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PORTSIDE CULTURE

28 ANTI-FASCIST FILMS  
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Kurt Stand
February 16, 2025
Stansbury Forum
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_ “What is most important is not what people with unbridled power
can impose on us, but rather on what we can do as human beings, as
political actors.” _

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_NOTE: _ _On February 7, Trump announced that he was taking over the
Kennedy Center in Washington DC.  Not surprising, controlling the
arts that has long been a dream of reaction.  This calls to mind the
ban Hitler imposed on literary criticism — an anti-Semitic measure
(Jews can “critique but cannot create” was a trope repeated in
various forms ad nauseum in those years) to be sure.  But it also
exemplified the essence of the fascist approach to art: if it is not
immediately comprehensible, then it is subversive.  Put in other
terms, critical thinking is itself subversive.  The manifestations of
that are visible everywhere today, most vividly in renewed book
bannings, rewritten school curricula, repression of sexuality (which
fits nicely with permissiveness toward sexual assault) and, of course,
suppression of critical race theory (that word, “critical,” does
it every time).  _

_By contrast, anti-fascist films, anti-fascist art in all its forms,
has one prime purpose: to encourage critical thinking, see beneath
the surface, understand life in movement.  The recent film about the
assassination of Lumumba — SOUNDTRACK OF A COUP D’ETAT —
reminds us of the connection between fascism and colonialism and
reminds us of the centrality of culture in the fight for freedom. 
Thoughts to keep in mind while watching the films noted below._

INTRODUCTION

We are entering into a new period of reaction – and though the exact
shape things will take in the years ahead are unknown, the immediate
picture is indeed bleak.  We face the all too real risk of
authoritarian reaction, unfettered corporate power, a society rooted
in stigmatization, violence, the crumbling of hard-fought rights. It
is not too much of a leap to recognize the danger of fascism.

Critically, what we do matters.  How we live, act, make a life for
ourselves without giving in to resignation or bitterness are questions
many are asking.  Many movies have explored these dimensions for
these are questions others have faced in times past – such as the
films noted below — all anti-fascist movies that reveal different
aspects of how people have seen the possibility of change in the past
during times when hope was hard to grasp. Below is a list of 28 such
movies.

These films don’t directly analyze the social or economic basis of
fascism, nor do they dwell on its horrors (though those are never far
from the surface) for what is most important is not what people with
unbridled power can impose on us, but rather on what we can do as
human beings, as political actors.

A fuller description of these films and the logic behind choosing them
can be found HERE
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HOPE AND FEAR

Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World?: A German film released and banned
in Germany in 1932. Directed by: Slatan Dudow; Written by: Bertolt
Brecht and Ernst Ostwald

To understand fascism, one needs to understand what preceded
it.  The devastation of World War I, economic uncertainty,
inflation, massive unemployment, intense exploitation at work, and a
sense of society coming apart at the seams were in the background of
all the disruptions of the 1920s and 30s.  But so too was the defeat
of working-class challenges to the rule of capital.  In Central
Europe the strength of revolutionary movements was palpable, but
insufficient, creating fear in ruling circles, yet not strong enough
to overcome the attacks that were to come.  These films explore
aspects of those hopes and defeats.

_ROSA LUXEMBURG_ – Directed by Margarethe Von Trotta (West Germany,
1986).  Luxemburg’s life culminates in opposition to World War I,
her leadership of a revolutionary movement in the working class, its
suppression, and her brutal murder at the hands of the forerunners of
Hitler’s stormtroopers.

THE ORGANIZER (_I COMPAGNI_) – Directed by Mario Monicelli (Italy,
1963). A depiction of a mass strike, followed by an attempt to occupy
factories, met by brutal armed suppression.  A pre-World War I
battle foreshadowing the larger post-war factory occupations which was
followed by Mussolini’s March of Rome and the suppression of labor.

_KUHLE WAMPE OR WHO OWNS THE WORLD (KUHLE WAMPE ODER: WEM GEHORT DIE
WELT?) _– Directed by Slatan Dudow (Weimar
Germany,1933).  Screenplay by Bertolt Brecht.  Filmed on the eve
of the Nazis takeover, it depicts the misery of mass unemployment in
the waning days of the Weimar Republic.  In counterpoint, it shows
Communist youth trying to create something for themselves through
mutual support, a sense of collectivity, through confidence in
political struggle.  

_LA VIE EST A NOUS (LIFE IS US)_ – Directed by Jean Renoir (France,
1936).  A French Communist Party film mixes narrative with
documentary made to support the Popular Front election campaign in
1936.

