What Do You Mean Politics in *My* Cinema?

Death Political Film and the Current Culture of Escapism.

Born in Flamesposter (Wikicommons)

I keep saying "death of blank" and "Culture of blank" at this point I should start a YouTube video essay channel where I say the same thing over and over again.

I watch a lot of movies, and I wanted to recommend some that I've been thinking about recently. The first being 1983's Born in Flames, directed by Lizzie Borden. And the second being the 1966 film The Battle of Algiers, directed by Gillo Pontecrovo. They are both very different films; Born in Flames is a future-placed fictional "docudrama" (a type of film that takes cinematographic elements of documentary but is a fictional story), and Battle of Algiers is a historical documentary-type film adapted from a memoir of the FLN military commander named Saadi Yacef.

But they are also similar is a few more abstract ways; they are both about revolutions or revolutionary ideas. Born in Flames is about a women's revolution inspired by second-wave feminist movements, specifically those led by black and lesbian women. Battle of Algiers is about the Algerian War for independence from French governance. Both employed actors outside the greater A-List industry big names, though some who appeared in the film later went on to become prominent (ex: Kathryn Bigelow), and Battle of Algiers took a more Italian Neo-Realist route of casting predominantly non-actor or actors from the theater world, as they would be unrecognizable to the mainstream audiences.

Anyway, I definitely recommend both films; you can find them both on Kanopy through UIC!