Published by Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, & Paul T. Klein
TV & Film
Film History
Film Interviews
Cold War Cinema is a podcast about movies made during the first few decades of the Cold War (1947–1991). Each episode primarily focuses on one film, and the hosts, Jason Christian and Anthony Ballas, discuss the director's life and work, the historical context of the film, and examine its themes that relate to the turbulent politics of the era. Theme music and editing on the first 14 episodes by Tim Jones; theme music from then on by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt), and editing by Jason Christian. Logo by Jason Christian
In this bonus episode we thought we'd do something different and chat about our personal backgrounds, our early cinema memories, and our scholarly interests today. We had fun with this conversation and we hope you enjoy it! _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Jason Christian recommends the book-length essay The Devil Finds Work by James Baldwin Tony Ballas recommends the book The Antinomies of Realism by Fredric Jameson and the movie Toy Story 5 (2026) Paul T. Klein recommends the books The Monster Show by David J. Skal and Anatomy of a Robot: Literature, Cinema, and the Cultural Work of Artificial People by Despina Kakoudaki, as well as the film Intruder in the Dust (1949) _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts: Follow Taylor uses the handle @trgenovese on X, Instagram, and Letterboxd. Information on his scholarship and visual art can be found on his website at taylorgenovese.com . Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
In this bonus episode, Jason interviews the historian Whitney Strub about his scholarship and his new book Films That Explode Like Grenades: Robert Kramer and the Search for a Radical Cinema , just published by University of Chicago Press. The book examines the New Left and its underground cinema through the life and films of one its most important participants, Robert Kramer (1939-1999). Whitney Strub is associate professor of History at Rutgers University–Newark. He is the author of Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right (Columbia University Press, 2011) and Obscenity Rules: Roth v. United States and the Long Struggle over Sexual Expression (University Press of Kansas, 2013), co-editor of ReFocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), and editor of Queer Newark: Stories of Resistance, Love, and Community (Rutgers University Press, 2024) . His work has also appeared in Radical History Review, Journal of the History of Sexuality, The Nation, and Temple of Schlock , among other venues. He is a longtime member and former chair of North New Jersey Democratic Socialists of America. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Whitney recommends Roberta Findlay's 1975 adult film Anyone But My Husband and the new book Baltimore's Black Arts Then & Now: Behind the Scenes of a Collaborative Public Humanities Project by Mary Rizzo Jason recommends the book Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960–1990 , co-edited by Andrew Nette and Samm Deighan . C heck out our interview with Andrew Nette from 2024. _____________________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts: Follow Whitney on X at @whitstrub . Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Jason also writes an infrequent newletter on left-wing cinema at Notes on Radical Cinema . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
The Cold War Cinema team returns to discuss Sidney Lumet's 1964 film Fail Safe, a powerful (and bold) independent Hollywood production that paints a horrific picture of a potential nuclear war. The film was released the same year as Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and has remained in its shadow, unfairly, ever since. In this episode we discuss: Sidney Lumut's fascinating and underrated cinematic career The political and historical context of Fail Safe (1964), a film that captures the paranoia of nuclear proliferation The film's critique of war technology and how that maps onto our current era of AI-assisted warfare. The limits of Hollywood storrytelling for a truly radical critique of US imperialism _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Jason recommends the 1992 book Signatures of the Visible by Fredric Jameson. Paul recommends the novel Advise and Consent by Allen Drury and Otto Preminger's 1962 film adaptiion Avise & Consent . Tony recommends the book Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality by Fredric Jameson and W.E.B. Du Bois's book Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil . _____________________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Jason also writes an infrequent newletter on left-wing cinema at Notes on Radical Cinema . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
