I hear that American actor, Tom Hanks may be making a film about rock legend, Dean Reed. I hope it will be entertaining and also true to its subject. It is really very difficult to get a real picture of this musician and political activist's life because so many of the biographies seemed filled with the sort of unthinking, pro-capitalist rhetoric that permeated the West (or the UK, at any rate) during both the Cold War and the triumphalist period from the end of the Cold War to the present incipient collapse of the particularly rabid form of capitalism which has dominated economics and politics for the past 30 years. Reading them is like having to suspend disbelief and sussing out meaning between the lines.
I remember that when the otherwise excellent film about Johnny Cash was made, a couple of years ago, I was angered, though barely surprised, that any reference to his political beliefs had been censored by omission.
Same applies to both the film and book, 'The Kite Runner', i.e. no criticism of US foreign or domestic policies seems to get through.
Clooney can do it - 'Syriana', 'Three Kings', 'Michael Clayton', etc. - because he is Clooney. I hope that in this instance Hanks will have the same sort of courage.
It is interesting and apt, in this context in relation to Dean Reed, that the collapse of the banking system in Argentina around a decade ago seems to have been a harbinger of doom for the bloated global capitalist system.
It was not just in the Eastern Bloc that Dean Reed was admired; many people in the economic South also hugely admired Dean Reed. During his lifetime, he remained virtually unmentionable in the West, a non-person, one might say.
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