An evolving filmography about power
November 16, 2021
Originally published at notes on cinema
James McMahon
I have been fortunate enough to teach university classes on politics and film. I am certain few students in these classes could guess how stressful it was to assemble a list of films for each semester. The films I showed in class or assigned as homework have to touch on political issues, but they also have to be quality films. I did not want a political issue to be the subtext of a film, as too much subtext would require a pre-screening lecture on why the film is being shown. But I also worried that some political films could be too pedantic, which risks students getting the point of the film early and then growing bored of watching to the end.
I was reminded of this stress when a forum post about cinema appeared on capitalaspower.com. It was asking for films that would speak about power in society, and the post was inspired by the list of novels recommended by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler. Nitzan and Bichler are two political economists whose research has been very influential in my study of the Hollywood film business. Moreover, they have championed inter-disciplinary approaches to the study of capitalism. Good cinema, like good literature, can look at power in society without being limited by disciplinary barriers or one-sided perspectives.
Below is a list of films that, in one way or another, look at power in society. I’m recommending them in the style of the course I taught. They can be recommended without a lot of preamble on why they speak about power.
| Title | Director | Year | Runtime |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ace in the Hole | Billy Wilder | 1951 | 111 |
| Ali, Fear Eats the Soul | Rainer Werner Fassbinder | 1974 | 93 |
| Army of Shadows | Jean-Pierre Melville | 1969 | 145 |
| Badlands | Terrence Malick | 1973 | 93 |
| Bamboozled | Spike Lee | 2000 | 135 |
| Barton Fink | Joel Coen | 1991 | 117 |
| Battle of Algiers, The | Gillo Pontecorvo | 1966 | 120 |
| Beau Travail | Claire Denis | 1999 | 90 |
| Belle de Jour | Luis Buñuel | 1967 | 101 |
| Black Girl | Ousmane Sembène | 1966 | 55 |
| Black Narcissus | Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger | 1947 | 101 |
| Blue Velvet | David Lynch | 1986 | 120 |
| Caché | Michael Haneke | 2005 | 118 |
| Carlos | Olivier Assayas | 2010 | 338 |
| Chinatown | Roman Polanski | 1974 | 131 |
| Come and See | Elem Klimov | 1985 | 142 |
| Daisies | Věra Chytilová | 1966 | 76 |
| Death Race 2000 | Paul Bertel | 1975 | 82 |
| Do The Right Thing | Spike Lee | 1989 | 120 |
| Dogtooth | Yorgos Lanthimos | 2009 | 97 |
| Dry White Season, A | Euzhan Palcy | 1989 | 107 |
| Eating Raoul | Paul Bertel | 1982 | 83 |
| Executioner, The | Luis García Berlanga | 1963 | 90 |
| Firemen’s Ball, The | Miloš Forman | 1967 | 73 |
| Four Lions | Chris Morris | 2010 | 97 |
| Friends of Eddie Coyle, The | Peter Yates | 1973 | 102 |
| Germany, Year Zero | Roberto Rossellini | 1948 | 78 |
| Godfather Part II, The | Francis Ford Coppola | 1974 | 200 |
| Godfather, The | Francis Ford Coppola | 1972 | 177 |
| Heaven’s Gate | Michael Cimino | 1980 | 219 |
| Hunger | Steve McQueen | 2008 | 96 |
| La Haine | Mathieu Kassovitz | 1995 | 98 |
| Last Emperor, The | Bernardo Bertolucci | 1987 | 163 |
| Leopard, The | Luchino Visconti | 1963 | 185 |
| Magnificent Ambersons, The | Orson Welles | 1942 | 88 |
| Man Push Cart | Ramin Bahrani | 2005 | 87 |
| McCabe & Mrs. Miller | Robert Altman | 1971 | 121 |
| Medium Cool | Haskell Wexler | 1969 | 110 |
| Modern Times | Charlie Chaplin | 1936 | 87 |
| My Beautiful Laundrette | Stephen Frears | 1985 | 97 |
| Naked | Mike Leigh | 1993 | 131 |
| New World, The | Terrence Malick | 2005 | 150 |
| Night of the Living Dead | George A. Romero | 1968 | 96 |
| No Country for Old Men | Joel Coen and Ethan Coen | 2007 | 122 |
| Player, The | Robert Altman | 1992 | 124 |
| Repo Man | Alex Cox | 1984 | 92 |
| Rome, Open City | Roberto Rossellini | 1945 | 105 |
| Smooth Talk | Joyce Chopra | 1985 | 91 |
| Sullivan’s Travels | Preston Sturges | 1941 | 94 |
| Sátántangó | Bela Tarr | 1994 | 439 |
| There Will Be Blood | Paul Thomas Anderson | 2007 | 158 |
| Thin Red Line, The | Terrence Malick | 1998 | 170 |
| Touch of Sin | Jia Zhangke | 2013 | 130 |
| Tree of Life, The | Terrence Malick | 2011 | 139 |
| Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me | David Lynch | 1992 | 134 |
| Two Days, One Night | Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne | 2014 | 95 |
| Wages of Fear, The | Henri-Georges Clouzot | 1953 | 148 |
| White Ribbon, The | Michael Haneke | 2009 | 144 |
| Wind That Shakes the Barley, The | Ken Loach | 2006 | 126 |
| Working Girls | Lizzie Borden | 1986 | 93 |
| Z | Costa-Gavras | 1969 | 127 |
| Zéro de conduite | Jean Vigo | 1933 | 44 |