Customer Reviews

Blood in the Face [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an interesting and worthwhile video to see. The core issue comes during one of the interviews, when a grandfatherly man tells the interviewer that while he knows the filmmakers are using and making fun of them, they are also using the filmmakers to get their message out. Some of the characters in the film are nothing more than silly, such as the adolescents dressing up in SS uniforms, calling themselves the "Action group", and declaring that they are ready for anything. Others are more serious: true believers who are not just playing a role, but see themselves as activists for the White race. All in all, it gives everyone something to think about, from the screaming liberal, to the disaffected White man or woman looking for a connection.

From the "grand old man" George Lincoln Rockwell to today's wanna-be Stormtroopers, the militant fringe is exposed in their own words. Seething with hate, and ready for an excuse to launch a "rahowa" (Racial Holy War). This film is as disturbing as it is necessary to watch. If you can find it, watch the even earlier documentary "California Reich" to see this madness in it's incubation.

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.

instead of having commentary on what to think about the aryan nations, klan, etc., we are presenting with the facts and to make our OWN minds up as to what to think of them. I could not help but go back to the part where the lady says (and to paraphrase) that if we took away G.L.R.s right to speak we would be doing much the same to ourselves. This documentary was fantasticly laid out and presented to us and this should be viewed by all, especially those who don't like being told what to think.

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.

I have read quite a bit about political extremists. Therefore, I thought that Blood in the Face would be an interesting look at some of these people "in the flesh." The film, however, was a severe disappointment and I recommend that potential viewers avoid it.

Blood in the Face focuses on those who were active in the white supremacy movement in the late-1980s. The filmmakers attended a rally in rural Michigan and also conducted a number of interviews with both the movement's leaders and its foot soldiers. The presence of Michael Moore, as an interviewer, will no doubt interest many people.

The biggest problem with this film is that the views of the white supremacists simply are not interesting. Most of them cannot articulate why they believe the things that they believe. Most of their views center on the usual targets of the extreme right - international bankers, Jews, the U.S. Government, the media, etc. My wife and I both agreed that we were thoroughly bored after about the first 10-15 minutes of this clunker.

The filmmakers miss some opportunities to liven up this dull film. They interview the wife of Bruce Pierce, who was a member of The Order. The Order was the group that murdered Denver talk show host Alan Berg in 1984 and also robbed an armored car in California. Instead of focusing on Pierce and The Order, the filmmakers let her rant incoherently about her uninteresting views on race.

Another bizarre sequence is an archival 1960s interview with an inarticulate woman. American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell was assassinated in the parking lot outside a laundromat. The woman in the interview happened to be washing her clothes in the laundromat at the time of the assassination. The Rockwell assassination is tangential to the story that the filmmakers tell, but it still could have been interesting. Instead of telling that story, they chose to present the mind-numbing interview.

My opinion seems to be in the minority here, but I found Blood in the Face to be a dull way to spend an evening.

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.

First off, I am no fan of michael moore. That being said, however, I must tell you that this is a very good documentary of the boneheads being white spereatists. get it and enjoy.

Oh those nasty, inbred, brain-dead, rural neo-Nazis. The only thing worse than their hateful dipshit ideology, is their auto-pilot propensity for brutally carrying out their agenda. The swastika-huggers in THIS film don't seem to be able to spell AGENDA very well, though.