Dec 05 2024 78 mins
Sadly, it's time to say goodbye to another acteur after an all-too-short time. For our final Paul Robeson episode, we watched Julien Duvivier's Tales of Manhattan (1942), which notoriously brought an end to Robeson's career as a film actor, and two extraordinary socialist documentaries to which he contributed his voice, Leo Hurwitz's Native Land (1942) and Joris Ivens' The Song of the Rivers (1954). (Note that Robeson's contribution to Song of the Rivers was less than we supposed going in: an introductory song only. But we thought it paired well with Native Land anyway.) We make an argument for the subversive use of tropes in the Robeson Tales of Manhattan segment before moving on to discuss Robeson's involvement in the kind of cinema he wanted to make: independent, socialist, artistically ambitious. And finally, we of course Rank the Robesons, giving our 10 favourite Robeson films in order and summarizing the experience of building a comprehensive picture of this under-theorized body of work.
Time Codes:
0h 00m 25s: TALES OF MANHATTAN (1942) [dir. Julien Duvivier]
0h 21m 54s: NATIVE LAND (1942) [dirs. Leo Hurwitz & Paul Strand]
0h 53m 33s: SONG OF THE RIVERS (1954) [dir. Joris Ivens]
1h 04m 48s: Ranking the Robesons
1h 13m 58s: Listener mail from Andy
Episode specific reading:
· Musser, Charles. Paul Robeson and the End of His ‘Movie’ Career. Cinémas, Volume 19, (Number 1), Fall 2008, 147-179.
· Klein, Jill and Michael. Native Land: An Interview with Leo Hurwitz. Cinéaste vol 6 (number 3), 1974.
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* Listen to our guest episode on The Criterion Project – a discussion of Late Spring
* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s
* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)
* Read Elise’s piece on Gangs of New York – “Making America Strange Again”
* Check out Dave’s Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!
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