Kill the Documentary: A Letter to Filmmakers, Students, and Scholars

Abstract

tragedy with the movies made in its aftermath. Chapter seven, on Aldo Moro’s kidnapping and execution, unfolds in the tightest spaces possible. Cinquegrani’s exposition reads like a thriller, jolting my long-buried memories of this event. Chapter 8’s discourses on the events of 1989, centred on the Berlin Wall, seem like an anti-climax by comparison, although a logical way to wrap up Cinquegrani’s examination of film, memory, and history in the past century. The strengths of Film, Hot War Traces and Cold War Spaces are manifold. Cinquegrani’s concept is as intellectually stimulating as it is original, and his filmography (which includes many lesser-known films from many different traditions) is impressive. He is also fluent in the relevant Englishand Italian-language literature. There are flaws, of course. For example, Cinquegrani’s knowledge of Soviet cinema appears to be quite limited. Esfir Shub’s feature-length compilation documentary Spain (Ispaniia, USSR, 1939) is a seminal Soviet film on the Spanish Civil War whose absence from Chapter 2 is mystifying. As another, particularly egregious example, Iurii Ozerov’s four-part blockbuster Soldiers of Freedom (Soldaty svobody, USSR, 1977) was not made for television (although it was shown on Soviet TV after its theatrical run), and it was certainly not titled in Polish, apart from screenings in Poland. (Cinquegrani refers to the film only as _ Zołnierze wolności, which is a bit embarrassing.) However, given the overall high quality of this book, and my admiration of it, continuing to enumerate small errors would be churlish. In closing, this excellent, provocative book should be on the reading list of everyone interested in film and memory. It realizes the promise of the ‘spatial turn’ in film studies, often brilliantly. Highly recommended.