AGITPROP! 2 “It's Not Just America At Risk: Classic Cautionary Tales Still In Play Today”
ACLU benefit, donating 100% of all ticket sales
Saturday, December 9, 2017
The Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA - (415) 863-1087
1:00pm - FORCE OF EVIL (USA, 1948, Abraham Polonsky, 78m, B&W) Blacklisted director
2:45pm UCHO aka THE EAR (Czechoslovakia, 1970, Karel Kachyna, 94m, B&W) Film banned for 20 years
4:30pm PUNISHMENT PARK (UK/USA, 1971, Peter Watkins, 91m, color) Most incendiary "mockumentary" ever
Tickets: $10 general
Ticket link:
https://ticketing.us.veezi.com/purchase/3685?siteToken=4m48btf3yavn7xjk5yxk6nc40c
ONLINE DETAILS AVAILABLE AT:
http://midcenturyproductions.com
http://www.roxie.com/ai1ec_event/agitprop-2/?instance_id=24385
Midcentury Productions AGITPROP! events present work that explore the social and political filmmaking of the past. These three films deal with the tendency of the modern state to undermine the freedoms of its citizens. While this is currently front and center in the USA, it’s been an ongoing problem around the world, and the films in AGITPROP! 2 reflect that fact. Cinema history is part of history: we need to not only revere great works of art, but also those creative efforts that point us to historical lessons that we need to remember and apply to the present. These are exceptional films made in exceptional times—just like ours.
FORCE OF EVIL (1948 has particular resonance to our current American malaise. John Garfield stars in this blistering “autopsy of capitalism.” written and directed by Abraham Polonsky. It lays out the lingering danger that a system of so-called “free enterprise” can become predatory and corrupt, in a film that pits brother against brother. It’s a film that’s needed to be screened in front of American audiences ever since the tragic election results of November 8, 2016.
Banned in Czechoslovakia for more than twenty years, UCHO, or THE EAR, was made in 1970 but not released until the advent of
perestroika in 1990. It is a tale of paranoia and relentless surveillance in a totalitarian state, and the shattering effect it has on the lives of a couple in the middle ranges of the government bureaucracy. UCHO has been described as a cross between Francis Ford Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION and Mike Nichols’ WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? It is a cautionary tale about what can happen to humanity if it fails to safeguard democratic principles.
PUNISHMENT PARK is a remarkably prescient at how the state can manipulate perception and undermine dissent. In 1971 British filmmaker Peter Watkins created a
cinema verité style “mockumentary” during the final phase of the protest over the Vietnam War, and produced a chilling template for how the state could subvert and suppress protest. Forty-five years later, it is a fascinating historical artifact that needs to be seen by those who wish to be effective in resisting the escalating untruths that are being issued from the current occupant of the White House.