"I want to underline my own belief that art must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition to it—otherwise life would become impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence." ― Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time (1986) The Cold War Cinema team is joined by guest Taylor R. Genovese to discuss Andrei Tarkovsky's debut feature film, Ivan's Childhood (1962), a Soviet masterpiece about the Great Patriotic War and prime example of Thaw–era cinema. Taylor R. Genovese is an assistant professor of philosophy at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He has also been a filmmaker and photographer for over a decade. His multimodal and transdisciplinary research focuses on Marxism, historical memory, and borderlands. He is also an editor and board member at Iskra Books, a nonprofit scholarly publisher that releases original works of revolutionary theory, history, ecology, and art. In this episode we discuss: Andrei Tarkovsky's life and career The historical and political context of Ivan's Childhood Tarkovsky's aesthetic vision and theological concerns How the concept of "toska" shapes the sensibilities of the literary and cinematic arts in the Slavic world, including in Tarkovsky's films. The moving image representation of trauma and transcendence in Ivan's Childhood . The poetry of Andrei's father, Arseny Tarkovsky, and its influence on the filmmaker. The Soviet astethetics of Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928), as articulated in his book Art and the Working Class , which Genovese translated from the Russian in 2022. To purchase the book (or download a free PDF), click this link . _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Taylor recommends the films Come and See (1985, dir. Elem Klimov) and Dead Man's Letters (1986, dir. Konstantin Lopushanskiy). Paul recommends a film and a record: Sergei Eisenstein's Strike (1925) and U2's War (1983). Tony recommends the book Freudianism: A Marxist Critique, by Valentin Voloshinov, and the new essay "The Enchanted Biopolitics of Dark Cosmism" by our guest Taylor R. Genovese. Jason recommends the film Kes (1969, dir. Ken Loach) _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts: Follow Taylor uses the handle @trgenovese on X, Instagram, and Letterboxd. Information on his scholarship and visual art can be found on his website at taylorgenovese.com . Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
In this bonus episode, cohosts Jason Christian and Anthony Ballas speak with the literary critic Ryan Ruby about New German Cinema, particularly the directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Alexander Kluge, and the film movement's fascination with the Red Army Faction ( Rote Armee Fraktion ) A.K.A. the Baader–Meinhof Gang, an ultra-left militant group in West Germany that existed in various forms from 1970 to 1998. Ryan Ruby is the author of Context Collapse: A Poem Containing a History of Poetry (Seven Stories Press, 2024) and The Zero and the One: A Novel (Twelve Books, 2017). For his essays and reviews, which have recently appeared in such venues as Harper's , Bookforum , and the New Left Review , he has received the Silvers Prize in Literary Criticism. He lives in Berlin, where he is working on a book of creative nonfiction about the city's mass transit system, tentatively titled Ringbahn: On Berlin Time , which will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in late 2027. _____________________ Ryan Ruby's forthcoming book on the cultural history of Berlin, with particular interest in the music scene and cinema of the 1970s The films Germany in Autumn (1978) and The Third Generation (1979) The Red Army Faction and 1960s/'70s militancy The political climate in Berlin today V.I. Lenin's critique of "adventurism" _____________________ We love to give recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Tony recommends the two-volume book The Magic of Robert-Houdin An Artist's Life The Watchmaker, Mechanician and Conjurer by Christian Fechner Ryan recommends the books Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F. by Stefan Aust and Fassbinder: Thousands of Mirrors by Ian Penman Jason recommends Bruce LaBruce's 2004 satirical RAF film The Raspberry Reich . [Warning: the film contains explicit sex scene s] _____________________ Find past guest Andrew Nette's Letterboxd list of films inspired by or about the Red Army Faction here . Check out our interview with Nette here . Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com . To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @ coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts and guest: Find Ryan Ruby's work at www.ryanruby.info Follow Jason on Bluesky @JasonAChristian.bsky.social , on X @jasonachristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Jason also writes an occasional newsletter called Notes on Radical Cinema . Follow Anthony on Bluesky @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X @tonyjballas , or on Letterboxed @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky @ ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
