Latest news with #totalitarianism
CNN
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
'The Handmaid's Tale' had a remarkable ending — for real-world reasons
Hollywood studios and streamers aren't exactly craving politically provocative shows and movies right now. Producers are thinking twice about liberal-sounding storylines. Media companies are downplaying diversity initiatives. And 'The Apprentice,' a biopic about President Trump that contained some critical scenes, struggled to gain US distribution last year. That's what makes the timing of 'The Handmaid's Tale' finale all the more remarkable. The acclaimed Hulu drama, which streamed its final episode earlier this week, was unavoidably and unapologetically political. In the series, based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, America has been transformed into Gilead, a totalitarian theocratic regime where women are treated like property. The 'handmaid' in the title is June Osborne, played by Elisabeth Moss. Get Reliable Sources newsletter Sign up here to receive Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter in your inbox. The actors and producers started working on the first season of the show in 2016 with the belief that Hillary Clinton would be the first woman president. They described in interviews how the entire cast and crew were shocked by President Trump's victory. Trump's election — following campaign trail narratives about misogyny and bigotry — changed how the show was received. The premiere in April 2017 spawned a thousand think pieces. Some anti-Trump protesters even donned red robes and white bonnets inspired by the show. The show's producers leaned in. They didn't hesitate when asked about real-world comparisons to the radicalism portrayed on screen. 'We're on a very, very slippery slope toward Gilead,' executive producer Warren Littlefield told me back in 2019. While awaiting the finale this week, I checked back in with Littlefield. He perceives that the slope is even more treacherous today. 'Our America is getting harder to recognize each and every day,' he said, 'and Margaret's speculative fiction written 40 years ago on a rented typewriter in Berlin becomes closer to reality.' Moss, the cover star of this week's Variety magazine, was asked if the Supreme Court's 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade created a 'new urgency on set.' She said the vibe was already pretty urgent: 'The only way we've ever made this show was to have this sense of immediacy and relevancy that is not pleasant but is definitely galvanizing.' Maybe the political overtones turned off some would-be viewers. But 'The Handmaid's Tale' didn't meaningfully suffer in this polarized media climate. Instead, it benefited — because it evoked meaningful emotions and was elevated by current events. 'Handmaid's Tale' had something to say, and a unique time to say it, and isn't that every artist wants? 'In early Handmaid's days,' Littlefield said, 'we present a world that was too preoccupied staring into their phones to see Gilead coming until it's upon our characters and taken over their lives.' Over the years, many reviewers have pointed to that as one of the enduring takeaways from the show. 'Handmaid's' 'showed the ease with which the unthinkable can become ordinary — a lesson crucial in the age of the Big Lie,' The Atlantic's Megan Garber wrote in 2021. The final season of the series was in production while Kamala Harris lost to Trump, and began streaming in April. The Hollywood Reporter TV critic Daniel Fienberg credited the show with 'perfect — or perfectly awful — timing' over the years, and said 'the show's topicality sometimes hit so close to the bone that it became difficult to watch.' One of the showrunners, Yahlin Chang, posited in a recent interview with TheWrap that the show 'kind of failed' to serve as a cautionary tale, 'or we didn't caution enough people.' 'It's shocking to me, when I think about when I joined the show, I had more rights as a woman than I have now,' she said. Conversely, Chang said in an oral history of the show that 'Handmaid's' was an opportunity to tell big-budget stories 'about refugees and displaced people' – in this case, about American characters who fled to Canada to escape tyranny. 'You can't just walk into a Hollywood studio and pitch that,' she said. 'The fact that we're able to give voice to have our characters as Americans go through what, unfortunately, people all throughout the world go through and where we can really empathize with them fills me with hope for humanity.' The final episodes manage to be uplifting, at least in part, and Littlefield said, 'Our message this year, in hopefully a compelling dramatic way, continues to be — like June, don't give up the fight.' Many of the 'Handmaid's Tale' producers are now working on a sequel series called 'The Testaments,' which will pick up about 15 years in the fictional future. It will be another test of audience (and studio) interest in a show that both entertains and asks a serious question: 'Could it happen here?'
CBC
5 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
It's not us — it's them. Why it's time to end the affair with the U.S.
