PJTV - "A Lesson in Heroism From The Decks of The Titanic"

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Historical Movie Theater: A Short History of Bad Ideas

Tonight in Politeia's historical movie theater a video version of a British Independent Television News documentary, compiled by the renowned suspense film director, Alfred Hitchcock.

The work was withheld by the post war government because it was deemed to gruesome to be shown. The footage was shot by Allied military on entering the Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II.

The movie illustrates the first in a series of posts on Politeia, "A Short History of Bad Ideas", aiming to chart the lofty ideas underpinning collectivist ideals and the resulting dystopias. The first instalment is entitled, "The Victims".

Watch "The Holocaust", compiled by Alfred Hitchcock.

French Fanfare

WSJ: "Hats Off to Monsieur Hulot", by RICHARD B. WOODWARD

The films of Jacques Tati don't square with many other cultural products of postwar France. Released between 1947 and 1974 but unmarked by existential despair or other trends of Parisian intellectual life, his experiments in slapstick and whimsy had more in common with the skits of Red Skelton than the agit-prop pastiches of Jean-Luc Godard.

In retrospect, his work may be seen as an attempt to recover for a humiliated nation the innocence of vaudeville (originally a French word) that older audiences had found in the British music hall and in American silent comedies. Monsieur Hulot, the character he created for five of his best-known films, is one of the screen's endearing oddballs.  (...) >>>

Read more on the current tribute to M. Hulot and its creator at the Cinemathèque Française in Paris, in the WSJ article.

Here's a trailer related to a recent Tati "jour de fête" at Scénovision in Sainte-Sévère sur Indre:

"No More Excuses"

Recruited from Flickr, photo by Christolakis - Hat Tip: Lefteris Heretakis

Sitting Down With a Star Trek Author

Seattle Times: "A Q&A with "Star Trek" co-writer Roberto Orci", by Jeff Shannon

Roberto Orci approached the writing of "Star Trek," a new movie that opened here last night, as a devoted fan. His screenwriting partner, Alex Kurtzman, was also familiar with the original "Star Trek" TV series, and their mutual enthusiasm — along with credits including blockbuster hits like "Transformers," "Mission: Impossible III" and the upcoming "Transformers" sequel — made them strong candidates for reinventing "Star Trek" as a big-screen adventure for the original, much-younger crew of the starship Enterprise.

- Caption: Star Trek actors, then and now -

Friends and collaborators for 17 years, Kurtzman and Orci (who's now 35) met in high school and later wrote numerous TV scripts before working on "Alias" with creator/producer J.J. Abrams ("Lost"). In addition to writing "M:I III" and "Star Trek" (both directed by Abrams), Kurtzman and Orci are co-creators of "Fringe," the Abrams-produced Fox TV series that's presently awaiting a second-season commitment. (...) >>>

Read a review of the new Trekker blockbuster in the US:

CNN: "Review: 'Star Trek' is exhilarating"

"Cry Me A River"

The latest great effort of LadyNea:



She ought to go pro. Brava!

Adolf, the Suffering Artist

The Daily Beast: "It's a Hitler"

Need some new artwork for the mantle? According to The New York Times, 13 paintings that may be by Adolf Hitler will be sold at auction in Britain in April.

“The artworks, which include a possible self-portrait, would have been made when he was a struggling artist in Vienna, vying unsuccessfully to gain entrance to its Academy of Arts before he fought in World War I.

The auction house Mullock’s, which is conducting the sale, said that the paintings are by Hitler and are likely to fetch roughly $580 to $1,448 dollars each.” (...) >>>

You can admire more 'Hitlers' at the Hitler Historical Museum ...

- Filed on Articles in "Join the Nazi Appreciation Movement" -

Introducing Steven Crowder ...

... and ...



More from this young standup talent on:

Official Website
MySpace
YouTube
IMDb
Facebook Group

Maastricht Art Fair TEFAF: History Meets Form

TEFAF Official website - enjoy!

The New Middle Ages Are Upon Us: Men in Tights

This has been in the works for years, ever since as long ago as the new millennium, trend guru Lidewij Edelkoort predicted a Postmodern reversal to the Middle Ages.

Dutch magazine Elsevier this week has a view on the latest fashion accessory, after hoodies and kilts, meet the new man in tights!

The male as fashion victim makes an encouraging role reversal from a feminist point of view! Let them adorn the high street for a while as the living evidence of a distorted self image!