In this bonus episode, cohosts Jason Christian and Paul T. Klein interview the film historian Dr. Alice Lovejoy about her scholarship and her new book, Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War . The book examines the long and storied histories of the film manufacturing giants Kodak and Agfa and provides a materailst analysis of their involved in US and Germany imperialism around the world. Alice Lovejoy is a media and cultural historian and comparatist whose research examines governmental and institutional media, and media technologies, in transnational perspective. Her book Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War (University of California Press, August 2025) is a history of film and the factories where it was made. Shifting focus between the United States, Germany, the Belgian Congo, and the Soviet Union, the book considers the military, colonial, and environmental implications of film's entanglement with the chemical industry. Lovejoy's first book, Army Film and the Avant Garde: Cinema and Experiment in the Czechoslovak Military (Indiana University Press, 2015), was named co-winner of the Modern Language Association's 2018 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures. It was also awarded Honorable Mention for the 2016 University of Southern California Book Prize in Literary and Cultural Studies (ASEEES) and the 2017 Czechoslovak Studies Association Book Prize, and longlisted for the 2016 Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award. This book traces the emergence of an experimental film culture in the Czechoslovak Army's film studio (1929-1969), and includes a DVD of thirteen short films produced by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defense. Lovejoy is also at work on a project studying the intertwined histories of postwar children's television and film institutions—among them, Yugoslavia's "Film and Child" Commission, Iran's Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanoon), East Germany's National Center for Children's Film and Television, Czechoslovakia's Center for Films for Children and Youth, and UNESCO's International Centre for Films for Children and Young People. With Mari Pajala, she co-edited Remapping Cold War Media: Institutions, Infrastructures, Translations (Indiana University Press, 2022), and she has published widely on East European, particularly Czech and Slovak, film and literature. Lovejoy has worked as a film critic, curator, and filmmaker, including as an editor at Film Comment magazine. _____________________ We love to give recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Alice recommends the Norwegian television series Occupied (2015–2020), created by Jo Nesbø Paul recommends the 2016 documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time , directed by Bill Morrison Jason recommends Walter Rodney's 1972 book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com . To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @ coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. For more from your hosts and guest: Follow Alice on Instagram @alice__lovejoy, or on Bluesky @alicelovejoy.bsky.social, Follow Jason on Bluesky @JasonAChristian.bsky.social, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. Follow Anthony on Bluesky @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky @ ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
On this episode, the Cold War Cinema crew is joined by director, writer, and producer Adam McKay to discuss John Frankenheimer's paranoid, psychological thriller Seconds (1966). McKay has written and directed many celebrated feature films such as Anchorman (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), Step Brothers (2008), The Big Short (2015), Vice (2018), Don't Look Up (2021), and numerous others. Prior to this, McKay was a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade in the early 1990s, and head writer for Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2001. In 2019, McKay founded Hyperobject Industries, and has served as the executive producer of HBO's Succession (2019–2023), Game Theory with Bomani Jones (2022–2023), and, most recently, The Chair Company (2025) starring Tim Robinson. Synopsis of the film: Middle-aged banker Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) feels trapped in a life that has calcified into routine and regret. When he receives a phone call from an old friend who he thought was long dead, and a shadowy organization known simply as "the Company" offers him the ultimate second chance, he fakes his death, and undergoes radical surgery to assume a new identity. Reborn as artist Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson), he's given youth, wealth, and access to a new bohemian lifestyle on a seaside in Malibu. While his transformation at first feels intoxicating, the promise of freedom begins to fray and ultimately fracture. As Tony struggles to inhabit his new self, paranoia creeps in and the illusion of choice gives way to something far more unsettling. Shot in stark black-and-white with disorienting lenses and claustrophobic compositions, Seconds is less a sci-fi fantasy than an existential nightmare—an unsettling meditation on identity, conformity, and the seductive lie that starting over can save us from who we are. On this episode we discuss: McKay's work as a comedian, comedy writer, and filmmaker, his political and cinematic influences, the paranoid style of filmmaking in the 1960s, satire, the looming specter of climate apocalypse, why the world needs a Ho Chi Minh biopic, and much more. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Adam: Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident (2025) and Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan (2014) Paul: A Little Solitaire: John Frankenheimer and American Film by Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer Anthony Ballas: The Black Race by Ho Chi Minh by Dai Trang Nguyen and "Ho Chi Minh and Black Liberation" by Gerald Horne and Anthony Ballas. Jason: John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May (1964). _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com . To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @ coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. For more from your hosts and guest: Follow Adam on Instagram @mr.ghostpanther, or on Bluesky @ghostpanther.bsky.social, Follow Jason on Bluesky @JasonAChristian.bsky.social, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. Follow Anthony on Bluesky @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky @ ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
