Art and the Influence of Revolution explores the extraordinary cultural flourishing of 1925, a year that remains a high-water mark for international literature and cinema. Through a series of insightful essays on masters such as Dreiser, Fitzgerald, Chaplin, Eisenstein, and Shostakovich, this collection argues that the intellectual depth of the era was inextricably linked to the global impact of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. By examining these works within their necessary historical and social framework, the volume demonstrates that the struggle for a profound, three-dimensional realism was the defining response to the greatest social upheaval of modern times.
Illustrated. 120 pages
Table of Contents:
Editor’s Preface
The Centenary of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy
The Great Gatsby: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy…”
Dmitri Shostakovich: A Fresh Wind Revitalized the Whole Pattern of Life
King Vidor’s The Big Parade
The Gold Rush Remains a Testament to Chaplin’s Comic Genius
The Artamonov Business (1925): Maxim Gorky and the Russian Revolution
One Hundred Years Since the Death of Russian Poet Sergei Esenin
The Artistry and Revolutionary Spirit of Soviet Armenian Poet Yeghishe Charents
David Walsh is from New York City and has been arts editor of the World Socialist Web Site since its launch in January 1998. He has been a full-time socialist journalist since 1991, writing extensively about films and filmmakers. In addition, he has examined the roots of the present crisis in art in a number of essays and talks. He also writes about contemporary politics, as well as cultural and historical issues.