It has to be done. It's time to break up with America: "You have to see the catastrophe for what it is," says intellectual historian, Marci Shore. She wouldn't normally give the world relationship advice but she feels an urgent need to send a clear message. "This is the end of the affair." Professor Shore, who has been studying the history of totalitarianism for nearly 30 years, blames the U.S. for the failed romance. To put it simply, it's not us — it's them. "You cannot trust this government. You cannot trust the United States. Don't think you can finesse the situation you are dealing with, you're looking into an abyss," she said in a lecture delivered at the Toronto Metropolitan University in April, as part of its International Issues Discussion series. Shore says she's devastated that she can no longer rely on her country to defend democracy. As a scholar who has studied the arc of fascism in Eastern Europe, she saw the red flags waving well ahead of many others. "If I panicked sooner than most other Americans, it's not because I was any smarter, but because I had been watching what was going on in Russia and Ukraine." Shore and her husband Timothy Snyder are two of three prominent Yale scholars who recently accepted teaching posts at the University of Toronto. While the offer was on the table before the U.S. election, Professor Shore says the re-election of Donald Trump tipped the scales. IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed spoke to Marci Shore about her talk. Here is an excerpt from their conversation. You often make references to words from the Russian language to help us understand what is going on in this moment. In your speech, you referred to the Slavic word for 'laying bare.' What's the word? Obnazhaya. It's the idea that there's no attempt to cover up wrongdoing anymore. A recent example, I guess, might be President Trump accepting a luxury jet from Qatar. So you'd expect this kind of blatant disregard for accepted norms would cause outrage. Why doesn't it? That's one of the curious phenomenon. Obnazhaya is a word... used to describe the aesthetic methods of the avant-garde, that you lay bare the device. You show people what you're doing. And it then became a kind of theme of the political technologists, the postmodern spin doctors, who bring Putin to power. What is remarkable about our system is that nothing is hidden. All of the ugliness is right there, not disguised by any architectural excesses. And that's the whole strategy. There's something disempowering about it. Another example of 'laying bare' could be the extraordinary moment that we saw in the Oval Office, where, Ukrainian President Zelensky is basically being admonished publicly by JD Vance, and Donald Trump. What new insight, if any, did you glean about the moment that we're in? That was one of the most revolting things I've ever seen on television. I think it affected me very viscerally on a couple different levels. I would point to at least three things. One is as a historian of Stalinism, that motif of you must say 'thank you.' You have to say 'thanks'. This is first of all what the abusive husband says to his wife. This is also what the people being interrogated by the Stalinist secret police hear from their interrogators. This is what the victims of the show trials are made to do. You thank the party for giving you your just punishment. In fact, Lech Wałęsa and a whole collection of former Polish political prisoners, including several people I know well and who sat in prison in communist Poland, wrote a letter saying, this is how our secret police interrogator spoke to us. Then the second thing was 'laying bare' of the fact that everything is transactional, everything is a game. Zelensky's response was perfect, we're not playing cards. Because for him it was not a game, for him he's responsible for the lives of these millions of people. But then I think what really punched me in the stomach was Trump saying to Zelensky, he [Zelensky] has such hatred for Putin. It's really hard to make a deal with someone who's got this hatred. And when you are watching day after day your city's burned and your children buried alive under rubble, and these young journalists captured and dismembered and tied to boards and tortured with electric shocks, you might not feel very warmly toward that person. You might not even have 'let's make a deal' kind of feelings toward that person. And the moral nihilism of not being even able to make that empathetic leap, I just thought we are looking into an abyss. For him to be admonished for it is beyond everything. You talk bluntly about Europe, as well as Canada, needing to recognize that this is the end of the affair as you describe it with America, and its commitment to defending democracy. And we're seeing signs of it on a daily basis, the questioning of NATO and the need to protect Europe against the possible