The Cold War Cinema team, Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein, return to discuss Mikhail Kalatozov's 1959 drama Letter Never Sent . Synopsis of the film: Four geologists descend on the Siberian Taiga. Over the course of a backbreaking summer sifting minerals in the icy, rushing waters of boreal rivers, the group–the experienced guide, Konstantin, a young couple, Andrei and Tanya, and the brooding Sergei–search for diamond deposits to enrich themselves and their country. Throughout, Konstanin writes an extended letter home to his wife Vera. Sergei, too, writes a letter, though never meant to be read, expressing his jealousy and Andrei and love for Tanya. When a massive forest fire breaks out, however, the group must work together to survive, not only the blaze, but the ravages of the elements and the fast-approaching and deadly Siberian winter… On this episode we discuss: The unbelievable production of a film shot on location in the USSR taiga. How the film reflects the tenents of socialist realism in complex and creative ways. How the film shares many of the sensibilites of the western genre and pairs nicely with John Ford's The Searchers in this regard. The basic theoretical aspects of scientific socialism and how the filmmaker uses them to shape the film's narrative and themes. The allegorical use of a diamond in the Soviet context versus the same in the capitalist West. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Paul: Two "Northwesterns": Bend of the River (Anthony Mann, 1952) and River of No Return (Otto Preminger, 1954) Tony: Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War by Vincent Brown Jason: Nail in the Boot (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1931) and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels Also, check out this fascinating interview on the Actually Existing Socialism podcast with the scholar Sardana Nikolaeva , who studies the Indigenous peoples of the northern regions of the Soviet Union (and present-day Russia) and their connection to the diamond mines that are imagined in the film. _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts and guest: Follow Aspen on Letterboxed at @aspenballas . Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonAChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas , or on Letterboxed at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
The Cold War Cinema team returns with special guest Aspen Ballas to discuss John Ford's 1956 western The S ear chers . Aspen is a PhD student of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research primarily focuses on aesthetics of race and class, and the relation between genre, medium, and politics. Synopsis of the film: Texas, 1868. A lone figure approaches a windswept homestead, against a dusty blue sky and flaming red buttes and cathedral-like mesas. Returning from the fight for the Confederacy, Ethan Edwards arrives home to his brother Aaron, Aaron's wife Martha, and to their children Ben, Lucy, little Debbie, and their adopted son Martin Pawley. But this is rough country, and a Comanche raid leaves the Edwards family torn asunder–Aaron, Martha, and Ben dead, and Lucy and Debbie taken captive. For seven years, Ethan and Martin search the vast wilderness, motivated not only by family bonds, but in Ethan's case, bloodlust and wild, racist hatred–a search not only to find Lucy and Debbie, but to enforce racial and sexual purity and to define Americanness itself… On this episode we discuss: The American mythmaking in The Searchers and in westerns generally. John Ford's attempt to critique anti-Indigenous racism, and the limitations of such a critique in the context of Hollywood filmmaking of this era. Militant Liberty, a top-secret psychological warfare program created by the Pentagon to promote anti-communist themes in Hollywood movies during the Cold War. John Ford was an eager participant in the program. The broader US imperialist context of the film's release and the historical background of the setting. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Aspen: The Face on Film by Noa Steimatsky; Raoul Peck's docuseries Exterminate all the Brutes (2021) Paul: The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend by Glenn Frankel Tony: Unsettled Borders: The Militarized Science of Surveillance on Sacred Indigenous Land by Felicity Amaya Schaeffer Jason : Versions of Hollywood Crime Cinema: Studies in Ford, Wilder, Coppola, Scorsese, and Others by Carl Freedman _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts and guest: Follow Aspen on Letterboxed at @aspenballas . Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonAChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas , or on Letterboxed at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
