Steelyard Blues
There are two books that come to mind immediately that speak directly to this topic. One is Film and the Anarchist Imagination from Richard Porton published by Verso.
Bearded bomb-throwers, self-indulgent nihilists, dangerous subversives — these characteristic cliches of anarchists in the popular imagination are often reproduced in the cinema. In Film and the Anarchist Imagination, the first comprehensive survey of anarchism in film, Richard Porton deconstructs such stereotypes while offering an authoritative account of films featuring anarchist characters and motifs. From the early cinema of Griffith and René Clair, to the work of Godard, Lina Wertmuller, Lizzie Borden and Ken Loach, Porton analyzes portrayals of anarchism in film, presenting commentaries and critiques of such classics as Zéro de Conduite, Vivre sa Vie, and Love and Anarchy. In addition, he provides an excellent guide to the complex traditions of anarchist thought, from Bakunin and Kropotkin to Emma Goldman and Murray Bookchin, disclosing a rich historical legacy that encompasses the Paris Commune, the Haymarket martyrs, the anarcho-syndicalists of the Spanish Civil War, as well as more familiar contemporary avatars like the Situationists and the enragés of May 68.
The other is an anthology recently released on AK Press titled Arena: On Anarchist Cinema
The films of Otto Mühl
Desperate Living, John Waters
Most of the lovers-on-the-run movies, like Gun Crazy or Bonnie and Clyde represents anarchistic anti-establishment atmosphere.
And high school movies, like Lindsey Anderson’s If…, or Ondskan.
Prison movies like Cool Hand Luke have this atmosphere, too.
La Commune
“What films make you feel that leading an unconventional life and making offbeat choices in life are possible? And not only possible, but desirable, perhaps preferable to conforming?”
The first film I thought of reading that sentence was Ozu’s Early Spring. Ozu asks those questions almost verbatim throughout the entirety of the film, and although he’s not as successful as some other filmmakers in questioning the perceived values of society (he is falsely seen by many as championing them), he does do a good job in this film, in his own very subtle manner.
Also, Tetsuo, The Iron Man. I don’t think I have to defend that one, though.
Secretary is another I should have listed.
Zero in Conduct by Vigo
Seventh Continent by Haneke
has anyone mentioned Grande Bouffe?
Grande Bouffe? I thought that was about some suicidal guys eating themselves to death.
Star Wars
..well, maybe not anarchic, but kinda subversive.
“Clockwork orange” is quite anarchic too. After all, the ending shows the governent’s seal of approval to Alex’s “do whatever you want” lifestyle. There’s nothing more anarchic than that!
If there’s a government involved dictating what can and cannot be done, then there’s no anarchy.
Lars and the Real Girl is one of the better movies of the decade. Why must you make me shake my head in disgust ever so!
I am surprised nobody mentioned Mike Leigh’s “Naked”. David Thewlis is as close to anarchism as Michel Piccoli in Themroc.
“Dare mo shiranai” does explore a life without any authority. Harold and Maude sure question the police authority in wonderful ways :) …as does Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum.
The last third of Pola X.
Sans soleil,
Les enfants terribles
Land of the Blind,
Tenshi no kôkotsu (1972),
Yuke yuke nidome no shojo (1969)
The Quiet Earth (1985) (more then any other “last man on earth movie”…)
Brazil
…many many surreal and experimental movies.
Alex Cox’ STRAIGHT TO HELL gives me those “do what the &%^* I want to!” shivers…pretty much every character in that movie wasn’t on the level and pretty much did what they wanted to
Following various definitions of anarchism or anarchy
Reds
If…
The Battle of Algiers
The Edukators
The Wind That Shakes The Barley
True Romance
My Own Private Idaho
Down By Law
Lizzie Borden was mentioned in the essay quote, above. Watch Born in Flames. The American government transfers into a national socialist (but not fascist/Nazi) form of government, promising in doing so to fix all its problems and provide equality for all. Instead the inequalities simply deepen and the nation falls into disrepair and hyperinflation. It is the women, tired of already being abused and then things getting worse, who pretty much hack into their own various media networks and create a web of resistance against all forms of tyranny which ends in a dazzling explosion of none other than the friggin’ World Trade Center. Chew on that one for a while.
—PolarisDiB
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm you might say is a movie that is anarchist in its construct.
“Even Dwarfs Started Small”
Count on Dr. Herzog to deliver strong medicine….
I recommend “Libertarias” and I second “Born in Flames”.
Libertarias by Vicente Aranda.
basei moi
Godard anyone? At least several of his films are about power and rules and completely shattering those rules. Even his approach to creation is anarchistic.
I have a hard time believing that movies that are financied for tens of millions, or even hundreds of thousands can be called ‘anarchist’. Yes, it has nothing to do with content, but the prepackaged nature of it makes the idea laughable to me.
If…. by Lindsay Anderson
Romper Stomper by Geoffrey Wright
A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick
Are we talking about anarchy or personal sovereignty? There’s a difference between saying ‘There should be no social order’ and ‘We should not allow normative pressures to influence our life decisions’.
Tilsammans/Together
A lot of Almodovar’s films are like this in that they just kind of ignore the existence of sexual taboo. Children fall in love with priests, sons fall in love with fathers and get sex changes, nurses fall in love with coma victims, mothers allow their pedophiliac dentists to take custody of their children… And that only covers his comedies.
Exit Through the Gift Shop, by Banksy. There’s a sequence in which Thierry Guetta and Banksy go to Disneyland with a blow-up Guantanamo detainee that is one of the most astonishing documents of pure anarchy on film. The fact that it actually happened is mind-blowing and hope-inspiring. These two guys got away with dropping a post-9.11 security threat/political statement/punk prank artwork/bomb on one of America’s most sacred corporations. Highly arious!
Kenji
Daisies by Chytilova seems quite anarchic to me; the two young women running riot and giving a V sign to patriarchal control. I like the ending of If, rebellion against public schools and the whole rotten system they support. And the Marx bros, eg Duck Soup, and Jean Vigo, and Boudu, which have already been mentioned.