison, is now available.
Our Kind of Traitor: Going with the current
By Joanne Laurier, 21 July 2016
Our Kind of Traitor, a British spy thriller directed by Susanna White, is based on the 2010 novel of the same name by John le Carré, the veteran novelist.
Wiener-Dog: Todd Solondz continues to look critically at American life
By David Walsh, 20 July 2016
The new film comprises four stories, loosely linked by the presence of a “wiener-dog” (dachshund). Each has at least one or more satirical, telling moments or elements.
Musician-singer M.I.A dropped from Afropunk festival for criticizing Black Lives Matter
By David Walsh and Zac Corrigan, 18 July 2016
M.I.A. has every right to criticize Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar, who travel in privileged circles around the Obamas and other leading Democratic Party figures.
A tribute to German Sinto musician Häns’che Weiss
By Bernd Reinhardt, 16 July 2016
In addition to a remarkable command of his instrument, guitarist Häns’che Weiss was distinguished by his thrilling musicality.
The life and career of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami
By David Walsh, 14 July 2016
The Iranian director will be best remembered and long honored for the series of feature films, including documentaries, that he made between 1987 and 1997.
“Ordinary people truly imbibed the principles of the American Revolution”
An interview with Victoria Bynum, historian and author of The Free State of Jones—Part 2
By David Walsh and Joanne Laurier, 13 July 2016
This is the second part of a conversation with Victoria Bynum, whose research helped inspire the film Free State of Jones, about an insurrection by Southern Unionists against the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Book Review
The Mare by Mary Gaitskill: Attention to social inequality—in her own way
By Sandy English, 12 July 2016
In her new novel, Gaitskill focuses on a poor Dominican teenager from New York City, the suburban family she lives with during the summer and her experiences relating to a particularly abused horse.
“Cinema has the potential to make us richer in spirit”—filmmaker Paul Cox (1940–2016)
By Richard Phillips, 11 July 2016
Cox directed over 40 dramatic features and documentaries—the overwhelming majority on paper-thin budgets—during his more than forty-year career.
Michael Cimino, director of The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate, dead at 77
By David Walsh, 7 July 2016
Cimino is best known as the director of The Deer Hunter (1978), which won numerous Academy Awards, and Heaven’s Gate (1980), which was denounced by leading critics, lost a great deal of money and severely damaged Cimino’s career.
Bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley dead at 89
By Hiram Lee, 6 July 2016
Ralph Stanley led one of the most remarkable groups in Bluegrass music and was among the genre’s greatest banjo players and singers.
Free State of Jones: Three cheers!
By Joanne Laurier, 28 June 2016
Gary Ross’s film is a fictional account of an intriguing, but little known chapter in American history.
25 April: Animated documentary on New Zealand’s role in the Gallipoli invasion
By Sam Price and Tom Peters, 25 June 2016
The film shows the horrors of war but fails to challenge the nationalist mythology surrounding the Anzacs.
Alf Sjöberg’s Miss Julie (1951) and G. W. Pabst’s The Threepenny Opera (1931): Films worth noting … and seeing
By Joanne Laurier, 23 June 2016
Swedish filmmaker Alf Sjöberg’s Miss Julie is based on the play by August Strindberg. Austrian filmmaker G.W. Pabst’s film The Threepenny Opera is an intricate movie version of the legendary Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill work.
“All the terrifying things all really happened”
Toyen: A film about the Czech surrealist painter and her times
By David Walsh, 18 June 2016
Czech director Jan Němec, who died in March 2016, made a film about the surrealist painter Toyen in 2005, which is now available. The film is intriguing and sometimes deeply moving.
The Nice Guys: Something, but not very much
(And, briefly, Terence Davies’ Sunset Song and Hany Abu-Assad’s The Idol.)
By David Walsh and Joanne Laurier, 17 June 2016
The Nice Guys is set in 1977 and follows the investigation into a disappearance, which turns out to be part of a broader conspiracy. Sunset Song and The Idol have recently opened in movie theaters in the US.
Again on Don DeLillo’s Zero K: How does a novel turn toward social life?
By Eric London, 13 June 2016
Don DeLillo’s latest novel, about the determination of a small group of wealthy individuals to have their bodies cryogenically preserved, is worth our attention.