The Cold War Cinema team returns to discuss Grigory Chukhray's 1959 war drama Ballad of a Soldier. Alyhosha is 19-years-old private on the Eastern Front during the Great Patriotic War (A.K.A. World War II). After destroying two German tanks, Alyosha, played by Vladimir Ivashov, is rewarded with a short leave to return home to see his mother and repair her roof. Over the next six days, the young soldier travels home across the countryside, often crossing paths with his countrymen in both mundane and profound ways: A one-legged soldier running from his wife, the wife of another private, found living with another man, and a tender vagabond girl, Shura (Zhanna Prokhorenko), who he meets while hiding out in a rail car. Throughout his quiet picaresque, Alyhosha learns about the sacrifices and tenderness of a nation torn apart by war. Join hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as we discuss: The film's treatment of individualism versus collective responsibility. The train as a metaphor in both the Soviet and US contexts. The Soviet romance versus Hollywood romances. The Soviet treatment of nature and rural spaces in this film and others. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Paul recommends the film The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, William A. Wyler) and the book The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens 1946–1973 by Tony Balio. Tony recommends the book Peasants and Capital: Dominica in the World Economy by Michel-Rolph Trouillot Jason recommends the film The Forty-First (1956, Grigory Chukhray). _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
In this bonus episode of Cold War Cinema, Jason Christian is joined by the independent filmmakers Eric Marsh and Christopher Jason Bell, to discuss the films and legacy of the British filmmaker and media theorist Peter Watkins, who died on October 30, 2025, one day after his nintieth birthday. Watkins stands apart in film history for his bold cinematic vision, his innovations of the pseudo-documentary, and for his unflinching cinematic attacks on the mass media and authoritarian states. For these reasons and others, he has never been given his due in the academy or in popular culture. We discuss why this radical filmmaker is so important to us personally, and why his legacy should—and probably will—continue to grow. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Eric recommends the film Bisbee '17 (2018, Robert Greene). Christopher recommends the film Revolution Selfie (2017, Steven de Castro). Jason recommends the book Future Revolutions: New Perspectives on Peter Watkins (2018, various authors). _____________________ Find Eric Marsh's films here . Find Christopher Jason Bell's work here . Find our previous interview with Christopher Jason Bell here . Jason's essay on Punishment Park (1971) is found here . And his short piece on Privilege (1967) is here . (Scroll down.) _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . And for more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
"They're here already! You're next! You're next! You're next!" The Cold War Cinema team returns to discuss the 1956 sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers . Something is off in the sleepy little town of Santa Mira, California. As residents begin worrying that their family and friends no longer seem to be who they say they are, Dr. Miles Bennell and his former flame Becky Driscoll slowly uncover an alien plot to replace every person on earth with otherworldly duplicates. Directed by Don Siegel ( Riot on Cell Block 11 , Dirty Harry , Escape from Alcatraz ) and written by Daneil Mainwaring ( Out of the Past ), and with uncredited work by blacklisted screenwriter Richard Collins ( Song of Russia ), Invasion explores myriad maladies in midcentury American culture. Join hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as we discuss: The many complicated—and often contradictory—political allegories often read into the film from both the left and the right, including anti-communist and anti-conformist messages. The political and discursive handwringing done by Invasion's creative team to distance themselves and the film from its most potent politics. Invasion's other formal and narrative critiques of psychoanalysis, middle-class nuclear family values, professional expertise, and the Hollywood studio system. Why movies are not riddles to be solved. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Paul recommends Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, Tommy Lee Wallace). Tony recommends, The Burbs (1989, Joe Dante). Jason recommends No Down Payment (1957, Martin Ritt). _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
This week on Cold War Cinema, we look at Boris Barnet's Poet (sometimes refered to as The Poet ) , a 1956 feature about the role of art and literature in war and revolution. Join hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein for a broad-ranging conversation about the film and the politics of form and style. Throughout, we consider: The challenges of context-dependent domestic filmmaking and international spectatorship How film narrative and aesthetic modes like Socialist Realism participate in the construction of national myths, imaginaries, and ideologies Barnet's dynamic use of framing, blocking, color, and light to advance Poet 's plot and politics _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Paul recommends A History of Russian Cinema by Birgit Beumers. Tony recommends, The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of Haitian Revolution by Julius S. Scott. Tony emphatically does not recommend Literature and Revolution by Leon Trotsky. Jason recommends Miklós Janscó's 1967 Hungarian war film, The Red and the White . _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
