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.