FILM NEWS: JACC ANNOUNCES 8TH ANNUAL PROGIES NOMINATIONS By: Faiz No comments

A scene from Goodbye to Language.

Passing on the patriarchal pictures
 
By Ed Rampell and John Esther

 

In stark contrast to this morning's predominantly reactionary Oscar nominations, the nominations for the 8^th annual Progie Awards -- recognizing 2014’s best progressive films and filmmakers -- were announced on Tuesday.

 

Rather than glorify the white, bourgeois, patriarchal system, the Progies nominations highlight features, documentaries and the artists who made and appear in them, based on their progressive political, social, cultural, ethnic, economic, gender, ecological, immigrant, pro-human rights, pro-LGBTQ rights, pro-labor, etc., content and form. The nominations and awards are given in a variety of categories named after great lefty filmmakers and films of conscience, consciousness and creativity. Up to five nominees can be selected per category -- except in case of a tie, when more than five nominees can be entered in a category.

 

Some of the themes revealed by the 2014 nominations is the ongoing rise of films by and about people of color, with the Chicano/labor union biopic Cesar Chavez, the Civil Rights movement/Martin Luther King saga Selma and the anti-racist Dear White People each receiving multiple nominations. The same is true of pro-LGBTQ films, with Pride, The Imitation Game and The Circle likewise being multi-nominated. In fact, due to ties, both the Robeson (Best Portrayal of People of Color) and Pasolini (Best Pro-LGBTQ Picture) categories each have more than five nominees.

The 2014 Karen Morley Award for best actress Progie nominations also highlight the trend of roles for courageous women, including America Ferrera as union organizer Helen Chavez in Cesar Chavez, Tessa Thompson as the black activist Samantha in Dear White People and Marion Cotillard as a working class woman fighting to keep her factory job in Two Days, One Night. And the Progies are the first to nominate this year's most overlooked performance: Tilda Swinton as a fascist bullyboy named Mason in Snowpiercer.

Jean-Luc Godard remains a perennial favorite, with his 3D Goodbye to Language nominated for the Trumbo (Best Progressive Picture) and the Gillo (Best Progressive Foreign Film). Nonfiction cinema also remains a vital force; Laura Poitras’s Edward Snowden film Citizenfour is up for the Dziga (Best Progressive Documentary) in an overflowing category featuring (due to a tie) seven nominees, including biopics about author Gore Vidal, Internet activist Aaron Swartz and actor/activist George Takei.

The Garfield Award for best actor category is dominated by depictions of actual historical figures, including David Oyelowo as Dr. Martin Luther King in Selma (BTW, MLK would have turned 86 today), Benedict Cumberbatch as computer pioneer Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, Eddie Redmayne as physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, Edgar Ramirez as South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar in The Liberator and Jeremy Renner as anti-CIA investigative reporter Gary Webb in Kill the Messenger.

The Progressive Magazine began publishing the Progie winners in 2007, when the awards premiered. Since then, the James Agee Cinema Circle, an international group of left-leaning film critics, historians and scholars, has voted for the annual Progie nominations and awards.

Robin Wright as Robin Wright in The Congress.

Here are this year's nominations:

THE TRUMBO: The Progie Award for Best Progressive Picture is named after Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten, who was imprisoned for his beliefs and refusing to inform. Trumbo helped break the Blacklist when he received screen credit for Spartacus and Exodus in 1960.
 
Birdman;
Cesar Chavez;
The Congress;
Goodbye to Language;
The Liberator;
Pride;
Selma;
Two Days, One Night;

THE GARFIELD: The Progie Award for Best Actor in a progressive picture is named after John Garfield, who rose from the proletarian theatre to star in progressive pictures such as Gentleman's Agreement and Force of Evil, only to run afoul of the Hollywood Blacklist.
 
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game;
Harvey Keitel, The Congress;
Michael Keaton, Birdman;
David Oyelowo, Selma;
Edgar Ramirez, The Liberator;
Jeremy Renner, Kill the Messenger;
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything;
Channing Tatum, Foxcatcher;

 

KAREN MORLEY AWARD: The Progie Award for Best Actress in a film portraying women in a progressive picture is named for Karen Morley, co-star of 1932’s Scarface and 1934’s Our Daily Bread. Morley was driven out of Hollywood in the 1930s for her leftist views, but maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for New York’s Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.
 
Marion Cotillard, Two Days One Night;
American Ferrara, Cesar Chavez;
Julianne Moore, Still Alice;
Tilda Swinton, Snowpiercer;
Tessa Thompson, Dear White People;
 
THE RENOIR: The Progie Award for Best Anti-War Film is named after the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir, who directed the 1937 anti-militarism masterpiece Grand Illusion.
 
The Imitation Game;
The Kill Team;
The Unknown Known;
Zero Motivation;
 


A scene from Norte, the End of History.

THE GILLO: The Progie Award for Best Progressive Foreign Film is named after the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who lensed the classic films, The Battle of Algiers and Burn!
 