The Lobster: Relationships forced on—or forbidden—people
By David Walsh, 11 June 2016
In Yorgos Lanthimos’ film, individuals without a mate are sent to a “hotel” where they have 45 days to find a partner or be turned into an animal. Then, there are those who escape.
HBO’s All the Way: Lyndon B. Johnson and the civil rights movement
By Charles Bogle, 10 June 2016
HBO’s All the Way is a serious effort, devoid of contemporary identity politics, to portray a significant moment in American history.
Right-wing Polish government revives effort to extradite Roman Polanski
By Alan Gilman, 9 June 2016
The new attempt by the Polish government to extradite Polanski is the latest chapter in the US government’s vindictive pursuit of the filmmaker.
Love & Friendship: An early Jane Austen work adapted
By Joanne Laurier, 8 June 2016
In England in 1790, Lady Susan Vernon, widowed and penniless, schemes to reverse her fortunes.
Night without end: Don DeLillo’s Zero K
By James Brookfield, 7 June 2016
American author Don DeLillo’s 17th novel is a dark story about the determination of a small group of wealthy individuals to have their bodies cryogenically preserved.
Anohni speaks on war, inequality and Obama
By George Marlowe, 6 June 2016
The World Socialist Web Site spoke to Anohni about her new album.
Anohni’s Hopelessness: A protest against war, drone bombings and more
“If I killed your mother with a drone bomb, how would you feel?”—Crisis
By Zac Corrigan, 6 June 2016
Anohni is the British-born, American transgender singer formerly known as Antony Hegarty who released five albums under the name Antony and the Johnsons.
HBO’s “Girls”: What should the voice of this generation say?
By Carlos Delgado, 3 June 2016
Praise for Lena Dunham’s “Girls” generally lauds its “frankness” and “realism” about the unpleasant, even ugly, aspects of life for American youth.
A talk given in San Diego, Berkeley and Ann Arbor
Art, war and social revolution—Part 2
By David Walsh, 1 June 2016
This talk was given by WSWS arts editor David Walsh at San Diego State University, University of California Berkeley and University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in April and May.
A talk given in San Diego, Berkeley, and Ann Arbor
Art, war and social revolution—Part 1
By David Walsh, 31 May 2016
This talk was given by WSWS arts editor David Walsh at San Diego State University, University of California Berkeley, and University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in April and May.
Sing Street from Ireland, A Bigger Splash from Italy: Neglected realities
By Joanne Laurier, 28 May 2016
John Carney’s Sing Street is a musical comedy-drama set in Dublin in the mid-1980s. Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash, based on a 1969 French thriller, takes its name from a painting by British artist David Hockney.
High-Rise: A film version of J.G. Ballard’s novel
By David Walsh, 27 May 2016
Like the novel, the film—set in the mid-1970s—begins with its central character calmly sitting on the balcony of his 25th floor apartment eating roast dog.
Cash Only: What interests contemporary filmmakers and what doesn’t
By David Walsh, 25 May 2016
Cash Only is an independent American film set in the Detroit area. The film takes place in the Albanian community.
Captain America: Civil War—A waste of resources, technology and human skill
By David Walsh, 23 May 2016
What are these performers doing in this film? Is there any major film actor at present who would say “No” to this sort of project?
San Francisco International Film Festival—Part 4
Maggie’s Plan, Frank & Lola, along with Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932)
By Joanne Laurier, 20 May 2016
Some not very good new films—and better old ones.
Money Monster: Who are the criminals?
By Joanne Laurier, 18 May 2016
Money Monster is the latest film to depict the consequences of the 2008 financial crash and the criminal manipulations of the financial elite.
San Francisco International Film Festival—Part 3
Radio Dreams, about Iranian Americans—and the problem of images without insight
By David Walsh, 17 May 2016
Radio Dreams is a pleasurable experience. Other films at the San Francisco festival––The Event, No Home Movie, Counting, Five Nights in Maine––fared less well.
An interview with Babak Jalali, director of Radio Dreams
By David Walsh, 17 May 2016
The WSWS spoke to Babak Jalali during the recent San Francisco International Film Festival.
San Francisco International Film Festival—Part 2
The Return, about released prisoners, and other social dramas (or comedies)
By Joanne Laurier, 13 May 2016
In a number of the films screened at the festival, their creators were evidently overwhelmed by the disintegrating social structures in some of the most impoverished parts of the world.
