Contemporary Historians

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Contemporary Historians Inc. was a 1937 American film company that financed a single film, The Spanish Earth by Joris Ivens , in the course of its existence .

Joris Ivens came from the Netherlands , the Contemporary Historians included the Americans John Dos Passos , Archibald MacLeish , Clifford Odets , Lillian Hellman , Herman Shumlin and Ernest Hemingway , the latter largely independent, while everyone else was in contact with the American Communist Party or one of their front organizations . In 1931 Ivens had met Otto Katz during his time at Meschrabpom , who, after the Nazis seized power in Hollywood, won filmmakers for the cause of anti-fascism through his lectures and gave the Comintern a foothold there.

Iven's original idea of ​​a film filled with a lot of symbolism had to give way to the conditions on site; the bombing of the civilian population was filmed. The images from the village of Fuentidueña were sharp and expressive, while the commentary written and spoken by Hemingway was sparse and sober, although in the opinion of the New York Times it made the work a propaganda film . One scene shows Gustav Regulator in flaming enthusiasm for the Republican cause.

None of the US -wide film distributors showed the film, nevertheless found The Spanish Earth its way into more than 300 cinemas. On July 8, 1937, the film was shown in the White House of the Roosevelts , the premiere at the home of the film star Fredric March was accompanied by a fundraising drive, which, according to Lillian Hellman, raised $ 13,000 . In the UK , during a week of performances in Cambridge, viewers donated the sizable sum of £ 1,000 to a food ship for Spain organized by the Left Book Club .

literature

  • Jonathan Miles: The Nine Lives of Otto Katz. The Remarkable Story of a Communist Super-Spy. Bantam Books, London et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-553-82018-8 , pp. 261 f. and 274 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Screen; "The Spanish Earth," at the 55th St. Playhouse, Is a Plea for Democracy , The New York Times, August 21, 1937

Web links