"Good Morning Mr Hitler"

"The people were so enthusiastic. They were completely taken in by all the pomp and grandure"

Recently-discovered color footage tells the story of an extraordinary Munich weekend when Adolf Hitler and nearly the entire Nazi leadership attended a three-day national cultural festival - including concerts, dancing, exhibitions and a five-mile-long parade - titled "2,000 Years of German Culture".

The film was shot in July 1939, just six weeks before the Second World War began, by an amateur film buff who wangled a special pass to shoot the event in close-up on color 16-millimeter Kodachrome. It was first shown only to the film maker's family, then hidden in the family cellar, where it lay for many years before one of his sons retrieved it. English film makers Luke Holland and Paul Yule assembled an audience of elderly Germans, framing them watching themselves in the 1939 footage and reminiscing about their experiences. Among them were sons of the unofficial cameraman who shot the 16-millimeter film and the daughter of the publisher of Hitler's Mein Kampf, who in deference to Hitler's wish for "privacy" on frequent visits to the publisher's home never said "Heil, Mein Führer", but always "Good Morning, Mr. Hitler."

The remarkable color footage presents a rarely-seen view of Adolf Hitler and of the Munich crowds (cast not in the role of anonymous adoring masses, as in Third Reich propaganda films, but as complicit participants, sharing with their leader the excitement of the parade).

The film provides a clear and chilling account of how culture, and in particular art is used to manipulate public opinion and national self-image. Numerous interviewees speak about their pride and joy in how Nazi art was "upliftning" and provided them with strength and happiness through a sense of "order". As the 93 year old artist Günter Grausmann (born 1900) says, artists subordinated themselves to ideology because they believed they would become great because they thought (or were told/ordered) that the ideology was great. But what they produced was actually 'non-art'. They have nothing to do with art. If someone gives you a commission, you must not subordinate yourself to the ideas of the commission. That is not art. That is prostitution.

A contemporary example of an artist resisting ideology in their professional work is Laurie Anderson withdrawing from a guest professor appointment at Essen’s Folkwang University in Germany in 2024.

Late last week the Folkwang University of Arts in Essen said it had “engaged in talks” with Anderson – whose works include the 1981 single O Superman and the 2015 film Heart of a Dog, dedicated to her late husband, Lou Reed – after her name surfaced among the thousands of artists who had backed the open letter, which called for “an immediate and unconditional cessation of Israeli violence against Palestinians”.

The university said it believed that art, culture and science are places “where contentious issues are kept in check”.

Its statement continued: “It has now become apparent that, in 2021, Laurie Anderson publicly supported the Palestinian artists’ ‘Letter Against Apartheid’ appeal, which, among other things, takes up calls for boycotts by the anti-Israel BDS movement,” it said. “In light of the now public question regarding her political stance, Laurie Anderson has decided to withdraw from the professorship.”

The idea "that art, culture and science are places 'where contentious issues are kept in check'" belies a denial of history and the continuation of culture in the service of power.

Massive Attack: The Documentaries

Massive Attack is an English musical group formed in 1988 in Bristol, consisting of Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall. Their debut album Blue Lines was released in 1991, with the single "Unfinished Sympathy" reaching the charts and later being voted the 63rd greatest song of all time in a poll by NME 1998's Mezzanine, containing "Teardrop", and 2003's 100th Window charted in the UK at number 1. The group has won numerous music awards throughout their career, including a Brit Award—winning Best British Dance Act, two MTV Europe Music Awards, and two Q Awards.They have released 5 studio albums that have sold over 11 million copies worldwide.

DJs Daddy G and Andrew Vowles and graffiti artist-turned-rapper Robert Del Naja met as members of partying collective The Wild Bunch. One of the first homegrown soundsystems in the UK, The Wild Bunch became dominant on the Bristol club scene in the mid-1980s.

Massive Attack started as a spin-off production trio in 1988, with the independently released song, "Any Love", sung by falsetto-voiced singer-songwriter Carlton McCarthy,and then, with considerable backing from Neneh Cherry, they signed to Circa Records in 1990 – committing to deliver six studio albums and a "best of" compilation.