The Circle;
Goodbye to Language;
Human Capital;
The Liberator;
Norte, the End of History;
Two Days, One Night;
 
THE DZIGA: The Progie Award for Best Progressive Documentary is named after the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who directed 1920s nonfiction films such as the Kino Pravda (Film Truth) series and The Man With the Movie Camera.
 
The Case Against 8;
Citizenfour;
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia;
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz;
To Be Takei;
Whitey: United States of America James J. Bulger
 

Helen Chavez (American Ferrara) in Cesar Chavez.

OUR DAILY BREAD AWARD: The Progie Award for the Most Positive and Inspiring Working Class Screen Image. 
 
Cesar Chavez;
The Liberator;
Pride;
Snowpiercer; 
Two Days, One Night; 
 
THE ROBESON: The Progie Award for the Best Portrayal of People that shatters cinema stereotypes, in light of their historically demeaning depictions onscreen. It is named after courageous performing legend, Paul Robeson, who starred in Songs of Freedom, The Proud Valley, and Native Man.
 
Big Hero 6;
Cesar Chavez;
Dear White People;
The Liberator;
Memphis;
A Most Violent Year;
Selma;
 


A scene from Nymphomaniac.

 
THE BUNUEL: The Progie Award for the Most Slyly Subversive Satirical Cinematic Film in terms of form, style and content is named after Luis Bunuel, the Spanish surrealist who directed The Andalusian Dog, Belle de Jour and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.
 
Birdman;
The Congress;
Inherent Vice;
Nightcrawler;
Nymphomaniac;
Selma;
A Trip to Italy;

THE PASOLINI: The Progie Award for Best Pro-LGBTQ Rights Film is named after Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who directed The Gospel According to St. Matthew, The Decameron, and The Canterbury Tales.
 
The Circle;
The Imitation Game;
Love is Strange;
Pride;
To Be Takei;
The Way He Looks;


THE LAWSON: The Progie Award for Best Anti-Fascist Film is named after John Howard Lawson, screenwriter of Blockade, Four Sons, Action in the North Atlantic, Sahara and Counter-Attack and one of the Hollywood Ten.

A Most Wanted Man;
The Lego Movie;
Norte, the End of History;
Selma;
Snowpiercer;

 



Mason (Tilda Swinton) in Snowpiercer.

THE SERGEI: The Progie Award for Lifetime Progressive Achievement is named after Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet director of masterpieces such as Potemkin and 10 Days That Shook the World.
 
Harry Belafonte;
Danny Glover;
Ed Harris;
Richard Linklater;
Oliver Stone;
Tilda Swinton;
Christine Vachon;

 

 

The James Agee Cinema Circle’s will announce the Progie awards February 20.  

FILM REVIEW: CESAR'S LAST FAST By: Faiz No comments

A scene from Cesar's Last Fast.  Photo Credit: Robin Becker.

Starving for justice

By John Esther

For the second time in three weeks, a film about the life and times of the American human rights activist, Cesar Chavez, will receive a theatrical release. The first one was director Diego Luna’s Cesar Chavez, a hitherto underappreciated film – at least at the box office. Now we have Cesar’s Last Fast.

Inspired by both his Catholic upbringing and the teachings of Indian human rights activist,  Mahatma Gandhi, Chavez conducted several fasts throughout his life.

Hardly a diet scheme, Chavez’s fasting was a response to the injustices farm workers, primarily in Central Valley California, endured. Already subject to unfair labor practices, unlawful imprisonment and, in a few cases, murder, new farming procedures implemented in the 1980s were subjecting farmworkers to carcinogenic pesticides.  These pesticides affected children most of all.

In response, the 61-year-old Chavez adopted a water-only fast. The fasting protest attracted media attention, especially after it past the 30-day mark and Chavez was reaching the point of no return. By the way, his return was quite an event.

Unlike Luna’s Cesar Chavez, director Richard Ray Perez (Unprecedented) takes an irreproachable attitude toward his subject. Perez was able to gain access to Chavez’s family, his coworkers and some precious archival footage and amateur video from Chavez’s press secretary, Lorena Parlee (who died in 2006 from breast cancer). Was it cause and effect?

Picked up at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Cesar Chavez is an inspiring testimony to one of this nation’s heroes.

FILM REVIEW: CESAR CHAVEZ By: Faiz No comments

A scene from Cesar Chavez.

Sí lo hicieron!

By John Esther

It has been a long time coming, but finally somebody has made a theatrical film about Cesar Chavez. And it is my favorite 2014 film, so far. 

Born March 31, 1927, in Yuma, Arizona, Chavez grew up knowing what it was like to be exploited. After the Chavez's lost their home during the Depression, they worked in the fields for very little compensation. As all hands were needed in the field, Chavez did not attend school past the 7th grade.