EVE OF DESTRUCTION

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_John Heartfield - a pioneer of the photomontage, he worked in Germany
and Czechoslovakia between World War 1 and 2. He was a preeminent
political artist using his skills to comment and attack the rise of
fascism, the Nazi and their relationship with capitalism._

Fascism cannot be separated from periods of instability and crisis in
capitalist society.  But to say that and no more says very little
– why such a virulent response at one time and not another, what
does it mean to live in a society on the edge?  More to the point,
how do we understand why some people look backward not forward as a
way out?  The following films are attempts at answers.

_DER UNTERTAN_ – Directed by Wolfgang Staudte (East Germany,
1951).  Based on a novel by Heinrich Mann.  A satire of the
middle-class personality who licks the boots of those in power above
them while kicking those below them – i.e. the personality type who
gravitated to the Nazis.

_THE CONFORMIST_ _(IL CONFORMISTA)__ – _Directed by Bernado
Bertolucci (Italy, 1970).  An examination of the authoritarian
personality; someone whose search to “fit in” includes an
unquestioning willingness to kill.  Alberto Moravia’s novel about
the murder of two anti-fascists in French exile inspired the film. 

_SHIP OF FOOLS_ – Directed by Stanley Kramer (U.S.,
1965).  Screenplay by Abby Mann.  Based on a novel by Katherine
Anne Porter.  An ocean liner enroute from Mexico to 1933 Germany
evokes the sense of oncoming disaster from the interactions of
passengers who are – for the most part – unaware of what lies
ahead.  

_CABARET_ – Directed by Bob Fosse (U.S. 1972). Set in and around a
musical hall in Berlin on the eve of fascism’s triumph with
performances taking place in an atmosphere of despair and forced
gaiety.  The sensibility of a society coming apart at the seams is
told through the eyes of a gay academic teaching English at a boarding
house to earn his keep.  Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories
are the basis of the film.

LIVING UNDER THE GRIP

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John Heartfield

Lives continued to be lived in the worst of times.  These films all
depict daily life and the way political commitment and forms of
resistance sometimes emerge when the realities of war or repression
can no longer be ignored.

_CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI_ (_CRISTO SI È FERMATO A EBOLI__)_–
Directed by Francesco Rossi (Italy, 1979).  Carlo Levi’s memoir of
internal exile in a barren impoverished region of southern Italy is
gives a view of fascism far from the cities or centers of power that
are the focus of most accounts.  The film captures the life he
relates beautifully.

_THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINIS_ ( _IL GIARDINO DEI FINZI
CONTINI) _– Directed by Vittori DeSica (Italy, 1970).  Based on
Giorgio Bassanti’s semi-autobiographical novel.  The story of the
tightening noose of a small wealthy Jewish community that had
initially been insulated from Mussolini’s repressive policies. 

_THE SEVENTH CROSS_ – Directed by Fred Zinneman (U.S.,
1944).  Seven concentration camp inmates escape, one survives.  He
regains his sense of humanity, while the individuals, as do the
individuals who help him along the way – providing a connection to
political resistance.  Anna Seghers wrote the novel while in exile
in Mexico.

_ALONE IN BERLIN_ by Directed by Vincent Perez (Germany/France/UK,
2016).  The film brings to life Hans Fallada’s novel of a true
story of a working-class couple, animated by their son’s death in
combat and the persecution of a Jewish neighbor to engage in their
own, personal, resistance. A campaign they carried out until their own
execution.

RESISTANCE TO FASCISM’S WARS

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John Heartfield - “Krieg! (Niemals wieder!)” Silbergelatineabzug
mit Pinselretusche, 1932/1941 © The Heartfield Community of Heirs /
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020 / Akademie der Künste, Berlin

War brought out the full brutality of fascism.  These movies were
all made during wartime or when memories were still fresh. They all
touch on conflicting urges to ignore, collaborate or resist, and with
that the personal choice whether and how to act, to survive with
humanity intact. 

_BLOCKADE_ – Directed by William Dieterle (U.S.
1938).  Screenplay by John Howard Lawson.  Film centers on the
attempt to break a blockade to get supplies in to support Spanish
Republicans resisting Franco.  It serves as a plea to end
U.S./British/French non-intervention policies.

_THIS LAND IS MINE_ – Directed by Jean Renoir (U.S., 1943).  Two
schoolteachers in occupied France are the focal point of a story of
resistance and collaboration, courage and fear.

_HANGMEN ALSO DIE_ – Directed by Fritz Lang (U.S.,
1943).  Screenplay by Bertolt Brecht. Resistance in occupied
Czechoslovakia in the aftermath of the assassination of SS leader
Heydrich.