Circa became a subsidiary of, and was later subsumed into, Virgin Records, which in turn was acquired by EMI. Blue Lines (1991), was co-produced by Jonny Dollar and Cameron McVey, who also became their first manager.

Geoff Barrow, who went on to form Portishead, was an intern and trainee tape operator at Bristol's Coach House studio when the album was recorded.

McVey (credited at the time as 'Booga Bear') and his wife, Neneh Cherry provided crucial financial support and in-kind assistance to the early careers of Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky during this period, even paying regular wages to them through their Cherry Bear Organisation.

Massive Attack used guest vocalists, interspersed with Del Naja and Marshall's (initially Tricky's) own sprechgesang stylings, on top of what became regarded as an essentially British creative sampling production; a trademark sound that fused down-tempo hip hop, soul, reggae and other eclectic references, musical and lyrical.

In the nineties, the trio became known for often not being able to easily get along with one another and working increasingly separately.

Andy Vowles (Mushroom), who had once thought of himself as the trio's musical director, acrimoniously left Massive Attack in late 1999, after an ultimatum from the other two members to end the group immediately if he did not. Despite having taken Del Naja's side in the effective firing of Vowles and then participating in a show-of-unity webcast as a duo the following year, Grant Marshall (G) had also effectively left by 2001 in that he abandoned the studio altogether. Marshall returned to a studio role in 2005, having joined the touring line-up in 2003/4

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) from irenebeatriz on Vimeo.

Suffering from acute kidney failure, Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave—the birthplace of his first life.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Thai: ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ; RTGS: Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat) is a 2010 Thai drama film written, produced, and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The film, which explores themes of reincarnation, centers on the last days in the life of its title character, who is played by Thanapat Saisaymar. Together with his loved ones—including the spirit of his dead wife, Huay, and his lost son, Boonsong, who has returned in a non-human form—Boonmee explores his past lives as he contemplates the reasons for his illness.

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives was inspired by the 1983 book A Man Who Can Recall His Past Lives by Buddhist abbot Phra Sripariyattiweti. The film is the final installment in a multi-platform art project by Apichatpong Weerasethakul called "Primitive". It premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or, becoming the first Thai film to do so.

Cecil Taylor - All The Notes (2006)

Cecil Taylor is the grand master of free jazz piano. All the Notes captures in breezy fashion the unconventional stance of this media-shy modern musical genius, regarded one of the true giants of post-war music. Taylor is first seen musing over Santiago Calatrava's architecture; the pianist's famed eclectic interests extend from soloing, combo and small orchestra work to spoken word performance.

''All the Notes'' captures in breezy fashion the unconventional stance of this media-shy modern musical genius, regarded as one of the true giants of post-war music. Seated at his beloved and battered piano in his Brooklyn brownstone the maestro holds court with frequent stentorian pronouncements on life, art and music.

Utøya: July 22 (Subtitles)

A teenage girl struggles to survive and to find her younger sister during the July 2011 terrorist mass murder at a political summer camp on the Norwegian island of Utøya.

Jesus is a Palestinian / Jezus is een Palestijn

Unsettled: From Tinker to Traveller

Forty years ago two USF anthropologists George and Sharon Gmelch lived for one year in a barrel top wagon with travellers on a halting site in Dublin. Four decades later they have returned to Ireland with a huge archive of photographs to find the people they once knew to learn what has happened in their lives in the intervening years. When the Gmelch's first came to Ireland in 1970 accommodation for travellers was a big issue. They were young anthropology students looking for an area of Irish culture to study. They became interested in travellers and soon they were living among them in order to study their culture close up. They carried out some of the first academic research into travellers and published a number of books including 'The Urbanisation of an Itinerant People', 'Tinkers and Travellers' and 'Nan-The Life of an Irish Travelling Woman'. Now, in their mid 60's, the Gmelchs return to a very different Ireland to undertake their final 'field study' with Irish Travellers.