Blowing Glitter Through Straws. Revolutionary Moods in Lizzie Borden’s "Born in Flames" and Jill Godmilow’s "Far from Poland"

Abstract

The article analyzes two ‘genre-bending’ films – Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames (1983) and Jill Godmilow’s Far from Poland (1984) – as unique spaces of reflection on the temporality of revolution and revolutionary politics of emotion. Drawing on Jonathan Flatley’s work about creating and refreshing revolutionary moods, the author shows how both films worked against the dominant ‘structure of feeling’ of the mid-1980s – feelings of fatigue, hopelessness, and exhaustion with political engagement. The author also examines how both filmmakers use different visual mechanisms and aesthetic tools to generate oppositional moods and revive revolutionary spirits. Instead of trying to establish a straightforward emotional identification of film viewers with the presented movements (the actually existing Polish Solidarity movement in Far from Poland and a fictional multiracial and cross-class radical feminist coalition in Born in Flames), both filmmakers reject what Bertolt Brecht called “crude empathy” and instead insist on the necessity of an ambiguous emotional relationship with diverse political subjects.