July Films @ the Iron Rail Book Collective

all films Tuesdays at 8:00PM
511 Marigny Street, corner Marigny and Decataur

July 1: THE TRAP: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, Pt. 1 (Adam Cutis, UK, 2007, 60 min.)
Individual freedom is the dream of our age. It's what our leaders promise to give us, it defines how we think of ourselves and, repeatedly, we have gone to war to impose freedom around the world. But if you step back and look at what freedom actually means for us today, it's a strange and limited kind of freedom.

Politicians promised to liberate us from the old dead hand of bureaucracy, but they have created an evermore controlling system of social management, driven by targets and numbers. Governments committed to freedom of choice have presided over a rise in inequality and a dramatic collapse in social mobility. And abroad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempt to enforce freedom has led to bloody mayhem and the rise of an authoritarian anti-democratic Islamism. This, in turn, has helped inspire terrorist attacks in Britain. In response, the Government has dismantled long-standing laws designed to protect our freedom.

The Trap is a series of three films by Bafta-winning producer Adam Curtis that explains the origins of our contemporary, narrow idea of freedom.

It shows how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom. This model was derived from ideas and techniques developed by nuclear strategists during the Cold War to control the behaviour of the Soviet enemy.

Mathematicians such as John Nash developed paranoid game theories whose equations required people to be seen as selfish and isolated creatures, constantly monitoring each other suspiciously always intent on their own advantage.

This model was then developed by genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists, and has come to dominate both political thinking since the Seventies and the way people think about themselves as human beings.

However, within this simplistic idea lay the seeds of new forms of control. And what people have forgotten is that there are other ideas of freedom. We are, says Curtis, in a trap of our own making that controls us, deprives us of meaning, and causes death and chaos abroad. (summary from IMDB)

Join us on Tuesdays for each one hour episode of this fabulous series from the same filmaker who brought you Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares!


July 8: THE TRAP: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, Pt. 2

July 15: THE TRAP: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, Pt. 3

July 22: La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, France, 1995)
French director Mathieu Kassovitz's jolting drama traces a fateful day in the lives of alienated ghetto youths Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Hubert (Hubert Koundé) -- a Jew, an Arab and an African, respectively. When their friend Abdel ends up comatose after a police beating, Vinz -- who's come into possession of a gun -- vows to dispense rough justice, sealing the destiny of all three. Benoît Magimel also stars.


July 29: Breathless (Jim McBride, USA, 1983)
This underrated corker of early-eighties action cinema stars Richard Gere as a gangster with a heart of gold, trying to pull one last big score before he mends his law-breaking ways. From the chase scenes through the casinos of Vegas to the glitzy poolside parties in Los Angeles, this movie was shot largely on location, in actual casinos and next to actual pools. Gere has big poofy hair, the ladies have big poofy hair, all the cars look the same, and Ronald Reagan has declared it "The Year of the Bible". That actually happened in 1983, look it up. Anyway, one IMDB commenter said that Gere for this movie "seems to model himself on The Silver Surfer." Baffling. In brilliant color with a soundtrack featuring Dexy's Midnight Runners.