San Francisco International Film Festival—Part 1
Look at today’s filmmaking … then look at the world
By David Walsh, 11 May 2016
The recent San Francisco International Film Festival, in its 59th edition, screened some 175 films, including approximately 100 feature-length films, from 46 countries.
Everybody Wants Some!!—Richard Linklater goes to college
By Hiram Lee, 10 May 2016
Everybody Wants Some!! is the latest coming-of-age tale from the American independent film director.
Looking for Grace—a strangely cold story about a teenager leaving home
By John Harris, 9 May 2016
The movie centres on the efforts of a lower middle-class couple to find their runaway teenage daughter and only child.
Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
Are the films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet a genuine alternative to contemporary filmmaking?
By David Walsh, 7 May 2016
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, beginning May 6, is presenting a retrospective of the films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, the Franco-German filmmakers.
Elvis & Nixon, A Hologram for the King: Trivializing culture, history
By Joanne Laurier, 6 May 2016
Two ostensible comedies, Elvis & Nixon and A Hologram for the King, drain their stories of their most important social and historical content.
Papa: Hemingway in Cuba—The banalization of the novelist and his art
By David Walsh, 4 May 2016
The film follows the relationship that develops after a young American journalist in Miami in the mid-1950s writes an admiring letter to novelist Ernest Hemingway, then living in Havana, Cuba.
David Walsh speaks on “Art, War and Social Revolution” at meetings in California
By Evan Blake and Jake Dean, 3 May 2016
Walsh presented the history of 20th century anti-war cinema and sought to uncover the roots behind the present cultural stagnation in the light of the eruption of American imperialism.
Songs My Brothers Taught Me: The plight of a Lakota youth
By Norisa Diaz and Kevin Martinez, 2 May 2016
The film is a lyrical and honest look at the poverty and social neglect that affects one of the most historically oppressed communities in the United States.
Class Divide: A close-up look at gentrification, inequality in New York City
By Fred Mazelis, 29 April 2016
Children of hedge fund managers attend private school on Manhattan’s Tenth Avenue, across the street from one of the city’s public housing projects.
Prince (1958-2016)
By Hiram Lee, 27 April 2016
While music icon Prince, who died April 21 at the age of 57, was among the more electrifying performers of his generation, his work could be terribly uneven.
The paintings of Eugène Delacroix at London’s National Gallery
By Ross Mitchell and Paul Mitchell, 26 April 2016
The stated intention of the organisers is to give visitors “the opportunity to (re)discover” the “revolutionary artist” Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863).
A concert of relative rarities by American composer Aaron Copland
By Fred Mazelis, 23 April 2016
Copland’s jazz-influenced Piano Concerto deserves a higher profile in the orchestral repertoire.
The Hope Six Demolition Project: PJ Harvey takes on war and global poverty
By Matthew MacEgan, 22 April 2016
Harvey’s new album is the product of the artist’s investigation into the poverty and devastation being inflicted on different parts of the globe.
Demolition: Take an investment banker apart, and what do you find?
By Carlos Delgado, 20 April 2016
The film tells the story of Davis Mitchell (Jake Gyllenhaal), a New York investment banker who experiences an emotional unraveling after his wife dies in an automobile accident.
A conversation with Stephen Parker, author of Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life
By David Walsh, 19 April 2016
WSWS writers Sybille Fuchs, Stefan Steinberg and David Walsh recently spoke to the author of a valuable new biography of the famed German playwright and poet.
Stephen Parker’s Bertolt Brecht. A Literary Life—a welcome biography that raises big historical issues
By Sybille Fuchs, 18 April 2016
One of the most talented and influential playwrights of the 20th century, Brecht adapted to Stalinism, with pernicious consequences for his career and work.
Colonia: Under Pinochet, a disposal center for enemies of the state
By Joanne Laurier and David Walsh, 16 April 2016
German director Florian Gallenberger’s political thriller Colonia takes place during and after the US-backed Chilean military coup in September 1973.
SEP/IYSSE meetings in California: Art, War and Social Revolution
14 April 2016
WSWS Arts Editor David Walsh will speak at meetings in San Diego and Berkeley, California, addressing the political and cultural situation in relation to American imperialism’s relentless war drive.
Born to Be Blue and Miles Ahead: Why so much fiction when life is fascinating enough?
