Product Details

• Actors: Anne Bohlen, Michael Moore, Kevin Rafferty, James Ridgeway
• Directors: Anne Bohlen;Kevin Rafferty;James Ridgeway
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
• DVD Release Date: August 21, 2007
• Run Time: 78 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000QJLQEO
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #79,040 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Truly bizarre! Without a zombie in sight, this is the best horror film in years. --Austin Chronicle

Product Description

A riveting, jaw-dropping view of America s white supremacy movement. Rare archival footage, darkly humorous interviews, and their own promotional material bring to light the inner workings of the Ku Klux Klan, the American Nazi Party, the Aryan Nation, The Order, and other radical right groups. Controversial and timely, Blood in the Face reveals the dark side of America.

As the men and women portrayed here speak sometimes with passion but often with a folksy, matter-of-fact certainty of the imminent race wars, Armageddon, interracial breeding, the Holocaust 'hoax' , the Christian Identity faith (and its true Israelites), the 35,000 Viet Cong in British Columbia poised to attack America, and 'ZOG' (The Zion Occupation Government), it becomes clear they are not quite the patriotic, bedrock Americans they claim to be. And after the Oklahoma City bombing and their continuing efforts to demonize immigrants and arm themselves to the teeth, its clear they are not harmless in their lunacies either.

With interviews by Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine), the film was conceived by James Ridgeway (political correspondent for The Village Voice) with co-producers Anne Bohlen (Academy Award Nominee) and Kevin Rafferty (co-producer of The Atomic Cafe).

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The banality! The banality!, June 10, 2008

By	Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In "Heart of Darkness," Joseph Conrad's character Kurtz's famous dying words are "The horror! The horror!" Kurtz has looked into the face of evil, and the experience was so explosive that it destroyed him.

Conrad's characterization of evil as a mysterious, implacable, overwhelming, consciously malevolent "heart of darkness" is one that most of us resonate with. But as philosopher Hannah Arendt pointed out in the early 1960s when covering the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, evil can also be "banal." Part of what she meant is the process that occurs when people fail to think or judge rationally, and so just accept as "normal" certain kinds of behavior that critical reflection would spot as wicked. But in using the word "banal," Arendt also wanted to de-melodramatize evil. Evil actions are more often sordid and grimy, based on ignorance and stereotypes, than diabolically clever.

"Blood in the Face" (which takes its title from the racist myth that only Aryans have moral sensibilities and are capable of blushing) is a perfect example of the banality of evil in both senses. Filmed at a Michigan gathering of Nazis, KKKers, and Christian Identity loyalists, the film exposes the sheer stupidity, paranoia, and incoherence of the True Believers.

Perhaps nowhere is the pathetic nature of it all better captured than in the description of George Lincoln Rockwell's tawdry murder at a laundromat. But there are lots of other examples: the long-haired yahoos in faux SS uniforms proudly announcing that they're ready for race war; the nerdy teenager who insists he wouldn't be a racist or a Christian if it weren't for the "lovable" teachings of Rockwell; the wedding between two KKK-robed lovers at a cross-burning; an old guy in a bola tie who gets so furious in denouncing Ronald Reagan as a Jew-lover that he looks positively apoplectic; the stern-faced warnings of a coming Armageddon, which will break the US up into racial enclaves; the bizarre Christian Identity claim that Anglo-Saxons are really the chosen people referred to in the Old Testament, and that Jews are imposters; and the dimwitted would-be television host who clumsily interviews fellow-racists and proudly announces that "we want to create a show that will make white people look intelligent." Duh.

The ridiculousness of these and other beliefs make for some genuinely hilarious interviews in the film. But this oughtn't to minimize the fact that neo-Nazis, for all their banality, both advocate and occasionally practice violence. Viewers are reminded of this at the film's end--just another lesson that evil in the world needn't be plotted by Hollywoodish mastermind villains to be horribly effective.

Highly recommended.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Documenting Hate, December 1, 2008

By	J. Thomas - See all my reviews

The film gives some history by introducing 1964 Nazi write-in Presidential canidate George Lincoln Rockwell who believed Hitler to be the second coming of Christ.
Video journalist Michael Moore escorts us to the white separatist lodges for an earful of hateful rhetoric.
Not surprising but shocking non the less.
2009 has proven to be the year of the right wing extremist terrorist, which should be expected with a black democrat as president.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Old School Documentary, January 23, 2008

By	Bernard Chapin "Ora Et Labora!" (CHICAGO! USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Like the other reviewer (there's only one other post at the moment) I too am not a fan of Michael Moore, but, while watching one of the documentaries concerning him I saw of clip of his interviewing a storm trooper in Blood in the Face. I've wanted to check out his whole oeuvre for some time so I gave it a viewing. He's not in the film much though, and is not listed as a producer or director. He is the principal questioner in several of these sequences. It may have been Ridgeway or Rafferty, but one of the guys he worked under recounted working with Moore and telling him that the director should never be present onscreen in his film. Then, after contemplating his former advisee's success, stated that he thought it was incorrect.

I don't think it was though. We see why he was right in Blood in the Face. The product itself is a thoughtful, fair, and technically strong documentary which places it miles about Moore's works as his are mockumentaries. The director lets the subjects tell their own story. Here we have no manipulation, and we don't feel like we're being slimed. The dispassionate, legitimate approach to filmmaking is one that Moore would be wise to reexamine in my estimation.

Furthermore, with this topic there was really no reason to embellish. Bohlen and Rafferty let the paranoiacs tell the tale and it is pretty pathetic. Who needs to embellish when you're working with the cast of Conspiracy Theories? I found it both depressing and sad. However, folks like these are real outliers in society and are regularly watched and harassed by the FBI--something that cannot be said about plenty of other hate groups. Their dreams are foolish and do not appeal to their con-specifics. They certainly don't speak for me or anyone else I've ever met, but I do wish Moore would take a look at his past and practice some objectivity when making his films.