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La Cifra Impar. Revista de estudios de audiovisuales

RESEARCH PAPERS

No. 3 (2024):

Left-wing American Cinema and Resistance to Native Fascism in the Early Years of the Cold War. An Analysis of Strange Victory by Leo Hurwitz

DOI
https://doi.org/10.58180/lci.3.2024.44
Submitted
February 13, 2024
Published
2024-08-31

Abstract

The limited academic literature on left-wing American cinema in the immediate post-war period and the early years of the Cold War (1946-1953) has recently undergone a shift in focus due to the emergence of new research that transcended the traditional approach to Hollywood blacklisting. Following this direction and the methodological proposal of Ferro, Sorlin, and Rollins to explore the relationship between film and history, we will focus on the examination of an unjustly forgotten documentary: Strange Victory —directed by Leo Hurwitz and produced by Barney Rosset—, which will be analyzed as a historical source within its production context. Released without success in 1948, we argue that the cause of its commercial failure was not solely due to the challenges faced by a left-wing production in a growing atmosphere of anti-communism and repression, but also because its denunciation of native fascism went beyond the acceptable discourse of the time, even for its potential allies. Additionally, we aim to recover the significant artistic and historical value of Strange Victory and make a modest contribution to the study and dissemination of the work of Leo Hurwitz, which is largely unknown in Latin America.

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