SPIRIT OF '45, THE
Special Features: 10th Anniversary
The poet William Blake's reference to "these dark Satanic Mills (sic)" in his poem "Jerusalem" ends by articulating an ambition to "build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land." Ken Loach (I, DANIEL BLAKE; KES) features these words in his powerful, unabashedly pro-socialist documentary about England's postwar transformation from a working-class hellscape in the 1930s after endemic poverty and Dickensian squalor (children sleeping five to a vermin-infested bed, with only cereal to eat) are upended by Clement Attlee's 1945 Labour Party landslide over the patrician Winston Churchill. What follows is the nationalization of the mines, railways and postal service. Most significantly, the jewel in the crown is the National Health Service, which made medical care free of charge. Every story needs a good villain, and Margaret Thatcher's 1979 election does the trick. Loach masterfully collages first-person accounts of prewar England with archival footage that exposes the disparity between everyday reality and the myth of the Greatest Empire on Earth. (Note adapted from The Film Desk.) DIR/SCR Ken Loach; PROD Rebecca O'Brien, Kate Ogborn, Lisa Marie Russo. UK, 2013, color, 94 min. NOT RATED
Co-presented by Metro DC DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) and the Claudia Jones School for Political Education.
AFI Member passes accepted. AFI Member discount available for union members (must present union card).
Run Time: 94 Minutes
Opening Date: Tuesday, May 09, 2023
Genre: Documentary
