Only the Beginning and Summer of '68 (The Newsreel Collective, 1971 & 1968)
As a bonus feature on the Sir! No SIr! DVD, these two short films were added. I was quite happy, as I have read a lot about the Newsreel Collective but had never has the chance to see any of their films.
The Newsreel Collective was a group of radical American filmmakers who created a distribution/creation network across the States in the late 60's/early 70's. Their goal was to document social struggles on film and to use said films as agitation and education across the country. The covered a host of topics, from the anti-war movement to the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and feminist movement. These two films focused on soldiers' resistance to the war, with Only the Beginning documenting Vietnam vets throwing their medals onto the Capitol's steps and Summer of '68 documenting the Oleo Strut, a soldier's coffee house outside of Fort Hood in Texas.
The key criticism that I have always read about the Newsreel Collective is that they failed to challenge traditional modes of filmmaking, even as they challenged the social status quo. These two films certainly attest to that: Only the Beginning is pretty much just a camera set up on a tripod, showing each soldier step up to a mic to make a brief statement before hurling the medals. Summer of '68 is your pretty standard doc, showcasing interviews with the workers and denizens at the Oleo Strut and not much more.
While the films themselves are great documents of the times, as radical filmmaking, they are certainly less than impressive. That always seems to be the case with American attempts at radical filmmaking, doesn't it? Too often, American filmmakers just don't seem to understand that radical filmmaking is radical in both form and subject, something that the European radical filmmaking tradition has been aware of for decades.
The Newsreel Collective was a group of radical American filmmakers who created a distribution/creation network across the States in the late 60's/early 70's. Their goal was to document social struggles on film and to use said films as agitation and education across the country. The covered a host of topics, from the anti-war movement to the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and feminist movement. These two films focused on soldiers' resistance to the war, with Only the Beginning documenting Vietnam vets throwing their medals onto the Capitol's steps and Summer of '68 documenting the Oleo Strut, a soldier's coffee house outside of Fort Hood in Texas.
The key criticism that I have always read about the Newsreel Collective is that they failed to challenge traditional modes of filmmaking, even as they challenged the social status quo. These two films certainly attest to that: Only the Beginning is pretty much just a camera set up on a tripod, showing each soldier step up to a mic to make a brief statement before hurling the medals. Summer of '68 is your pretty standard doc, showcasing interviews with the workers and denizens at the Oleo Strut and not much more.
While the films themselves are great documents of the times, as radical filmmaking, they are certainly less than impressive. That always seems to be the case with American attempts at radical filmmaking, doesn't it? Too often, American filmmakers just don't seem to understand that radical filmmaking is radical in both form and subject, something that the European radical filmmaking tradition has been aware of for decades.