Read the Mail Online on the issue of leggings for men.

But the most important reversal to the dark ages is actually in the mind (no insult to the epoch intended). That has been on the cards for much longer. At least two centuries have lapsed since the onset of the reactionary Counter Enlightenment movement, the Nemesis of Spinozist free-thought!

French-Suisse philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau set in train a retro-active movement when he opined that the entire culture thing is actually a perversion of the man's natural state. Generally his ideal is assumed to be the primitive tribes person - an archetypal image known in psychology as "the noble savage".

German Romanticist thinkers, Messrs Kant and Hegel clinched the back to basics deal with their assertions about the unknowable universe and the extraordinary notion that reality entirely depends on how we look at it.

Men in tights are the cherry on the irrational cake that has been gathering pace - going from strength to strength - in the last couple of years.

As baseless, unscientific delusions get confused with profound insights into the universe and the soul of man, what used to be derided as 'old wives tales' passes today for the highest inner wisdom.

Facts are irrelevant ... reality is whatever we want it to be!

Light on Rembrandt's Militia

Dutch News: "Night Watch name mystery solved"
The puzzle of exactly who is who on Rembrandt’s famous Night Watch [ed: militia] painting of Amsterdam's civic guard has been solved after 367 years, reports the Volkskrant on Thursday.
The paper interviews historian Bas Dudok van Heel who is due to present his findings at the TEFAF art fair in Maastricht today [a visit to the TEFAF site is highly recommended for the true art lover! We'll be regularly dwelling on the event in the coming days].

Although the names of the 18 marksmen depicted in the masterpiece have been known since 1715 no one has matched them to specific individuals until now, the paper explains.
"I know their age, their profession, address, and can point them out", says Dudok van Heel, who also found out the name of the drummer on the painting - Jacob Jorisz - who has not been named before.
"He wouldn’t have paid the 100 guilders that each marksman paid [for their portrait]. He only earned 40 guilders a year so he couldn't", Dudock van Heel says.

The historian has also discovered that the famous painting formed a frieze together with portraits by other 17th artists. >>>

For more on this, click here - Do check out details of Rembrandt's famous master piece on the site of the Amsterdam Rijks Museum!

Star Trek: Back to Basics

Remember this action hero, William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk in the original series of Star Trek?

In the latest Star Trek movie Chris Pine has been cast to play James T. Kirk in the role of his younger self.

The latest story seems to be aiming at going back to the prehistory of the original, chronicling the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.



Can't wait till release day!

See Trailer #3 just released.

Become a Fan on FaceBook.

IMDb has an overview of the Star Trek productions so far.

Watch the new film's slide-show.

Photo Phresh!

On the hunt for photographic material to illustrate a great story by Michael Scalise, "Lincoln and the Civil War" I chanced upon the collection at the National Archives.

The extraordinary thing about these photos is, they might have been taken yesterday!

Don't miss it! Scroll down the page to get at the links.

Fabulous ...!

- Caption: Photo #23. Council of war near Massaponax Church, Va., May 21, 1864. General Grant is looking over General Meade's shoulder at a map Meade holds. Photographed by Timothy H. O'Sullivan. 200-CC-730. -

- Filed at Articles on "Americana" -

The 'Fiction' of Dystopia

Case I

Hardfire: Dr Zak Maymin (website) interviewed by his son, Dr Phil Maymin re his book, "Publicani":



Hardfire's motto "Live Free or Die" is reminiscent of the inspiring Greek national battle cry:

"Ελευθερία ή θάνατος"

(Freedom or Death).


Case II

Glenn Beck's Worst Case Scenario Games



Part 1/4



Part 2/4



Part 3/4



Part 4/4

Al Gore Sued by Over 30,000 Scientists for Fraud

"Triumph of the Will", or Defeat of Delusion

On display tonight is a full length National Socialist gem, a propaganda film directed by German artist and photographer, Leni Riefenstahl featuring the 1934 Nazi rally at Nurnberg.

Like Hitler's blueprint for war "Mein Kampf" the classic may well be on the index of some countries in Europe, but it proves that censoring and suppression is a mistake: "Triumph des Willens" - or "Triumph of the Will" - is a revelation as well as an education.

We need to keep in mind that Corporal Hitler was elected into power just a year earlier, in 1933 on a narrative of restoring to its former glory the Fatherland, home of the victims, the German People.

