***ADDED: There are already some great suggestions in the comments, but let me add one more qualifier. “The American President” is a great choice, Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in America” or “The Godfather” not so much, at least for what we’re trying to do here. The film’s leftist politics should not be obvious, spoken even, not hidden in the subtext. We’re looking for blatantly political films.
Though it’s not completely my fault, even I get tired of all my negativity on this site. Again, it’s not completely my fault (damn you, Liam Neeson). After all, Hollywood hasn’t done anything right since handing the Superman franchise over to Zack Snyder. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still aspire to something better, can’t try to rise above my ongoing frustration with a medium I’m in love with but that can’t stop breaking my devoted heart. Yes, I’m Frank to Hollywood’s Ava. So in order to lighten things up some, here we go with a Christmas holiday gift to our Hollywood friends on the left: an utterly sincere list of what they’ve done right.
No tongue-in-cheek, no sarcasm, no irony; we will present 25 bona fide left-wing films so well crafted, acted, written, and directed that they rise above their obnoxious politics and still manage to entertain, provoke, and enlighten — and by enlighten I’m not referencing their individual agendas, but rather enlighten about but about something bigger than message: the human condition, our place in the world, what it means to be who we are. Or maybe the story is just too much fun, too entertaining, and too cinematically awesome to be brought down by all the speechifying and stupidity.
One key distinction here — and this is important — is the difference between “liberal” and “left-wing.” Liberals champion free speech, left-wingers champion a bit of fascism we call political correctness. Liberals believe in a colorblind society, left-wingers believe in multiculturalism. Liberals oppose anti-Semitism, leftists either practice or tolerate it. You get the point. So you’re not going to see “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Gentleman’s Agreement,” or the work of the great Stanley Kramer on this list. This is an accounting of “left-wing” films; rabidly anti-American, anti-military, anti-human, anti-religious, anti-capitalism, anti-progress, anti-liberty or pro-some obnoxious backwards agenda, such as the benefits of extreme environmentalism or the benevolent beauty of a bigger federal government.
As with all countdowns we will eventually make our way up to The Greatest Left-Wing Film Ever Made! Which might sound like a contradiction in terms, but can assure you it’s not.
Frequently I rage against cinematic junk such as Sean Penn’s “Fair Game” or marginal stuff like Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer,” not so much for the politics but rather the lousy storytelling. Left-wing critics embrace these films for the same reason I embrace “Death Wish V,” and therefore I don’t blame them. Cinematic quality be damned, they want to see America trashed and I want to see bad guys blown up with remote-controlled soccer balls. But this is an opportunity to make my point that a well-crafted left-wing film can get a fair hearing here. And it’s also a chance to talk about something other than politics. So…
Help a Brother Out:
Taking weekends and holidays off, we’ll start the series this coming Monday and this is your chance to jog my lousy memory and remind me of a film (narrative or documentary) I might have overlooked and/or to plead your case for one I might have already dismissed. In the comments, please include your reasoning for why you think your entry qualifies as a leftist film and why you believe it transcends politics. In the spirit of the season, I’ve already made my list and even checked it twice, but that doesn’t mean it’s written in stone. And the only hint I’ll give is that a vast majority of the films on my list are post-Golden Age, post 1967.
And in the spirit of this particular post let me close by wishing our leftist Hollywood friends a Merr– a Happy Winter Solstice.
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