S1 BONUS 1: Red Hollywood (1996) – Thom Andersen
This episode is a slight departure for this season—and we had fun with it. Rather than taking on a film directed by a blacklisted director, as usual, we're discussing a groundbreaking video essay about blacklisted directors. Thom Andersen's Red Hollywood (1996) discusses several of the directors and films we've discuss so far on the podcast. Andersen's goal in the film is to curate a list of overlooked films and demonstrate the bold themes that many of these directors were attempting to inject into some of them, much of which was later used as evidence against them in future HUAC hearings. The film features interviews with Abraham Polonsky, Ring Larnder, Jr., Paul Jarrico, and Alfred Levitt. Andersen (b. 1943) is the originator of the term "film gris," or socially conscious crime pictures from 1947 to 1952. He is perhaps most renowned for his experimental video essay Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003). *Fact checking ourselves: —Tim implies that Kafka (yes, Kafka) is Germany, but in fact he only wrote in German. He was from Prague of course. —Jason says that he lived in communes for 15 years, but actually it was about ten (oops). We hope you enjoy!