Red Hollywood: At the top of the cinephile's "to-see list" at RIDM

Directed and written by Thom Andersen and Noël Burch

Thom Andersen's collaborative 1996 essay documentary Red Hollywood was shown last Sunday at the Cinémathèque Québécoise as part of RIDM's retrospective of the filmmaker's career. Red Hollywood, a compilation film coordinated with theoretician Noël Burch, traces the legacy of the wave of directors and screenwriters targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee between 1947 and 1953, under suspicion of being communist insurgents.

Andersen, a self-described 'proto-communist' in the mid-80s, paired off with colleague and "ex-communist" Noël Burch when research for the film began as faculty at the Ohio State University. Years later, the two enfants terribles of this all-American institution would complete Red Hollywood, a robust counter-narrative to an official history that has overlooked the true progressive vision of the blacklisted artists behind these barred "communist" pictures.

Andersen appeared in a beige blazer sardonically introducing his film as the forerunner to his "masterpiece" (his better-known 2003 feature, Los Angeles Plays Itself). Through his disarming public presence and pre-screening banter, it became apparent that the filmmaker places himself in the role of a preservationist. He explains his attempt to allow space for the film clips of Red Hollywood "to speak for themselves", whilst humbly inviting the crowd to challenge him on this claim during the post-screening Q&A.

True to this description, Anderson and Burch's documentary primarily comprises of a compilation of clips taken from over 50 ideologically dubious films from the mid-30s to 1953, with minimal voice over provided by the auteurs. The end result is fascinating. I was immediately taken aback at the politically engaged and socially subversive nature of barred works, I would have claimed were unimaginable coming from the Hollywood studio system.

A hysterical scene from Tom Dick and Harry (1941), written by the blacklisted Paul Jarrico, includes a bizarre dream sequence where protagonist Janie imagines her life marrying one of her suitors. She is shown as an aloof housewife in an expressionist kitchen, caring for three grown men disguised as babies. Her doting breadwinner husband keeps coming through the door, continually exclaiming yet another promotion at the car dealership. Janie sarcastically mimics his manic excitement, as the prefix of his title grows longer (assistant-junior-executive-in-training) whilst wailing adult "babies" multiply on the floor of the kitchen. Considering its 1941 context, this scathing critique of the 9 to 5 work week, the nuclear family, and reproductive futurism is shockingly ahead of its time. Red Hollywood dismantles a tendency to think of the Hollywood golden age as ideologically homogeneous and curated for a naïve audience. 

Allowing the films "to speak for themselves", Andersen and Burch's collaboration exudes a love for cinema tangible in the meticulous curation of clips, resuscitating forgotten artists such as working-class hero John Garfield and proto-feminist Susan Hayward. Red Hollywood is a fascinating, highly informative essay documentary, deserving of a place at the top of the cinephile's "to-see list".