Viewing seven documentaries about the Lincoln Brigade in two days, a curious thing happened: I had difficulty telling them apart. Not, of course, in their broad sweep. Rather, it was in the details, and more specifically in the archival footage, where I had difficulty distinguishing them.
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Author Archive
Documentaries of the Lincoln Brigade
Nunca fui a Granada
Last night a young Spanish poet, Isabel Cadenas, showed me her blog: nuncafuiagranada.blogspot.com. When I asked her why she chose that line from Rafael Alberti's homage to Federico García Lorca, victim of a fascist firing squad in the first month of the civil war, she replied "Because I've never been to Granada." Alberti...
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The Ghost of Gerda Taro
Viewing Taro’s negatives of the Battle of Brunete, preserved for seventy years in the Mexican Suitcase, is like seeing a ghost. They constitute a visual record of the last days of her life. Indeed, many of them have a ghostly quality. Whether the negatives have deteriorated over the years or were originally overexposed, many of them have a phantom look to them:...
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University Honors Vet Osheroff
The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights has chosen two students to receive human rights awards in honor of Lincoln vet Abe Osheroff and his wife Gunnel Clark. This year’s winners are graduate students Erin Murphy and Peter Morris, each of whom will receive $750 toward their international human rights...
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