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Title:Filming Politics : Communism & the Portrayal of the Working Class at the National Film Board of Canada, 1939-46
Series:(Cinemas Off Centre Series, 1)
Author:Malek Khouri
ISBN:1552381994 : 9781552381991
Format:Paperback
Size:155x230mm
Pages:278
Weight: .442 Kg.
Published:University of Calgary Press - April 2007
List Price: 20.99 Pounds Sterling
Availability:In Print
Subjects:Media studies: Canada: POLITICS & GOVERNMENT


The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) has a storied history as the progenitor & stalwart defender of Canadian cinematic culture. It was created to foster a national film industry & to promote to a national & international audience a voice that was uniquely Canadian. In "Filming Politics", author Malek Khouri examines carefully a period at the National Film Board when its creative output & guiding principles reflected less the cultural mainstream, identifying instead more with the surging wave of International Communism. Beginning with an analysis of the political, cultural, & social milieu under which the institution was founded, Khouri highlights how these dynamics impacted the creation of the NFB. He details the ideological background of the NFB's founders & filmmakers, positing that these factors ultimately shaped the emergence of a counter-hegemonic discourse as evidenced through the portrayal of the working class. Khouri identifies & uncovers the extent of the institution's filmic practices & representations of issues such as the Great Depression, democracy, labour unions, unemployment, & the fight against Fascism. In particular, it was during the war years that the institution earnestly pursued a discourse that presented the working class as agents of social change, & openly celebrated the Soviet Union as a war ally & leading opponent to fascism, & in due course as a future partner in peace. "Filming Politics" presents a vivid ethnography of a social class, a cultural institution, & a political subculture, making available for the first time a comprehensive classification & overview of the cinematic & political foundations that informed this now esteemed cultural institution.

Social Class & the NFB's Early Films in Canadian Film Studies. Canadian Film Culture Before the NFB. The Development of Working-Class Counter-Hegemonic Movement: A Historical Survey. The Establishment of the NFB: A Political & Institutional Overview. Out of the Depression & Into the War: NFB Films Between 1939 & 1941. Workers & the Politics of Fighting Fascism: NFB Films Between 1942 & 1945. Workers, Democracy & Social Welfare in NFB Films Between 1942 & 1945. Stylistic Trends within the Discourse of NFB War Films. The NFB in a Moment of Transition: Workers in NFB Films Between 1945 & 1946. Index.