Esthetics and Politics in Cinematic Language

France one of the most debated -and perhaps most controversial -issues in literary criticism has been the rapport between literary structures and social and economic ones. In certain circles, it became almost axiomatic to equate realism with capitalism. It took some time before a similar equation between realism and capitalism entered the world of cinema. True, such an equation had already been made in the 1920's: Dziga Vertov and other Soviet Futurists had condemned traditional psychological, realistic drama and film as the opiate of the people. But the demands of the Futurists were forgotten for nearly half a century, and it wasn't until the late 1960's -largely under the May-June events of 1968 -that a number of film critics, as well as directors, once again began to react against realism on political grounds. This critical orientation was found principally in three journals: Les Cahiers du Cinema (which passed into new, more militant hands as a result of the May-June events), the newly founded MarxistLeninist review Cinethique, and, of course, Tel Que1. Among the directors most associated with this approach was Jean-Luc Godard. Although the various theoreticians did not agree on all issues by any means, they would have concurred, I am sure, on the basic premise that realistic film was an ally of capitalism insofar as it created an illusion of reality which served to mask the real facts of existence -ideological and social -from the viewer

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• A critical glance into the metacinematic gestures of The Act of Killing

  Matteo Ciccognani•Journal for Cultural Research•2020

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