They saw themselves as victims on a number of counts. First of all, of the greedy, selfish, materialistic Anglo-Saxon liberal Capitalism; then from the perspective of the Marxist dialectic, which views the world entirely from a oppressor versus oppressed agonistic.

Furthermore the defeat in World War I for which the Jewry, Communists and other subversives were blamed in a Sorelian myth (the Dolchstoß Legend), was a third contribution to the self image as an underdog. The harsh terms of the Versailles Treaty did the rest for the narrative of victimhood.

World War I had been wholesale slaughter and the Versailles Treaty was no joke. Can you blame a people, a leader or a party for fostering and furthering the ideal to right such a wrong? Many righteous Germans, other Europeans and Americans thought not.

Sir Winston Churchill wrote in his Nobel Prize winning "Memoirs of the Second World War": ""I had no national prejudices against Hitler at the time. I knew little of his doctrine or record and nothing of his character. I admire men who stand up for their country in defeat, even though I am on the other side. He had a perfect right to be a patriotic German if he chose. I always wanted England, Germany and France to be friends."

On the ideological level we find in the title of the movie a somewhat curious statement: the triumph of will, but whose will? Corporal Hitler's? No, its a notion that can be traced back to the collectivist philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose ideal society can best be summed up as a theofascist tribe, having replaced the role of the sovereign ruler with the community's under the State. That entity was thought of as having an animus of its own - the 'common will' -  the infallible standard of morality to whose sovereignty all drones have a duty to answer and submit.

Corporal Hitler, the National Socialist Party and all that happened as a result, suddenly doesn't seem that enigmatic anymore!

For whatever reason, today we don't speak of the will so much anymore. In Postmodern times it's all about subjectivity, personal taste and "if it pleases us". So, ways are found to pleasantly manipulate us. And when that's the case we may suddenly find it in our hearts that, "Yes, we can". The pragmatism is the same though: we do whatever we want because, hey ... it's Us!

Finally, we can now witness for ourselves the curious observation made frequently by historians: the pounding rhetoric - not just of victimhood - but also of peace and concord from the man we now know to have been responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the last century.

Here's one of Riefenstahl's master pieces, "Triumph of the Will". More on her formidable legacy on this site.



- Filed on Articles in "History Compiled" -

Launching February 16!

Flick Review: "Che"

PJM: "Will the Real Che Guevara Please Stand Up?", by Henry Gomez

In the movie Che, Puerto Rican actor Benicio del Toro plays an Argentine thrill seeker-cum-murderer who helped turn Cuba into a Stalinist state. That Argentine was Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, better known as “Che.” The movie is actually two films that total just under four and a half hours. Yet despite those 263 minutes of celluloid, important aspects of Guevara’s personality and deeds are omitted. Things like, you know, the truth.

There’s a bit of poetic justice when a man who indiscriminately killed others in order to impose a system devoid of capitalism is now the world’s greatest t-shirt salesman.

Unfortunately, Guevara is also venerated in Hollywood, thus explaining the reported $60 million cost to make Steven Soderbergh’s bore fest of a hagiography. The cop-out used by Soderbergh and del Toro to justify this marathon of an abomination is that it’s the story of a “complex” historical figure living in “complex” times; his desired ends justified what are normally unjustifiable means. Yet since the film’s opening on December 12, 2008, to date it has recovered a measly $922,347 in the U.S. As such, the movie Che bears one important similarity to the real Che; it’s highly celebrated by some even though it’s a complete failure.

Despite the considerable mythology built up around his image, the real Guevara was a bumbler who never accomplished anything except as Fidel Castro’s wing man and executioner during the Cuban insurrection of the late 50s. Even there, the Castro propaganda machine embellished his greatest “victory.”

Guevara’s lackluster record began as a young man when he enrolled in medical school. Historians can find no concrete evidence of him ever obtaining a degree and he certainly never practiced medicine. One of Guevara’s fellow rebels who fought alongside him told me Guevara only had a cursory knowledge of medicine. When Castro came to power in 1959, Guevara made a fool of himself as Cuba’s “economics minister.” Later, Guevara failed dismally in his attempts to launch insurrections in the Congo and Bolivia, where he ultimately met his demise in 1967. Guevara was also, by all accounts, a lousy husband and father.

Read it all >>>

See the flick's slideshow