The Illusion of Depth

 As I have discussed before, the New York Times has described Cancel Culture as "The public shaming of those deemed moral transgressors".  "Public Shaming" can take many forms. It can be a social media campaign to boycott JK Rowling because of her perceived opinions about transgender issues, or it can be the dismissal of a music professor because he screened the wrong version of Othello . It can be the blacklisting of suspected Communists, or it can be the condemnation of a film director because he allowed others to be blacklisted. One of the ugliest manifestations of this type of public shaming has to be the phenomenon politely known as victim-blaming. Our next film takes place in post-war Germany, and tells the story of a group of off-duty American soldiers who brutally rape a 16-year-old girl. Although they are quickly caught and charged, the local townsfolk are (understandably) outraged by the atrocity and demand swift and brutal justice. The American Army is ...

I know I have been talking a lot about the "McCarthy" era and the House Un-American Activities Committee, but the simple truth is that this period of American history had an enormous (devastating, even) impact on Hollywood and the people who worked there. Careers were destroyed. Lives were ruined. Virtually no one escaped from this period unblemished, so it isn't surprising that many of the films produced at the time bear the scars of that hysteria. ( The Scars of Hysteria . Is it just me, or does that sound like it should be a rock band from the early 90s? Either that or a Doctor Who episode...) I have already spoken about Edward Dmytryk and Adrian Scott (the director and producer of Crossfire , respectively) who were blacklisted and imprisoned, as well as Arthur Miller (author of The Crucible ) whose passport was revoked. In addition, we saw Robert De Niro playing a fictional film director whose career is destroyed by the blacklist when he refuses to name names. This w...

  In December of 1903, the Wright Brothers made their famous powered flight on the beach at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It wasn't much of a flight, by modern standards. The whole thing lasted about twelve seconds, and  the vehicle travelled a total of 120 feet (less than the wingspan of a modern jet). And Orville's luggage never did turn up. Still, first is first, and however humble their experiment might be, it has earned its place in history (and in textbooks around the world) as the birth of powered aviation. Except it isn't quite as simple as that. Several other pioneers were experimenting with similar technology around the same time, and there has been some controversy over the years about which one of them actually succeeded first. In 2013, the American State of Connecticut passed a law declaring that Gustave Whitehead was really the first person to achieve powered flight, in 1901 (in Connecticut, unsurprisingly). In retaliation, the State of Ohio (where the Wright B...

The term "Witch-Hunt" gets thrown around a lot. The anti-Communist hysteria in the US during the McCarthy-era has been frequently described as a Witch-hunt. Stalin's relentless and violent persecution of his (perceived) enemies also gets the term. Donald Trump was (and still is) fond of describing any criticism of his behaviour as a "Witch-hunt". It's important to understand that most people who use the term in the present day are being metaphorical . No one is suggesting that there are people out there in our modern society who are seriously hunting for actual witches; it's just a figure of speech.  It's not as if anyone really thinks that their enemies are secretly worshipping Satan or stealing babies to harvest their bodily fluids for some unspeakable cannibalistic ritual or anything. That would be bad.  To misquote Sigmund Freud, sometimes a Witch-Hunt is just a Witch-Hunt. Arthur Miller has been described as the greatest American playwright of ...