‘A Special Day’: The Machismo Meet-Cute of 1938
On May 8, 1938, Rome was a stage. Adolf Hitler arrived to meet Benito Mussolini in a choreographed display of aestheticized politics that brought millions into the streets. But while the world’s cameras were focused on the geometric ranks of the parade, Ettore Scola’s 1977 masterpiece, A Special Day (Una giornata particolare), pivots the lens […]
Eddington: Fear is a Fertile Ground
In this episode of Fascism on Film, we talk about Ari Aster’s Eddington—a film set in the earliest days of COVID, right before the murder of George Floyd, when the country was confused, scared, isolated, and primed for political rupture. The movie takes place in a quiet New Mexico town that thinks it’s safe from […]
We’ll Always Have Fascism: ‘Casablanca’
In this episode of Fascism on Film, we look at Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca (1942), one of Hollywood’s most enduring films and one of its quietest acts of persuasion. Beneath the romance and intrigue, Casablanca tells a story of political awakening—about a man, a city, and a country choosing between indifference and action against fascism. We […]
Everyone Loves to Hate a Nazi: ‘Inglourious Basterds’
In this episode, we dig into Quentin Tarantino’s alternate-history thriller and why Nazis became cinema’s “easy plug-in villain.” We frame Inglourious Basterds as “a movie about World War II movies… about how they’re depicted,” and how its set-pieces weaponize film grammar—chapter structure, sustained suspense, and the “threat of violence”—to make the audience complicit in both […]