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Enduring Images: A Future History of New Left Cinema
An integrated look at the political films of the 1960s and ’70s and how the New Left transformed cinema
A timely reassessment of political film culture in the 1960s and ’70s, Enduring Images examines international cinematic movements of the New Left in light of sweeping cultural and economic changes of that era. Looking at new forms of cinematic resistance—including detailed readings of particular films, collectives, and movements—Morgan Adamson makes a case for cinema’s centrality to the global New Left. Enduring Images details how student, labor, anti-imperialist, Black Power, and second-wave feminist movements broke with auteur cinema and sought to forge local and international solidarities by producing political essay films, generating new ways of being and thinking in common. Adamson produces a comparative and theoretical account of New Left cinema that engages with discussions of work, debt, information, and resistance. Enduring Images argues that the cinemas of the New Left are sites to examine, through the lens of struggle, the reshaping of global capitalism during the pivotal moment in which they were made, while at the same time exploring how these movements endure in contemporary culture and politics. Including in-depth discussions of Third Cinema in Argentina, feminist cinema in Italy, Newsreel movements in the United States, and cybernetics in early video, Enduring Images is an essential examination of the political films of the 1960s and ’70s.
A timely reassessment of political film culture in the 1960s and ’70s, Enduring Images examines international cinematic movements of the New Left in light of sweeping cultural and economic changes of that era. Looking at new forms of cinematic resistance—including detailed readings of particular films, collectives, and movements—Morgan Adamson makes a case for cinema’s centrality to the global New Left. Enduring Images details how student, labor, anti-imperialist, Black Power, and second-wave feminist movements broke with auteur cinema and sought to forge local and international solidarities by producing political essay films, generating new ways of being and thinking in common. Adamson produces a comparative and theoretical account of New Left cinema that engages with discussions of work, debt, information, and resistance. Enduring Images argues that the cinemas of the New Left are sites to examine, through the lens of struggle, the reshaping of global capitalism during the pivotal moment in which they were made, while at the same time exploring how these movements endure in contemporary culture and politics. Including in-depth discussions of Third Cinema in Argentina, feminist cinema in Italy, Newsreel movements in the United States, and cybernetics in early video, Enduring Images is an essential examination of the political films of the 1960s and ’70s.
- GenresNonfictionFilm
304 pages, Paperback
Published October 16, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 24, 2021
I've only read the first chapter so far, but I wanted to say that it has been so helpful to my film studies and understanding political film collectives of the 60's like the Dziga Vertov or the Medvedkin groups and why the essay film was the primary method for forging a new political cinema, which was neither commercial nor auteur oriented.
I really recommend this, it's not as difficult to read as it may seem.
I really recommend this, it's not as difficult to read as it may seem.
November 10, 2022
Excellent book, but I won't lie, the '70s McLuhanite drivel that Adamson has to drudge through in the chapter on early video culture made me feel like my brain was leaking out of my ears. You take the good with the bad when it comes to the New Left, I suppose.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews