Assessing V for Vendetta
2006; Issue: 70 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2562-2528
Autores Tópico(s)Cinema and Media Studies
ResumoWiser than lesser men, with their hands on the levers of power, did they know that no movie had ever brought about public upheaval, that no matter what was said in a theatre, no matter how long the lines were in front of the ticket offices for the most incendiary of films, nothing would change, no shot would be fired? Did they laugh in their clubs at the grown up children who played their shadowy celluloid games and whom they indulged with the final toy--money? He himself had never gone raging out into the streets after any films. Was he different from the others? (1) --Irwin Shaw. Evening in Byzantium minor talent thrives only when the climate is congenial, when the tradition within which it operates is nourished into vigorous growth from forces within the culture. (2) --Robin Wood, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan People should not be afraid of their government. Government should be afraid of their people. --V in V for Vendetta Hollywood cinema has recently begun a hesitant form of protest against the Bush Regime. Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana, Munich, as well as documentaries by Michael Moore and others, appear to represent a reaction against a political system now supported by right wing media alliances more powerful than those in the Vietnam era. Yet none of these films combine the two features of protest and revolution that this special edition of CineAction explores. They interrogate issues involving the past and present. But they present no real options for developing protest into revolution. Michael Moore's documentaries attempt to raise consciousness but never draw the logical conclusion that protest involves revolution. They only speak to committed audiences as opposed to those who repeatedly swallow lies from the White House and its media allies concerning weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein masterminding 9/11. V for Vendetta (2005) is a film explicitly involving protest and revolution. Like Joe Dante's Homecoming contribution to the cable television series Masters of Horror (2005), it explicitly uses popular culture to attack the Bush Regime for its crimes against humanity. But, ironically, V for Vendetta has emerged from the least likely sources in Hollywood in terms of associations with politically radical cinema. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Any political film faces the type of reception described above in Irwin Shaw's novel which is set in the Cannes Film Festival during the 1970s. It was an era characterized by the dominant presence of political films whether avant-garde (Godard) or commercial such as the work of Costa Gavras, Elio Petri and other directors. What difference would they make? Were they not products of cynical manipulation on the part of producers who would soon move on to the next profitable trend? The conservative swing of mainstream world cinema during the Reagan-Thatcher-Clinton-Blair and Bush eras would appear to justify the despair of Shaw's ageing, menopausal hero. However, over the past few years, a different mood has emerged. V for Vendetta represents a tentative development which might continue in ways not envisaged by its producers. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Britain as America Although set in Britain during a future Fascist era, V for Vendetta is more relevant to America than Tony Blair's septic isle. Despite the predominant casting of British actors and geographical location, the film contains familiar allegorical dimensions resembling classical Hollywood's fascination with those old British Empire films such as The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The Charge of the Light Brigade and others which embodied wish-fulfillment fantasies of an emerging world power eager to take over the mantle of the imperial vision of a colonial power it outwardly opposed but secretly admired. (3) But, now, the vision is much bleaker and subversive. America is now the undisputed leading world imperial power having fulfilled that dark manifest destiny documented in the factually based historical novels of Gore Vidal beginning with Burr (1973) to their culmination in the ironically titled The Golden Age (2000). …
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