• Listen to the entire program

Grin Without a Cat

French film maker Chris Marker is best known in mainstream audiences for his dystopian sci fi film La Jetee, on which the Hollywood movie 12 Monkeys is based. But activists on the left also know him for his epic political documentary essay about the rise and fall of the new left: Grin Without a Cat, which Marker made in 1978. Grin Without a Cat, which is really two films in one, is a rarity, screened only a few times, a very difficult to obtain on video. More than 30 years after it’s original release, Icarus Films has restored the film, and released it in the US for the first time. Today we’ll take an in-depth look at this legendary film, its film maker, and the history he portrays. Grin Without a Cat focuses on the global political wars of the 60’s and 70’s: Vietnam, Bolivia, May ’68, Prague, Chile, and the fate of the New Left. Chock full of incredibly rare footage and with multiple narrators, the film is split into two parts called Fragile Hands and Severed Hands. One reviewer says of Grin Without a Cat: “Indispensable viewing… Marker dispassionately sorts through party politics, revolutionary rhetoric, and deadly propaganda to come to terms with what he has characterized as ‘the utopia of uniting in a common struggle those who revolt against poverty and those who revolt against wealth.’”

Thank you Gift:

A Grin Without a Cat – DVD – $150

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has been declared the winner of last week’s Iranian presidential elections, sparking angry rebellion and counter-rebellion on the streets of Tehran for the fifth day now. The main opposition candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi has challenged the result, claiming massive vote fraud to account for the 64% victory by the incumbent president. Nearly every single province, including Tehran was won by Ahmedinejad despite a growing and vocal sector of Iranian society tired of harsh domestic social laws and a faltering economy. Iran’s Guardian council, dominated by supporters of Ahmedinejad has offered to recount some of the votes in an effort to quell the largest uprising since the Revolution which overthrew the Shah thirty years ago. Demonstrators have taken to the streets in the tens of thousands, with 7 unarmed protesters being killed by government-allied militias earlier in the week. In addition to street demonstrations, the reformist opposition and it’s supporters have taken the internet’s social networking sites to get the word out, including Facebook and Twitter. In response, Ahmedinejad’s government has begun monitoring the websites as well as cracking down on foreign and domestic journalists.

GUEST: Sasan Fayazmanesh, Professor of Economics at Cal State Fresno, and co-Director of it’s Middle East Program, and author of United States and Iran: War, Sanctions, and the Policy of Dual Containment