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Final recording- An audio essay to critically introduce the film Medium Cool.
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Final recording- An audio essay to critically introduce the film Medium Cool.
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Final recording- An audio essay to critically introduce the film Medium Cool.
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"Medium Cruel" is a satirical drama film that combines fictional storytelling with footage from the 1968 DNC protests. It questions the role of the media in reporting police violence against protesters. The film influenced the genre of mockumentary and paved the way for politically radical films like "Punishment Park". The Haymarket Affair in 1886 and the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 also addressed police brutality and economic inequality. These texts prompt the public to question their complicity in these issues and advocate for change. Medium Cruel is a 1969 American satirical drama film directed by Haskell Wexler. It blends narrative fiction and footage from the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago. The film follows John Casillas, a news cameraman whose detached reporting style is questioned while filming the police's violent quashing of the DNC protests. In our essay, we acknowledge that the use of police brutality to suppress political dissidents is a recurring phenomenon. We will use each section of our essay to argue that key texts across varying radical movements ask the public whether they will be complicit in the violent techniques the state utilizes to quell protests. We will explore Medium Cruel's strong bearing on the mockumentary genre, its narrative techniques, the Haymarket trial and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Medium Cruel consolidated the genre of mockumentary and paved the way for future mockumentaries with more politically radical and subversive messages. For example, Peter Watkins' 1971 film Punishment Park, which satirizes the excessive violence of the state used to silence political dissidents. Sharon Monteith states that the avant-garde docudrama and improvisational qualities of Medium Cruel had pre-staged documentary-style dramas that included The Rescue Point and Punishment Park. Monteith illuminates that had it not been for the work of Wexler, such films that rely heavily on the mockumentary genre likely would not have been produced. Medium Cruel uses the narrative feature of breaking the fourth wall throughout. Perhaps the most obvious fourth wall break is at the end of the film when we see Haskell Wexler himself turn the camera to face the audience. This, combined with the film's rather unique position of mockumentary utilising footage of real events, poses the question of, do you condone this excessive draconian violence you have witnessed from the police towards the audience? The Haymarket Affair on May 4th 1886 was the result of a peaceful protest against the oppression of workers gone awry. An unidentified individual threw a bomb at the police, resulting in the death of one officer and several civilians. The consequential chaos caused several deaths. Despite no evidence, eight anarchists, including Albert Parsons, were found guilty and sentenced to death. In Lucy Parsons' biography titled The Life of Albert Parsons, she describes the circumstances that led to the worker strikes as well as the excessive force used by police. In Albert Parsons' speech to the public, he says, I referred to them at the comic strike on the previous day and denounced the action of the police on that occasion as an outrage. I asked the working men if these were not facts, and if monopolies and corporations were not responsible for them, and if they were not driving the people into this condition of things. Here, Parsons referenced the strike that occurred the previous day, and he asked the public the same question that workers are asked through a medium call. Was it not the facts of police brutality and corporations driving the sorry state of affairs, or the actions of workers? America is wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. The Occupy Wall Street movement spanned from September 17, 2011 to November 15, 2011. Its focal point was the occupation of Zocote Park in Manhattan, New York. The movement began due to civil unrest resulting from economic inequality and widespread poverty, mainly caused by the financial crisis of 2007-8 and subsequent recession. The public realized that within their position of the 99% that they were being exploited for financial gain by the 1%, the extremely wealthy. The Occupy movement's main aim was to highlight this economic disparity. The protest consisted of camps where people could talk, learn, eat and be accommodated. It was a harmless and compassionate means of inciting change which spread throughout America, with many states adopting the Occupy name for their movement. Occupy Oakland and Occupy Atlanta, for example. It had global influence, such as Occupy London in England, which reflects its importance as a revolutionary moment. Within the book, Occupy, Scenes from Occupied America, it recounts brutal repression from the police throughout. One particular moment details a particularly shocking instance of police brutality, stating that the police shot tear gas into an area that knew included children, disabled people, the homeless and animals. This invokes similar imagery to the depictions of police violence within Medium Cool. By using an appeal to sympathy, Occupy, like the previous two texts, prompts the public to consider whether they will accept this unquestionably or instead speak out. Ultimately, as we have demonstrated, it is clear that the theme of texts addressing the complicity of the public has continued from 1886 to present day. This appeal to the public is often subtle, but it is undeniably powerful. From Albert Parsons' seven-hour passionate address to the jury, Medium Cool's confrontative fourth wall break and the urgency of the accounts of police brutality in Occupy, it is clear to see that the texts throughout radical movements have challenged the state's repression through appealing to the public.