"Are you waving the flag at me?" The Cold War Cinema team returns to look at Samuel Fuller's 1954 noir masterpiece, Pickup on South Street , with special guest Stephen Gillespie, film critic and cohost of The STACKS and I'm Thinking of Spoiling Things. When small-time thief Skip McCoy picks the wrong pocket on a busy subway car, he quickly becomes the most popular lowlife in town, trailed by crooked cops, the feds, and a Communist spy ring. Join Stephen and hosts Jason Christian and Paul T. Klein as they discuss: Why J. Edgar Hoover hated this movie. How the film makes sense of Cold War paranoia through its critique of American ideological systems Pickup on South Street 's depiction of the down-and-out and three-time losers that populate America's urban landscapes, and how the film suggests they got there. Writer-director Samuel Fuller's provocative and ultimately idealist politics _____________________ Each episode features book and film recommendations for further exploration. On this episode: Stephen recommends Samuel Fuller's film Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (1972) and Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret (2011). Paul recommends Samuel Fuller's film I Shot Jesse James (1949) and Peter Brooks' book The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess . Jason recommends Samuel Fuller's film Shock Corridor (1963) and J. Hoberman's book An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War . Check out Stephen Gillespie's two podcasts, I'm Thinking of Spoiling Things and The STACKS, and read his reviews of films and video games at Step Printed ( stepprinted.com ). Find him on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/stephenage/ . _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
In this bonus episode, cohost Jason Christian interviews the independent filmmaker Christopher Jason Bell. Besides being a filmmaker, Bell is a board of director of the streaming co-op MeansTV . Bell's archival doc series about George W. Bush's presidency, Miss Me Yet , can be watched on MeansTV and received praise from numerous outlets such as The Baffler , AV Club , and Filmmaker magazine. His third feature Failed State premiered at Torino Film Festival and is continuing to screen across the world. His newest documentary short, Attention Shoppers , features Abby Martin and can be viewed on MeansTV. His latest narrative short, The Confection , is now playing the festival circuit. In the episode, Christopher elaborates on his filmmaking process, especially making Miss Me Yet and Attention Shoppers , and how he used footage from the YouTube channel Vampire Robot to make the latter. Further, Christpher and Jason reflect on the political climate during the Bush years and today, and the similarities and differences between each era. If you subscribe to MeansTV, and use the promo code CHRISBELL, you'll get 10% off! On this episode: Christopher recommends Scott Noble's documentary The Power Principle: Corporate Empire and the Rise of the National Security State (2012) , Ian Bell's 2025 documentary WTO/9 9 , Tyler Rubenfeld's short horror film Another Sinking Sun (2023) , and the book The Sun Won't Come Out Tomorrow : The Dark History of American Orphanhood, by Kristen Martin. Jason recommends the podcast Blowback, particular Season One about the Iraq War. Follow Christopher Jason Christopher Bell on X (formerly Twitter): @UpdateTheGrids . Follow Jason Christian on X (formerly Twitter): @JasonAChristian . Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema .
This week on Cold War Cinema, we discuss the 1953 Soviet science-fiction drama, Silvery Dust, directed by Abram Room and Pavel Armand, a film once again set in the United States. The film concerns an American scientist who has developed a powerful new weapon of mass destruction designed to wipe out populations within a large area while leaving no harmful radioactive residues or traces. In the film, the scientist colludes with a Nazi colleague and various private interests, who all conspire with the government to use innocent Black men as test subjects, without their knowledge or consent. Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as we consider: The historical legacy of Operation Paperclip , a secret government program in which the US brought some 1,600 scientists, engineers, and technicians from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War II. The numerous government experiments conducted on minorities without their knowledge or consent, such as the Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee (1932-1972) The contradiction, in the film, of critiquing racism in America while using white Russian actors in "black face." Comparisons between American and Soviet propanda styles in the 1950s. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Paul recommends the book, Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom by Wendy Kline Tony recommends the book, The Selected Works of Ho Chi Hinh by Ho Chi Minh Jason recommends the book, Deterring Democracy by Noam Chomsky. _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema .
