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Review
| You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, by Howard Zinn. A film by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller. First Run Icarus Films, 2004. 78 minutes. $24.95, 16 mm. $125.00, rental video. $298.00, video/DVD.
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| Howard Zinn has long been the model of an activist historian. This documentary narrates his lifetime engagement with teaching, writing, and public issues. Besides commentary from Alice Walker, Marian Wright Edelman, Noam Chomsky, Staughton Lynd and others, it features Zinn's spoken words and his writings, including his memoir of this title, published in 1994. The film reveals the influences and turning points in Zinn's life. His childhood was spent partly in cold-water flats with never a book in the house until his parents sent in 10 cents and a coupon to The New York Post for a set of Charles Dickens. His father was a waiter and a union man, and Zinn started working in the shipyards at age 18. Zinn's political awareness began at the age of 17 when he was knocked out by the police during a demonstration in Times Square. This hit convinced him the police and the government weren't neutral. At age 21, he volunteered for the Air Force to fight against Fascism. His last bombing raid during World War II was the first use of napalm in the European theater. Not until later did he think about his role in the deaths of several thousand people. From such experiences, his "steely anger" about the worst aspects of capitalism and the dark side of the American experience began. Married, the father of two children, he went to college for the first time at the age of 27 and could not find labor history in college textbooks. |
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Zinn began teaching at all-black Spelman College in Atlanta in 1956 just before the civil rights movement mobilized what had been a quiet campus. Fired from that job for supporting students' activism, he eventually gained tenure at Boston University. His former students testify to his influence: Alice Walker describes him as a revolutionary spirit embodied in a professor of history. Marian Wright Edelman describes his capacity for moral outrage. Zinn speaks for himself, too, and his writings are read by Matt Damon. A life view emerges: that the historian who is neutral becomes a collaborator; that knowledge of history must be used to address the most serious issues before the nation; and that hope and possibilities emerge from those historic moments when people show moments of compassion and a capacity to resist unjust authority. "There is no such thing as impartial history," he states; because bias comes from what is de-emphasized and what is left out. |
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This film may add little to the historian who has read much of Zinn's writing, but it does provide a quick study of a life of activism and writing. It mixes swelling music, images of the Statue of Liberty, and warm moments with his wife Roz. There are also images of police actions, bombings, and wounded children. There are parts that go on too long, such as the account of North Vietnam's freeing three American pilots. The filmmakers are clearly sympathetic to Zinn and his view of history; but his warmth and conviction, as revealed in the film, bolster his criticisms, which are more systemic than personal. |
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This film speaks most directly to teachers of history and to historians. To high school or college students, it provides a look at the person behind the words in A People's History of the United States, which has sold more than one million copies. At the end of the film, Zinn is shown talking with young people in high schools, signing books, writing plays, and speaking to an anti-Iraq war rally on Boston Commons. Along with biographical insight, however, comes exposure to the dark side of the recent American experience, especially to what Zinn describes as a fix on war. His words speak to an evolving history, and he contends that we need freedom of speech and sharp and honest discussion more than ever in wartime because lives are at stake. Democracy is crippled if people are in fear of speaking out. My students wonder where activism is today. Zinn's answer and the film are ultimately hopeful. To be hopeful in bad times, one must look for the moments of compassion, sacrifice, and courage in the past and act in the present. |
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| South Seattle Community College |
Judith Bentley |
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