On 19 July 1994, Brian Tanner writes: >Only in Hollywood is entertainment foremost. Ever since the beginning of >film making, politics has had a political undertone. Look at Soviet Montage >(e.g. Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin) and socialist realism in the soviet >cinema endorsed by Lenin and Stalin (who saw the importance of movies as mass >communication). There was also the French poetic realism (e.g. Jean Renoir). > Look at the war-time propaganda films of WWII and at Italiam Neorealism >(e.g. Rossellini). There is also the French New Wave (e.g. Rasnais). Even >today there is the Third World cinema. There are many other periods and >countries and auteurs I haven't mentioned because I don't want to overkill my >point. > >I just wanted to say that it's a mistake to neglect the history of polictics >in cinema (especially politics as a root of cinema) or the oppurtunity for >cinema to present political messages to a wide audience. Cinema is not and >has never been just for entertainment; at least not outside of Hollywood, >where it matters more to make a statement than to make a buck. Entertainment >is what sells here in the states, and may not be secondary to most people, >but I feel the reverse is true in other places. I'm not saying that films >can't be fun or have to hit you over the head with a political hammer but >that shouldn't be the primary reason to make a film.