Russian threat. Do you see any signs that this message is actually sinking in either here in Canada or in Europe? I'm not yet qualified to comment on Canadian politics. But the wake-up call to Europe, it's clearly going in that direction, but too slowly. And the fact that those four presidents went to Kyiv was a very good sign. I think that the grotesque scene in the Oval Office helped that. But it's very, very hard I think for Europeans than Canadians, to let go of that myth of America as the land of the free and the home of the brave. Gabrielis Landbergis, the former foreign minister of Lithuania, just gave this New York Times interview a couple of days ago, and he said, you have to understand it's like ripping through our bodies. It's like you're tearing your heart out. You grow up with this idea of the arsenal of democracy and what it means to have that taken away. And it doesn't mean that all Americans have changed their mind. I constantly get messages from Americans saying, 'please tell all the Canadians you see that we still love them. Please tell them that this is not representative of us.' Certainly, that's not what everybody feels but the people in power should absolutely not be trusted. The idea that you can get inside Trump's psyche and figure out how to have a good relationship with him, I think that's a mistake because there's no operative: true, false, good, evil — it's only what is advantageous or disadvantageous to him at any given moment in time. You've only been in Canada for a few months but I'm curious what you've been able to glean looking at your home country of the United States from this side: any new insights observing from over here? Well, I feel calmer here. I'm in a very privileged position, because now I've given myself a little bit of distance. Canada always felt to me like a place that was less edgy, which was part of the appeal, even independently of American politics. It's a place where there are gun control laws. It's a place where there's more of a social support system. It's a place where I feel in my kids' schools that there's less of a competitive edge among the kids, among the parents. And so I feel like it gives me a little space to take a deep breath, but I also feel guilty about being in this relatively safe place and taking advantage of it. But does it in any way inform your thinking about what is happening in your country? Do you have more clarity or a different posture being here and watching what's happening in the States? I would say the one thing I thought about was the way in which all the Canadian commentators were saying that it was Trump's election that saved the Liberal Party in Canada because it warned people about what could happen. That sense of could people be attentive to what was happening across the border in such a way that would shake them into responsibility for themselves, I found that quite inspiring. If this is, as you say, the end of the end-of-history, what do you hope comes next? My fantasy when I'm not being a neurotic catastrophist is that there will be a domino effect of the fall of tyranny, that Putin's regime will fall, that Lukashenko's regime will fall, the Iranian regime will fall, that Trump's regime would fall. That there'll be a complete Ukrainian victory and that Ukraine will be the vanguard no longer of catching up with the West — the [Francis] Fukuyama end-of-history model that we're all moving inevitably and exorbitantly to liberal democracy, and you should follow the people who are further along down the road. We know now that that did not work.
New York Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Seeing a Tide of Fascism: Flee or Fight?
To the Editor: Re 'We Study Fascism, and We're Leaving the U.S.' (Opinion video, May 14): As a British historian and the author of a book on totalitarian Russia and the fall of Communism, I am worried that there have been too few coherent warnings of the isolationism and the threats to American democracy posed by the Trump administration — until I saw this eloquent video. Here in France there is talk of demanding that the Statue of Liberty — that beacon of freedom given to the United States by this country — be returned to Europe. As a child of a diplomatic family living in Communist Bulgaria in the 1960s, I witnessed directly the fear that a totalitarian state can induce in a population. I worry for America, and I desperately hope that it can reverse the tide of fascism threatening the independence of its universities, courts and admirable media. This video clearly lays out the challenges posed to the United States, which we Europeans have for so long respected and admired. Myles Sanderson Paris The writer is the author of the book 'Secret Service in the Cold War.' To the Editor: What Profs. Marci Shore, Timothy Snyder and Jason Stanley say is undeniably true: The United States is rapidly descending into fascism.
