P U L S E

Shortly after the passing of Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove wrote in the New Left Review that his friend and colleague had always

reminded us of the history of social change in this country, and kept coming back to the essential lessons that it seems we so often forget or need to learn anew.  That change comes from below. That progress comes only with struggle. That we cannot rely on elected officials or leaders. That we have to rely on our collective self-activity, social movements, protest.  That change never happens in a straight line, but always has up and downs, twists and turns.  That there are no guarantees in history.

The idea that positive change results from determined commitment to collective action operates at the core of The People Speak, co-directed by Arnove, Zinn and Chris Moore. First appearing on the History channel in late December 2009, the film features well-known celebrities narrating scenes from radical American history that have been excluded from traditional narratives. Recognizing the transformative power of entertainment as an educational medium, Arnove and others are now working on turning The People Speak into a DVD-ROM designed for American schools, as well as talking with people in other countries about creating versions of The People Speak that are region-specific.

I recently sat down with Arnove in New York where he explained how The People Speak is part of a growing project focused on using entertainment for progressive causes and the ways in which the film preserves Zinn’s remarkable legacy.

Jasmin Ramsey (JR): You started having public performances of The People Speak in 2003.  It’s been a long road since the release of the DVD version. What stands out most in your mind about this journey?

Anthony Arnove: The road actually starts much earlier than 2003 with Howard in the 1970s writing a book that grew to have an impact no one imagined for a book of radical history.  Most books do not have the sales pattern of selling more books every year, but Howard’s touched a nerve with its readers and by 2003 it sold its millionth copy.  One of the things that helped zeitgeist A People’s History of the United States was cultural references. It was mentioned in “The Simpsons” and an episode of “The Sopranos” which opens with Tony Soprano reading the book.  But I think the most significant reference was in a film called “Good Will Hunting” and that film was written by Matt Damon (a neighbor of Howard’s) and Ben Affleck.  Chris Moore was a producer.

A milestone occurs in 2003.  HarperCollins approached Howard and said they wanted to put together an event to honor the book.  Our idea was to get some historians to discuss and read from it, but Howard was not interested.  By that point he and I had collaborated on some projects the idea occurred to him that we should have actors and musicians read from it.  In 2003 the first performance had some excellent performers including Kurt Vonnegut and Patty Smith and it was based on a script we had put together from the book.  It turned out to be an amazingly powerful production.

JR: Can you describe your relationship with Howard Zinn?

Arnove: I of course knew Howard before he knew me.  His work had a huge impact on me when I started reading it at 19.  I worked at a publishing house in Boston called South End Press and we had published a play by Howard called Emma, about Emma Goldman. Then one day I answered the phone to hear his very distinctive voice.  He as calling because one of his friends who he had been corresponding with for a long time while that friend was in prison was getting out and having to deal with all the challenges presented to those transitioning from prison back into society.  He was calling around to try to find work for his friend and this was exactly the kind of radical Howard was. Around a month after coming out of that conversation I got an invitation from Howard to come to a reading of his play Marx in Soho and I just thought it was brilliant.  This was around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union and all the talk about the death of Marxism and we decided to publish it as a book and that began the editing and publishing process.  I also reissued a number of his pieces that had gone out of print at South End.

JR: You have a variety of different film stars and musicians in The People Speak.  Did any of the performers you approached turn you down?

Arnove: No actors turned us down.  There were those who would have liked to participate but couldn’t because of pre-scheduled events.  The reception we received was actually quite phenomenal.  Howard’s name opens all doors.

JR: What was your budget?

Arnove: Our budget was higher than it needed to be if we were to do everything all over again.  That’s because we originally conceived of this as something that would be a one-time shoot in a beautiful theatre called the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Emerson, Boston.  But what ended up happening is that a number of people who wanted to be involved but couldn’t initially became available suddenly, such as Bruce Springsteen who asked us if we’d like to shoot in his home in New Jersey.  Then other opportunities arose.  We went to the Sundance Festival, the Toronto Festival and so at the end of the day we spent over 3 million, but we wanted it to look very professional and shot everything in HD.  We had a lot of cameras and we also shot much more than what you’ve seen because we’re going to start developing materials like DVD-ROMS for schools.  We are sitting on roughly 100 hours of footage as well, which also explains why we went over budget.  It was about creating an archive and preserving Howard’s legacy.

JR: Many scenes in The People Speak deal with people coming together to protest injustice.  What methods do you think people need to embrace today to bring about change?

Arnove: There are a few lessons about organizing that people can take from the stories we highlight in this film.  The first is that if you look at the struggles that we document, none of them came about through shortcuts or easy victories.  You see Frederick Douglas fighting to end slavery and another abolitionist, John Brown.  Douglas sees it, Brown doesn’t.  But if you had asked Douglas early in his lifetime if he thought he was going to see the end of slavery, he probably would have said no.  The changes that have to occur for something like that to happen in a society that was founded on slavery are enormous, but he fought for it anyway.  So when people say I marched on February 15, 2003, and we didn’t stop the war so protest doesn’t work, I think they’re taking a very short-sited view.  There needs to be more than just one protest for something like that to have any effect, particularly when there is so much at stake for the United States and the powers that be.

Achieving positive change doesn’t only involve taking a longer-term view, it requires learning the lessons of how people achieved victories in the past.  It also involves organizing and I don’t see that degree of collectivity that this requires today.  People are much more isolated and their actions are much more individual-oriented. But I am hoping that we will see a revival.  There was an energy, a sentiment of desiring change, but it’s going to take people organizing and really fighting and figuring out ways to have an impact.