By John Andrews, 7 April 2016
Films based on the lives and personas of post-World War II jazz musicians Chet Baker and Miles Davis have been released recently.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice—Doom and gloom, with capes
By Carlos Delgado, 6 April 2016
The price tag of the film, including production and marketing costs, approaches half a billion dollars, and some analysts believe it would need an $800 million box office to recoup its investment.
UK documentary exposes Saudi role in global terror operations
By Jean Shaoul, 5 April 2016
The Saudi ruling family spent $70 billion exporting its particularly repressive form of Islamism through books, the media, Islamic welfare institutions and charities.
The New York Times on race and art
By Hiram Lee, 4 April 2016
A review published in this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review advances a racialist view of art and culture with thoroughly reactionary implications.
San Diego Latino Film Festival 2016—Part 3
From Cuba a grim drama (La obra del siglo) and from Argentina a political thriller (El Clan) and a road trip (Camino a La Paz)
By Kevin Martinez and Toby Reese, 1 April 2016
The festival showcased films and documentaries from throughout the Spanish-speaking world, including Cuba, Spain, Mexico, and South and Central America.
Eye in the Sky: The liberal war on terror
By Joanne Laurier, 31 March 2016
Eye in the Sky is a political-military thriller in which British and American officials weigh the consequences of a drone strike in Nairobi, Kenya.
On sexual harassment policy
Professors’ group charges Obama administration with undermining academic freedom and due process
By David Walsh, 30 March 2016
A report by the American Association of University Professors points to the reactionary role of the sexual harassment industry on university campuses.
San Diego Latino Film Festival 2016—Part 2
The human cost of the drug war in Mexico and a drama from Venezuela: Retratos de una búsqueda and Dauna. Lo que lleva el río
By Kevin Martinez and Toby Reese, 30 March 2016
The San Diego festival showcased films and documentaries from throughout the Spanish-speaking world, including Cuba, Spain, Mexico, South and Central America.
San Diego Latino Film Festival 2016—Part 1
Films from Argentina, Spain and Guatemala: El Movimiento, Hablar, Ixcanul and Tras Nazarin
By Kevin Martinez and Toby Reese, 28 March 2016
The festival showcased films and documentaries from throughout the Spanish-speaking world, including Cuba, Spain, Mexico, South and Central America.
Atom Egoyan’s Remember: A Nazi criminal hunted…
By Joanne Laurier, 25 March 2016
Two Auschwitz concentration camp survivors plot to kill the SS guard who murdered their families in Atom Egoyan’s latest film, Remember, a psychological drama.
“We make the terror:” Season four of House of Cards
By Andre Damon, 24 March 2016
The latest season of the Netflix series suggests that the US government facilitates terrorism to keep a lid on domestic opposition, spies on the population for political gain, and conspires to go to war for Machiavellian ends.
Book Review
Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See: All the history the novelist cannot see
By Leah Jeresova, 23 March 2016
Doerr’s second novel takes a moralizing, ahistorical view of events during the Second World War.
Ten years since the death of hip hop artist James “J Dilla” Yancey
By Nick Barrickman, 21 March 2016
A talented musician, Yancey is considered by many to have been among the greatest of all hip hop producers.
Novelist Jonathan Franzen’s Purity
By Sandy English, 17 March 2016
Franzen’s highly praised fifth novel is a largely––and carelessly––misanthropic, right-wing work that fails to create complex or plausible characters.
Beatles producer George Martin dies at 90
By Hiram Lee, 15 March 2016
Legendary music producer George Martin, who supervised almost all of the Beatles’ recordings, died on March 8.
66th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 4:
Flight and persecution—yesterday and today (The Diary of Anne Frank and Meteorstraße)
By Bernd Reinhardt, 14 March 2016
A new adaptation of the immortal Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, about Nazi persecution, and a film about Palestinian refugees in contemporary Germany.
A Perfect Day: 24 hours in the Bosnian War
By Joanne Laurier, 12 March 2016
Spanish filmmaker Fernando León de Aranoa’s movie A Perfect Day deals with international humanitarian aid workers in the Balkans near the end of the war in the mid-1990s.
Race: Jesse Owens and the 1936 Berlin Olympics
By Alan Gilman and David Walsh, 10 March 2016
Stephen Hopkins’ film centers on critical events in the life of African-American track and field legend Jesse Owens.