Geek Vibes Nation
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Vibes Nation
‘Two Prosecutors (Dva Prokurora)' Review - A Beautiful Yet Repetitive Tragedy About Feeling Powerless Against Corruption
Film isn't only a great medium to look at the current state of the world, for example, Ari Aster's Eddington portrays current America, but also to ensure that we never forget the past. The Byelorussian-born Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa knows that like no other. After becoming a controversial documentary maker because of his outspoken opposition to the boycott of Russian films, he's now taking the audience back in time in his Two Prosecutors (original title: Dva prokurora ). While the timely adaptation of the same-named novel by psychist/writer Georgy Demidov certainly is an alarming reminder of how hard it is to defeat totalitarianism with hope and determination only, it feels all too repetitive and formulaic. Teaming up again with cinematographer Oleg Mutu after working together on The Event , Loznitsa takes you back to 1937. Even before the story has fully and truly started, you can see that this work will be a stunning visualized feature. The décor feels incredibly authentic, and the dark cinematography and the cloudy vibe transport you back to the height of Stalin's terror. You feel the immense suffering of the people, the terrible circumstances they're living in, and the oppression they have to undergo. The absence of editing and lingering shots ensures that this haunting feeling comes through even more. It's that mix of the almost invisible work of editor Danielius Kokanauskis ( The Southern Chronicles , The Invasion ) and the extended scenes that makes and breaks this film. During the moments in which you see what humiliating tasks people (in this case, prisoners) are condemned to do and in which you see a broken country that's ruled with an iron fist by a totalitarian dictator, that combination truly sucks you into Loznitsa's latest work. You instantly go through many emotions. From the disgust of seeing the bleak state to feeling a bit of courage when witnessing that some people are still fighting for a better world, you certainly go on an emotional rollercoaster. Anatoliy Beliy as Andrey Vyshynsky and Aleksandr Kuznetsov as Kornyev in 'Two Prosecutors' courtesy of Pyramide Distribution. There's also a sparkle of hope in the form of Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov). After receiving a blood-written letter from a Communist party member addressed to Stalin, his ambition to finally prove his work as a young prosecutor and his more idealist mindset encourage him to find out where the letter originated. The letter was passed down to him via former intellectual Stepniak (Aleksandr Filippenko), who's now severely mistreated in jail by the NKVD (the Soviet secret police). Kornyev has to face the relentlessly powerful bureaucratic bleakness at every step of his quest for justice. He soon realizes that he lives in a world that doesn't share his vision of justice, not even his stern and undeterred superior, Andrey Vyshynsky (Anatoliy Beliy), with whom he seeks a meeting to help Stepniak. However, backing down isn't an option, as Kornyev's passion for changing the system that is larger than him is just too big. His requests to speak Vyshynsky fall on deaf ears multiple times, but when the two prosecutors finally come face-to-face, the movie finds its true power. This is because of tense and emotion-packed central performances. Like his character, the Russian rising star Kuznetsov ( Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore ) is the youngest of the two, but that doesn't mean he's being overclassed. No, the filmmaker offered him a complex role, mainly because there are a lot of silent scenes, and it's undoubtedly one that Kuznetsov loved to sink his teeth into. Whether with body language, his piercing eyes only, or the emotionally loaded (but too long) conversations, he puts on a compelling portrayal of a young man who's literally and figuratively silenced by the oppressive system. Aleksandr Kuznetsov as Kornyev in 'Two Prosecutors' courtesy of Pyramide Distribution A system that's being represented by Beliy, who embodies rampant corruption and bureaucracy in the best way possible. Even with only a few words, Beliy, who has already worked with Loznitsa on the documentary Maidan , significantly shows the oppression starting with Stalin's Great Purge of the late 1930s. At the same time, he also reminds us that even now, many governments apply that same way of thinking and ruling from the past. So why, with genuinely moving performances and the excellent production design that sets the perfect tone and mood, doesn't Two Prosecutors work? Well, that's also where the absent editing comes into play. Many prolonged conversations feel formulaic. The filmmaker puts down the camera in front of the actors and lets them work their magic for minutes on end, uninterrupted. There's nothing wrong with this approach, as it can help increase the human and emotional level; if every scene is like that, it's all too repetitive. Even the more extended scenes of the scenery can't break through the monotonous feeling. That being said, despite the lengthy lead-up and the sameness of many scenes, the transportive performances, and the astonishing set, Loznitsa's return to fiction is a beautiful tragedy about feeling powerless against corruption but never giving up hope. Two Prosecutors held its World Premiere in the competition section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Director: Sergei Loznitsa Screenwriter: Sergei Loznitsa Rated: NR Runtime: 118m