After serving two years in the Navy, Chavez returned to the fields. From there he quickly rose through the ranks of the American labor movement working for the CSO (Community Service Organization), a humans rights organization which encouraged Latinos to register to vote.

In the early 1960s Chavez started focusing on the farm workers of Central California. While the workers of the United States had gained considerable rights since the 1930s, the Latino (and Filipino) workers who mined the agricultural crops in Salinas, Fresno, etc., were left behind to toil in working conditions too similar to those found in the recent film, 12 Years a Slave -- which took place 100 years prior to the time of Cesar Chavez.

To any person with an ounce of tenderness, this was unacceptable. But anger and indignation were hardly enough to start an organized labor movement. The poor workers were scared and rightfully so. They could be fired, deported, beaten and, in a few cases, killed, without any legal recourse. Even if the workers were not afraid, white people, who were raised racist, were afraid of the Other. Any attempt to win over the hearts and minds of the dominant race had to be done through peaceful resistance. 

So in the early 1960s Cesar (Michael Peña) and Helen (America Ferrara) packed up their kids and drove toward the fields of Central Valley, California (in a scene which may be amusing to racists) and began to organize the men, women and children who were being exploited by unbridled capitalism. (If you want to see what the U.S. would look like without a federal minimum wage, see Cesar Chavez.)

Helen (America Ferrara) and Cesar (Michael Peña) in Cesar Chavez.

Fortunately, this is where the film begins. Rather than dwell on Cesar's childhood and other phenomena as to what motivated Cesar, his lack of education, his service in the Navy, etc., -- although we do get pieces of the puzzle along the way -- the film focuses on Cesar's brilliant non-violent organizing skills and the founding of the National Farm Workers Association, AKA the United Farm Workers (UFW). Moreover, to focus solely on Cesar's biography would betray the film's underlying message: Cesar could not have made the kind of history attributed to him without the help of countless others (see War and Peace).  

Rather than offer the typical Hollywood hagiography (see Noah) about how one man changes the course of history, director Diego Luna, along with co-writers Keir Pearson and Timothy J. Sexton, illustrate that great change comes from the multitude of players involved in any movement. 

Helen Chavez. A woman of fierce convictions, Helen was no stranger to radical protest and getting her hands good and dirty. She may have been the mother of eight children, but Helen was not going to submit to any Latino machismo ideas about taking a backseat -- domestically or politically. (Pardon me: The scene in Cesar Chavez where Helen deliberately gets arrested for defiantly yelling the banned word, "Huelga" or "Strike" may be the hottest scene of any woman in film this year. A woman who does not "know her place" is extremely attractive.) 

Cesar Chavez also takes the time and effort to illustrate the contributions of UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta (Rosario Dawson). Not only was she a force in working class solidarity, but sisterhood solidarity as well. The UFW would never have succeeded without the participation of so many brave women.

Then there was Gilbert Padilla (Yancy Arias), the UFW area director, who provided structure by establishing service centers where people could convene, organize and strategize. Then there was Cesar's younger brother, Richard Chavez (Jacob Vargas), who had his older brother's back and counseled wisely when Cesar's emotions got the better of him. They and others, from here to Europe, created the solidarity necessary for positive change.

Indeed, Luna and film editors Douglas Crise and Miguel Schverdfinger take the appropriate efforts to show the numerous faces of a movement. A movement by "an army of boycotters" that sparked a statewide, then nationwide, then worldwide boycott of table grapes. 

To the film's credit, it also reminds us what an extraordinary politician, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (Jack Holmes) was to the working class. Kennedy actually visited the epicenter of the strike and boycott, talking to the people and challenging the belligerent local authorities to read the U.S. Constitution. His behavior was a stark contrast to then-California Governor Ronald Reagan, who called the grape boycott "immoral" and the collaboration of then-U.S. President Richard Nixon (who was born in California), to get the military to subsidize the grape growers in order to break the proletarian defiance. 

Cesar may have been the auteur of the crew, but as any organizer or filmmaker knows, the ultimate vision of a successful movement, whether it is for the rights of the worker or a film, is the work of many visionaries, and not solely the performance of its spokesperson or director. 

The film also reminds us that whatever fruits Chavez enjoyed on a professional and personal level came at the cost of a parental one. As the eldest son of America's most reviled Mexican American, Fernando Chavez (Eli Vargas) was bullied at his predominately-white school while being ignored by a father too busy working outside the home. Fernando was too immature to understand the sacrifices his father was making for the good of the nation. Fernando needed a father, not a martyr. 

Ultimately, they both got what they wanted and lost what they had. 

Riveting, inspiring, agitating and fortifying, smartly directed, very well acted, and demonstrating a sophisticated attention to detail, Cesar Chavez is a film worthy of its subject. 

This Monday marks the 87th anniversary of Cesar's birthday, an official holiday in California, Colorado and Texas. If you want to honor the man and the movement by patronizing an excellent educational experience illustrating Latino-American history, organized labor history and California history, your opportunity has arrived.