American Crime Story: The People v. O. J. Simpson: An indictment of American celebrity culture
By Charles Bogle, 8 March 2016
The FX series examines the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in June 1994, for which former football star O. J. Simpson was charged.
66th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 3:
Alone in Berlin—a working class couple opposes the Nazis
By Bernd Reinhardt, 7 March 2016
Vincent Pérez’s film is a new adaptation of Hans Fallada’s novel Every Man Dies Alone (published posthumously in 1947).
Two poor films on the Afghanistan war—Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and A War—and Jonás Cuarón’s Desierto
By Joanne Laurier, 5 March 2016
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a semi-comic treatment of the tragic Afghan conflict; A War from Denmark is ostensibly a more serious effort. Desierto takes up the war against Mexican immigrants.
Eighty-eighth Academy Awards: Hopeful signs amidst reactionary “diversity” campaign
By Fred Mazelis, 1 March 2016
The Oscar awards ceremony Sunday night included some welcome notes and surprises, and generally, despite the disorienting campaign waged under the Twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, revealed a more humane side of Hollywood.
66th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 2:
A critique of Europe’s refugee policy: On the Berlinale’s Golden Bear for Fire at Sea
By Verena Nees and Bernd Reinhardt, 27 February 2016
This is the second in a series of articles on the recent Berlin international film festival, the Berlinale, held February 11-20, 2016.
66th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 1:
Refugee crisis takes centre stage at the Berlinale
By Stefan Steinberg, 22 February 2016
The main prize of the festival went to Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare) by Gianfranco Rosi, dealing with the fate of refugees attempting to enter Europe.
John Patrick Shanley’s Prodigal Son: A working class youth at a Catholic high school in the 1960s
By Robert Fowler, 19 February 2016
The playwright raises some important issues and then proceeds to skirt them, leaving the audience with little more than a banal liberalism.
Woman at the Window: Oratorio remembers the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
By Adam Mclean, 16 February 2016
Students at the Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts in Los Angeles tackle the deadliest industrial disaster in US history in an honest and compelling work.
Jia Zhangke’s Mountains May Depart: Three periods in modern China, a good deal of confusion
By David Walsh, 13 February 2016
Veteran independent Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke’s Mountains May Depart is opening in theaters in the US this week.
Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace dramatized in a new television series
By Joanne Laurier, 11 February 2016
Tolstoy’s titanic novel has received a new adaptation by the BBC and is now airing in numerous countries.
The Coen Brothers’ Hail Caesar!: The “Passion” of a film studio troubleshooter
By Joanne Laurier, 9 February 2016
Hail Caesar!, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, is a comedy about Hollywood set in the early 1950s.
At the Jewish Museum in New York City
“The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography, Early Soviet Film”—an exhibition
By C.W. Rogers, 6 February 2016
The exhibition examines some of the remarkable photography, magazines, film posters and innovative films produced in the years that followed the October Revolution of 1917.
45 Years: A nightmare on the brain of the living?
By David Walsh, 5 February 2016
In Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years, a childless, middle class couple living in a provincial English town, are on the eve of their 45th wedding anniversary.
Flint pre-screening of the documentary MisLEAD: America’s Secret Epidemic
Parents fighting lead poisoning denounce government inaction and lies
By Tim Rivers, 4 February 2016
Following a preview screening of the film MisLEAD: America’s Secret Epidemic, which documents the epidemic spread of lead across America, a panel of parents was joined by the director of the film and a state expert for lead risk assessment.
“Light lights in air”: Value, price, profit and Louis Zukofsky’s poetry
By Andras Gyorgy, 3 February 2016
Louis Zukofsky (1904–78), largely unknown today except in academic circles, was a remarkable American poet. In the late 1920s and 1930s, a supporter of the Communist Party, he wrote complex, modernist works.
Racialism, art and the Academy Awards controversy
By David Walsh, 30 January 2016
It is no exaggeration to point out that, in ideological terms, Cara Buckley in the New York Times and others, in their obsession with race, are spouting a conception of society and art identified historically with the extreme right.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi—Michael Bay’s mythmaking
By Kevin Martinez, 30 January 2016
Hollywood’s latest propaganda piece tells the story of the 2012 attack on a US base in Libya from a right-wing perspective, with predictable results.
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