Fofi
Cinema and Anarchy
While the power imposes globally a unique model of social organization, while media and new technologies emerge as primary means of control, even art is forced to reconsider its means and ends, its very reason for existing. And if it is true that great art has always shown an anarchist flair and a critique of the existent, questioning - directly or indirectly - the "rationality" of social order, the cinema always had two souls: one is that of peaceful consolation and the other is that of provocative questioning. And it is the latter which Fofi considers, showing how cinema has always explored neither trivial nor comforting territories and languages. In this pamphlet great examples are suggested of direct or indirect relationship between cinema and anarchy, that can be traced both in the cinema of the past - in particular in the figures of two masters like Jean Vigo and Luis Buñuel – and in recent movies, insisting first on the works by Aki Kaurismaki and Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco, but also highlighting other authors and works of different countries.
Goffredo Fofi (Gubbio 1937) has been involved in literary and film criticism, has directed and founded cultural and political journals, is the author of several books and has participated in many experiences of social intervention and education since the mid-fifties.
Today more than ever, art has to be anarchist, otherwise it is cowardly or servile.
While the power imposes globally a unique model of social organization, while media and new technologies emerge as primary means of control, even art is forced to reconsider its means and ends, its very reason for existing. And if it is true that great art has always shown an anarchist flair and a critique of the existent, questioning - directly or indirectly - the "rationality" of social order, the cinema always had two souls: one is that of peaceful consolation and the other is that of provocative questioning. And it is the latter which Fofi considers, showing how cinema has always explored neither trivial nor comforting territories and languages. In this pamphlet great examples are suggested of direct or indirect relationship between cinema and anarchy, that can be traced both in the cinema of the past - in particular in the figures of two masters like Jean Vigo and Luis Buñuel – and in recent movies, insisting first on the works by Aki Kaurismaki and Daniele Ciprì and Franco Maresco, but also highlighting other authors and works of different countries.
Goffredo Fofi (Gubbio 1937) has been involved in literary and film criticism, has directed and founded cultural and political journals, is the author of several books and has participated in many experiences of social intervention and education since the mid-fifties.