AgitProp is a podcast discussing Marxist approaches to art and culture. The show is written and performed by James Bell. This episode covers the history of US horror film between 1974 and 1985, referred to as the ‘golden age of US horror film’. This decade saw the release of many of giants of the genre: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Alien and The Shining to name but a few. Crucially, this period saw a sharp rise and fall in the use of horror as a form of political commentary. In this episode, we ask the question: “Why?” 

If you would like to support this work, please donate when downloading or in the link below. Any donation, no matter how small, would be an enormous help. You can follow me on Twitter for more regular updates on the link below too. 

Script: http://tinyurl.com/y9kg6oza

Donate: www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=VYMC6FE74RK8G 

Twitter: twitter.com/GlumBird 

Contents: 

Introduction [00:00] 
Part one: Horror as social fear [00:53] 
Part two: Contextualising the golden age of US horror [08:20] 
Part three: From social critique to servility [16:50] 
Part four: The decline of political horror film [36:43] 

[Square brackets indicate timestamps within the recording.] 

Sources and further reading: 

Ann Billson, Crash and squirm. 
Harris Bomberguy, The Power of VHS | SCANLINE. 
Naomi Merrit, Cannibalistic Capitalism and other American Delicacies. 
Matthew Pridham, Underneath the Skin: John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and You. 
Paul Bullock and David Yaffe, Inflation, the Crisis and the Post-War Boom. 

(Links in transcript for the episode.) 

Episode list: 

Episode one: US horror film and the capitalist crisis (1974–1985) 
Episode two: Eisenstein’s October and the Bolshevik Revolution 
Episode three: Propaganda, the state and Comrade Detective 
Episode four: Digital monsters: Black Mirror in historical perspective 
Episode five: Netflix, subscription fees and the future of streaming 
Episode six: Review round-up 
Episode seven: Cuba’s artistic revolution

AgitProp, season one

Episode 1 - US horror film and the capitalist crisis

Description
AgitProp is a podcast discussing Marxist approaches to art and culture. The show is written and performed by James Bell. In celebration of the centenary of the Bolshevik revolution, this episode looks at a masterpiece of Soviet cinéma — Sergei Eisenstein’s October — in detail. We’ll take a look at the history portrayed  by Eisenstein, alongside the film’s context and its artistic technique.

If you would like to support this work, please donate using the link below. Any donation, no matter how small, would be an enormous help. You can follow me on Twitter for more regular updates on the link below too.

The sources for this episode are included with its script.

Script: https://tinyurl.com/y7wf3v78

Donate: paypal.me/jrbml

Twitter: twitter.com/GlumBird

Contents:

Introduction [00:00:00]
Part one: From February to October [00:01:30]
Part two: The October controversy [00:49:27]
Part three: Eisenstein’s technique [01:02:31]
Part four: Approaching Eisenstein’s dialectic [01:13:21]
Part five: Marxism as Art [01:21:25]

Sub-sections within part one:

[i] February [00:03:55]
[ii] Dual power [00:11:21]
[iii] April Theses [00:17:10]
[iv] July [00:24:29]
[v] Counter-revolution [00:33:11]
[vi] October [00:41:15]

[Square brackets indicate timestamps within the recording. The format used is hh:mm:ss.]

Episode 2 - Sergei Eisenstein's October and the Bolshevik revolution

AgitProp is a podcast discussing Marxist approaches to art and culture. The show is written and performed by James Bell. Each episode in the series will look at a specific topic.

AgitProp

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