_OPEN CITY_ (_ROMA CITTÀ APERTA) _– Directed by Roberto
Rossellini (Italy, 1945).  The resistance as Mussolini’s rule is
near its end, brutal repression, a search for Communist/Catholic unity
for an alternative future.

_THE FATE OF A MAN_ – Directed by Sergei Bonarchul (Soviet Union,
1959). Based on a short story by Mikhail Sholokhov.  The journey
through life and loss of a Soviet soldier that sketches Nazi wrought
destruction and the search for human bonds and hope in the war’s
aftermath.

_LIFEBOAT_ – Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (U.S., 1944).  Based on
short story by John Steinbeck.  Set on a lifeboat filled with a
heterogenous number of survivors of a torpedoed merchant ship and one
Nazi rescued from a submarine, the movie presents a contest between
democratic multiplicity and authoritarian single-minded power.

COMING TO GRIPS WITH THE PAST

After the war comes the battle for understanding – what happened,
how did people behave? And  how does that inform choices we are
making here and now so that other, better, choices may be possible
later

_JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG_ – Directed by Stanley Kramer (U.S.
1961).  Screenplay by Abby Mann.  The Nuremberg tirals were an
attempt to establish criteria for crimes against humanity.  This
film recounts the story of judge’s whose compromises with the truth
corrupted the law, corrupted society.

_THE NASTY GIRL_ – Directed by Michael Verhoeven (West Germany,
1990).  A high school student who challenged her town’s sanitized
version of the past, revealing its complicity with the Nazis.  A
true story, the film reveals the hypocrisy in many German treatments
of fascism.

_PLAYING FOR TIME_ – TV movie directed by Daniel Mann (U.S.,
1980).  Screenplay by Arthur Miller, based on memoir by Fania
Fenelon’s memoir about Auschwitz and her being “allowed” to
survive because recognized as a classical musician.  An orchestra
formed of inmates to perform for SS officers one aspect of Nazi
perversity as against the will to survive of those they caged.

_LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (LA VITA È BELLA)_ – Directed by Roberto
Benigni (Italy, 1997).  A story about how telling stories, conjuring
the imagination, is a way to survive the most brutal conditions,
story-telling an essential part of resistance to oppression.

_JACOB THE LIAR_ (_JAKOB DER LÜGNER_)– Directed by Frank Beyer
(East Germany, 1975).  Living in the Warsaw Ghetto as the noose was
tightening, a man hears that Soviet troops are nearing the
border.  He tells others, giving hope where there was none, and then
makes up stories to try and keep hope alive.

FASCISM: OTHER TIMES, OTHER PLACES

The films noted above, focus on Germany and Italy in the 1930s and 40s
because that is the main reference point for fascists and
anti-fascists in our own country. But fascism has existed at other
times, in other places and these too should be noted. Below are just a
very few of the many possible films that serve to remind that the
dangers facing the world now are part of a continuum that someday
needs to be overcome at its roots.   

_Z_ – Directed by Costa-Gravas (France, 1969).  About 1967 coup
in Greece, based on Vassillis Vassilikos fictionalized account of the
Greek’s military’s role in the 1963 assassination of Giorgios
Lambrakis.

_BURNING PATIENCE (ARDIENTE PACIENTE) – _Directed by Antonio
Skarmeta (Chile, 1985). Skarmeta, also wrote the screenplay and the
novel of that name.  The film is about a postman incurably in love,
poetry, events in Chile leading up to Pinochet’s fascist coup –
and is about Pablo Neruda.

_ARGENTINA, 1985_ –Directed by Santiago Mitre (Argentina,
2022).   Recounts the trial of the leaders of Argentina’s
military junta, for the extra-legal murders and tortures that took
place during the “dirty war,” in which tens of thousands were
killed by government decree_ _         

_CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY_ – Directed by Zoltan Korda (UK,
1951).  Screenplay by John Howard Lawson, based on novel by Alan
Paton providing a glimpse of South Africa as apartheid was bing
imposed on a society that was legally and structurally
racist.  Filmed on location, so stars Canada Lee and Sydny Poitier
had to pretend to be Director Korda’s indentured servants.

_A DRY WHITE SEASON_ – Directed by Euzhan Palcy (U.S.
1989).  Based on a novel by Andre Brink, the film demonstrates how
South Africa’s apartheid was its own form of fascism.

 

_KURT STAND was active in the labor movement for over 20 years
including as the elected North American Regional Secretary of the
International Union of Food and Allied Workers until 1997.  He is a
member of the Prince George’s County Branch of Metro DC DSA, and
periodically writes for the Washington Socialist, Socialist Forum, and
other left publications. He serves as a Portside Labor Moderator, and
is active within the reentry community of formerly incarcerated
people. Kurt Stand lives in Greenbelt, MD. _

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