"Normal people want the basic human rights that accompany citizenship in any sovereign nation. I don't… I don't live anywhere; I'm not a citizen at all. I don't need my human rights." The Cold War Cinema team is back with special guest Matthew Ellis, a researcher, artist, and cohost of the Pacific Northwest Insurance Corporation Movie Film Podcast , for a special bonus episode covering Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme . Recently released on home video and streaming, the film follows the cunning, reprobate industrialist Zsa-zsa Korda (Bencio Del Toro) as he swindles his way into a massive infrastructure deal in the country of Upper Independent Phoenicia. Join Matthew Ellis and hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as they discuss: The Phoenician Scheme's connections to the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-backed cultural operation from 1950 that weaponized writers, artists, and other thinkers for intelligence operations. How Anderson's film reveals the Cold War origins of the contemporary world in its critiques of capitalism and the neoliberal project. The ways that The Phoenician Scheme breaks Anderson's hermetically sealed aesthetics and alludes to its formal limitations. _____________________ Each episode features book and film recommendations for further exploration. On this episode: Matthew recommends Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later . Paul recommends Matt Zoller Seitz's The Wes Anderson Collection and Louis Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation." Tony recommends Carpenter's Gothic by William Gaddis. Jason recommends The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World by Vijay Prashad. _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema . For more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social , on X at @JasonAChristian , or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic . Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social , on X at @tonyjballas . Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com , or on Letterboxed at @ptklein . Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
This week on Cold War Cinema, we discuss Robert Stevenson's 1949 drama, I Married a Communist, also known as Woman on Pier 13. This Hollywood production is one of the most storied—and notorious—anti-communist films of the early Cold War era. The movie revolves around a San Francisco shipping executive who worked his way up from the docks, as a stevedore, only to find himself embroiled in a Communist plot to sabotage a labor contract. Join hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as we consider: How Hollywood colluded with the government to portray Communists as nihilistic, intellectual, unfeeling and yet effeminate organized criminals. The condescension at the heart of anti-Communist propaganda in the US that implies that ordinary Americans are too "dumb" to recognize when they are being duped. The paradoxical role of unions in New Deal liberal ideology as a potential bulwark against Communists. The perennial recycled anti-Communist tropes in American political rhetoric to this day. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Paul recommends Foster Hirsh's 2023 book Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties: The Collapse of the Studio System, the Thrill of Cinerama, and the Invasion of the Ultimate Body Snatcher—Television. Tony recommends Gerald Horne's 2011 book, Fighting in Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawai'i . Jason recommends Rebecca Prime's 2013 book, Hollywood Exiles in Europe: The Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture . _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema .
"I used to think there was one America, but there are two. There's no place for me in McPherson's and Hearst's America, but there is in Lincoln's and Roosevelts!" This week on Cold War Cinema, we discuss Mikhaill Romm's 1948 drama, The Russian Question . In this Soviet production, winner of the 1948 Stalin Prize and based on a play of the same name by Konstantin Siminov, a mendacious newspaper editor sends columnist Harry Smith to the Soviet Union to write a book critical of socialism. But when the principled columnist returns to the United States, he quickly realizes that the American press intends to turn the Russian question—whether the Russians want war—into a statement with dangerous geopolitical ramifications. Join hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as we consider: The role of editing or montage in the construction of political critiques in aesthetic form Why the President of the Motion Picture Association called this a "sneering, lying attack on the United States" and an "open bid to stir contempt and hatred for America on the part of the Russian audiences," and why he got it all wrong How a Soviet film about a sensationalist American news media helps us understand our current political moment _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Paul recommends Clarence Brown's 1949 drama Intruder in the Dust . Tony recommends Langston Hughes 1961 collection, Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz . Jason recommends Mikhail Romm's 1961 drama Nine Days in One Year . _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com , or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema .
In this crossover episode with Rakeem Shabazz of Wise the Dome TV , Cold War Cinema co-host Anthony Ballas discusses the recent documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'État (dir. Johan Grimonprez 2024). The documentary explores the weaponization of jazz music during the Cold War, the contradictions of using Black art to mask American imperialism, and the legacy of artists like Louis Armstrong, Max Roach, and Nina Simone. Ballas breaks down how the film links Cold War coups and cultural propaganda to present-day resource extraction in the Congo, and why the documentary's archival style is itself a radical political act. Ballas also discusses his recent piece on the film (co-authored with Gerald Horne), "Antidote to Soft Power: Johan Grimonprez's Soundtrack to a Coup d'État" for Scalawag Magazine. Please subscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave a review! Also, make sure you check out and subscribe to Wise the Dome TV. _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Please drop us a line anytime at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. Happy listening!
Producer's note
Steal the structure. Not the show.
Keep the useful structure, then change the audience, point of view, and voice until the idea is unmistakably yours.