JR: Can you describe how you envision The People Speak entering the educational sphere in the US?

Arnove: We’re really still at the production stage creating materials for schools.  We’ve partnered as the film with the non-profit I mentioned earlier, Voices of a People’s History of the United States, which Howard and I setup around these performances.  Very few teachers could show the whole film in the classroom so this makes it much more convenient and likely for them to use it.  It’s too early to tell how schools will use it, but what we know is that more and more teachers are being forced to teach to test, and teaching materials are expected to conform to what are called standards, which are these narrow and rigid definitions of what materials correspond to which standards for tests.  And of course, those differ state by state. So it has been a real minefield and we’re having to consult with a lot of people with expertise in this area to make it as easy as possible for teachers to bring this into their curriculum.

The reason I think Howard’s book is selling more and more copies every year is because there are enough teachers out there that really care about their students, and given that we have such a visual and celebrity-oriented culture, we’re hoping that those aspects of this project will help us get our foot in the door.  From there we will figure out ways we can open it further.

JR: The People Speak focuses on the question of race in the US and how it has shaped American history. What do you think Zinn would have thought about Arizona’s new immigration law?

Arnove: Howard would have been absolutely outraged by what is happening in Arizona.  He was a fierce advocate for immigrant rights.  He gave a speech called “No one is illegal” advocating for the rights of undocumented immigrants.  He’s someone who recognized that the history of the United States is a history of immigration.  Almost everyone’s ancestors were at one point part of a marginalized immigrant community, and in many cases undocumented communities as this is a country which was built on slavery, forcibly bringing people to this country to build up the riches of the capitalist class while exploiting their labor.  So it’s just shocking to see the level of racism today towards immigrants and Howard was always aware of that.  He also understood that in times of economic crisis this country has always looked for scapegoats and immigrants are often targets, particularly people of color.

On the other hand, I think he would have been thrilled to see the Arizona Suns wearing “Los Suns” jerseys and people taking stands against what’s going on and organizing and speaking out.  He would have been with those people if he could have been.

JR: You have studied American history throughout your career.  Can the “people” of America, specifically low income, working-class people that are looking for progressive changes in healthcare, law enforcement and US foreign policy be hopeful today?

Arnove: Certainly we face enormous challenges – the threat of nuclear war, the destruction of the government, the ongoing occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the escalation of the war on Afghanistan by Barack Obama and the economic crisis is the worst crisis we’ve seen since the 1930s, but there is enormous reason for hope right now.  We just had an election in which whatever the outcome in terms of policy changes, you saw people mobilize and organize to elect the country’s first African-American president.  You saw people repudiating the agenda of the Bush Administration, coming in majorities to oppose our entrance into Iraq and Afghanistan, embracing the idea of a national health care plan, coming to reject tax cuts for the rich, a whole series of attitudes emerged in an environment where the established, corporate media acts as a mouthpiece for the administration’s views.  People’s natural intelligence and sensibility emerged and we saw a huge mobilization of people organizing for change. Now the problem in the US is the way the 2 party duopoly works.  That change, that sentiment, that desire, gets funneled into electoralism, into the confines of what’s possible as defined by the Democrat and Republican parties.  That’s why we’re hoping that one of the things this film reminds people of is the fact that change doesn’t come from above, it doesn’t come from elected officials, no matter how intelligent or well-meaning they may be.  It comes about through social movements, it comes from below, it comes from people organizing on their own behalf.

JR: What are your future plans?

Arnove: We’re working on a British version of this project with Colin Firth, an actor who had attended some performances of Voices of People’s History of the United States and also a play version that we’ve been developing called Rebel Voices.  Colin organized a reading of it in London a few years ago and now he’s working with me and some of the people of the People Speak to bring it to British television, exploring British history, including resistance to the British empire.  We’re also talking to some actors and directors in Australia, Spain, Canada and South Africa.  We’re working to develop a version in Spanish for the US audience.  The idea is to basically take this format, this way of exploring people’s history, and see if we can use that to shine a light on struggle in other countries.  I’m also setting up a production company with some of the people I worked with on the People Speak to do more projects along similar lines, basically entertainment with a purpose.  Projects that can entertain people, that can reach a wide number of viewers, but at their core have a social, educational and political vision that will hopefully galvanize sentiment for change.

JR: Do you have any advice for young filmmakers who aspire to bring about progressive social change with their films?

Arnove: Be persistent. Be dogged. The reality is that’s how Howard wrote A People’s History of the United States, and that’s how he became the person he was.  He had a vision and he stuck to it and he worked extremely hard and created a space for himself knowing that there was an audience out there, knowing that if he did work that was meaningful, that had something important to say, it would have an impact.  I think I see a lot of people in the arts but also in politics today that think that if results don’t come about immediately, they should give up and go home.  But good things don’t happen instantly in politics or art and you have to vision and also enjoy what you’re doing.  You have to do it for the sake of doing it, not because it’s going to bring you success or fame.  You have to do it because you care about your cause and there’s nothing else you’d rather do.

To learn more about The People Speak, click here.

To purchase the broadcast version of the film, click here.

You can also purchase The People Speak from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Tagged: Anthony Arnove, Howard Zinn, The People Speak