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Orwell: 2+2=5' Review: Raoul Peck's Dynamic Look at Big Brother and Other Tyrants
George Orwell himself has gone in and out of favor over the revisionist years, but the British author's searing insights into empire and power and totalitarianism have never lost relevance. That's particularly true of his final work, the dystopian premonition 1984. Published 76 years ago, the novel is the core of Raoul Peck's documentary portrait of the writer. With a dynamic mix of biography and intellectual essence, and with the re-election of Donald Trump the obvious inflection point for its urgency, Orwell: 2+2=5 delves into the ways Orwell's arguments illuminate a century's worth of geopolitics. Peck, who profiled another writer of blistering moral clarity and prescience, James Baldwin, in I Am Not Your Negro, brings a healthy dose of sympathetic rage to his exploration of Orwell's worldview, and sensitivity to his life story. The rich selection of archival material is punctuated by new footage, clips from a fascinating cross-section of documentaries and dramas, including several screen iterations of 1984 and Orwell's novella Animal Farm, and outstanding graphics — notably a catalog of books that have been banned stateside and around the globe and a real-world Newspeak glossary that alone is worth the price of admission. More from The Hollywood Reporter Richard Linklater's 'Nouvelle Vague' Receives Electric 10-Minute-Plus Cannes Standing Ovation 'Renoir' Review: A Delicate and Touching Tokyo-Set Portrait of a Girl's Loneliness 'Nouvelle Vague' Review: Richard Linklater's Enjoyable Deep Dive Celebrates How Godard's 'Breathless' Came to Life Well-chosen and delivered with plummy, intimate gravity by Damian Lewis, all the words heard in the film were written by Orwell, in letters, books and essays. His life story is smartly distilled to key moments of political awakening. His work as a police officer in British-occupied Burma (now Myanmar, and one of the places where Peck filmed new material) sparked a profound awareness of the 'unjustifiable tyranny' of imperialism, and as a member of Britain's 'lower upper middle class,' he understood the impact on identity and personality of the social hierarchy. The windswept Scottish island Jura is another of the places where Peck gathered footage, to poignant effect. It was there, in a remote farmhouse, that the widowed Orwell spent a significant portion of his final years, raising his young son and writing Nineteen-Eighty Four, as it was titled when published in June 1949, seven months before his death at 46 from tuberculosis. Orwell's comments in a letter about his wartime stint at the BBC tap into an ambivalence that no doubt is familiar to many journalists in today's corporate media. 'Don't think I don't see how they are using me,' he says. 'But while here, I consider I have kept our propaganda slightly less disgusting than it might otherwise have been.' The interconnectivity of media and government is a central theme in Peck's documentary, as it is in 1984, with the Ministry of Truth rewriting history by the hour and the language called Newspeak spinning webs of propaganda out of euphemisms. The helmer delivers a brilliant compendium of 'prefabricated' terms and phrases, as Orwell called such verbiage, that have posed as political discourse over the decades, among them 'peacekeeping operations,' 'collateral damage,' 'illegals,' 'campaign finance,' 'recession' and, in one of the film's boldest swipes, 'antisemitism 2024.' And yet, in certain ways, the film doesn't go as deep as Orwell's observations; its choice of illustrative material generally hews to contemporary party lines, even while showcasing wise words that render such distinctions all but meaningless. 'Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy,' Orwell wrote, 'and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.' A crucial lesson I draw from Orwell, and from a lifetime of political hope and despair, is that whichever half of the American duopoly is telling us why the latest chapter in our perpetual war is necessary, they're almost certainly lying. Orwell's warnings apply across the board, not just when obvious despots and lackeys let their fascist flags fly. It's the filmmaker's prerogative, of course, if he wants to preach to the anti-Trump choir, but the preaching shifts into hyperventilating in a questionable segue from scenes of public hangings of Nazis in 1946 Ukraine to the chaos of January 6, 2021, in the U.S. Capitol. Though it has its blind spots and isn't as consistently potent as Peck's 2016 doc on Baldwin, Orwell: 2+2=5 is a vital film. Eric Arthur Blair, who took the pen name George Orwell, was impelled to write by a keen awareness of injustice and a need to expose lies. Casting the author's deathless words in a fresh light and gathering other dissident voices around him, Peck offers a sobering reminder of what's at stake in this technology-defined age of doublethink and thoughtcrime, the world that Orwell foresaw and we occupy — and of how, for a long time now, we've been losing the plot. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now "A Nutless Monkey Could Do Your Job": From Abusive to Angst-Ridden, 16 Memorable Studio Exec Portrayals in Film and TV The 10 Best Baseball Movies of All Time, Ranked
