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V for Vendetta, Part 3



W for Weather Underground

I just had a brainstorm for anybody who’s just watched V for Vendetta and is all worked up about what to do next. Get thee to a video store or Netflix (or PBS, maybe they have a free copy floating somewhere online) and watch the documentary on the Weather Underground (no, not the weather website which has surreptitiously stolen their thunder, so to speak).

You can read about the Weathermen on Wikipedia if you want, but it won’t have the emotional impact of watching this excellent film - especially if you team it up with a warm-up of V for Vendetta. Now, be forewarned, the two of these movies back to back are probably an “explosive” combination, and not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for the stupid who think they can just run out and blow something up and have everybody’s problems be solved. That’s retarded. What this movie will do though is give you the context of people who underwent these same struggles as depicted in Vendetta, but brought it into the real world. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this movie should be immediate required viewing for anybody who was deeply impacted by V for Vendetta. For anybody who’s already seen both, or for anybody who is able to complete this homework assignment ASAP, let me know what you think and how you feel afterwards.

Also, why do you think nobody else has been linking these movies together in the public mind? I mean, that’s a stupid question. Once you see both, it should be blazingly obvious.

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7 Reader Responses

  1. Tim Boucher Says:
    March 20th, 2006 at 6:44 pm

    For the adventurous bittorent people out there, here are two possibles:

    http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3293466
    http://www.greylodge.org/gpc/?p=137

    This also might be worth listening to:

    http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/05/1821243

  2. Stu Hood Says:
    March 21st, 2006 at 4:54 pm

    I watched V for Vendetta over the weekend and mostly noticed its similarities to Brazil, 1984 and Equilibrium. Having learned that the comic book was published in the early 80s, I gave it more props for not just being a rip-off of other stories.

    I watched The Weather Underground about a year ago, and I didn’t link the two movies together until I read your site, but I did liken the potential effect of V for Vendetta with The Corporation (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/), which was a real eye opener for me and more than just cathartic.

    As for V’s effect, I agree and don’t think many people’s eyes will be opened to the realities of the world by watching a fictional blockbuster filled with poetic cliches. I think it might nudge a few people who may be leaning left, but until most people’s lives are in actual danger they propably won’t care less about going out of their way to stand up against injustice.

  3. Stu Hood Says:
    March 21st, 2006 at 4:59 pm

    Another interesting thing is a survey we were handed when we walked into the theatre asking whether we were “Liberal, Moderate or Conservative” and whether we’d buy the movie and so on. This was in Toronto at a Famous Players cinema.

  4. N.M Says:
    March 22nd, 2006 at 1:59 pm

    The idea of revolution is best summed up in Animal Farm… The pig will always become the farmer.

    For example in V… What happens after the closing credits? Who’s to say that the third in line of the facist party, whom didn’t die at the hands of V, simply just take on the torch?

    The same of the WU, the realisation that you want to destroy the establishment, but offer no stable alternative other than anarchy. Anarchy then falls into the plans of prior establishment which holds their power in order out of chaos.

    Assuming then, that you do take the riens of government and want to turn the tides of years of facist-corporate order, you enevitably must establish a benevolent dictatorship to change all of the military-industrial and finaancial constructs established by the old order… thus comming back to your double bind that again…

    You end up being the farmer playing cards at the table.

  5. Tim Boucher Says:
    March 22nd, 2006 at 2:05 pm

    Great points. Or take a look at the crazy atrocities that happened after the French Revolution, which paralleled or exceed the excesses of the monarchy when it comes to violence.

  6. N.M Says:
    March 22nd, 2006 at 2:20 pm

    A great example of this type of political futility that I recently saw was a documentary called “Excellent Cadavers” about the historical struggle of Italians in battling the mafia in politics.

    No matter what steps they have taken in changing the Italian judical law in deaths and blood, they will always have a Burlusconi to change the laws back in favor of the established order.

  7. Tim Boucher Says:
    March 22nd, 2006 at 2:24 pm

    The Empire Never Ends



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