Emile de Antonio (1919 1989 R.I.P.) was a director and producer of documentary films, usually detailing political or social events circa 1960s - 1980s. He was born in 1919 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended Harvard with John F. Kennedy and would later go on to make a film about Kennedy's assassination called Rush to Judgment. After serving in the military during World War II, de Antonio frequented the art crowd, often associating with such Pop artists as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, in whose film Drink de Antonio appears. De Antonio chronicled this art scene in his documentary Painters Painting (1972).
In 1959 de Antonio developed G-String Productions in order to distribute the Beat Generation film Pull My Daisy. It was at this time that de Antonio discovered filmmaking. His first film, Point of Order, a compilation film made in 1964, regards Joseph McCarthy and the Army-McCarthy hearings.
De Antonio went on to make many politically motivated films that attracted a substantial amount of controversy and also tended to align himself with Marxist thought. Most, if not all, of his films criticize aspects of American culture or politics or reflect a certain degree of political dissension, because of which, along with his Marxist affiliation, the FBI documented 10,000 pages of de Antonio's activities.
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Warren Hinckle became editor of Ramparts Magazine in 1961. The magazine became the voice of the American New Left. It was also highly critical of the Warren Commission.
At the end of 1966 Desmond FitzGerald head of the Directorate for Plans, took charge of Operation Mockingbird, discovered that the Central Intelligence Agency had been secretly funding the National Student Association. FitzGerald ordered Edgar Applewhite to organize a campaign against the magazine. Applewhite later told Evan Thomas for his book, The Very Best Men: "I had all sorts of dirty tricks to hurt their circulation and financing. The people running Ramparts were vulnerable to blackmail. We had awful things in mind, some of which we carried off."
This dirty tricks campaign failed to stop Ramparts publishing this story in February, 1967. As well as reporting CIA funding of the National Student Association it exposed the whole system of anti-communist front organizations in Europe, Asia, and South America was essentially blown.
After the closure of Ramparts Magazine, Hinckle was editor of the City of San Francisco, a radical weekly newspaper owned by Francis Ford Coppola, Scanlan's Monthly and Argonaut, a literary and political journal. He has also written for the San Francisco Independent and the San Francisco Chronicle. He also edited War News during the 1991 Gulf War.
Hinckle is also the author of several books including his autobiography, If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade (1974), The Richest Place on Earth (1978); The Fish is Red : the Story of the Secret War Against Castro (1981) and The George Bush Dilemma (1989). Hinckle was co-author with William Turner of Deadly Secrets (1992), a book about the CIA operations against Fidel Castro and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Emile Francisco de Antonio (May 14, 1919 -- December 16, 1989) was an American director and producer of documentary films, usually detailing political or social events circa 1960s--1980s. He has been referred to by scholars and critics alike, and arguably remains, "...the most important political filmmaker in the United States during the Cold War."
de Antonio was born in 1919 in in the coal-mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. His father, Emilio de Antonio, an Italian immigrant, fostered the lifelong interests of Antonio by passing on his own love for philosophy, classical literature, history and the arts. Although his intelligence allowed him the privilege of attended Harvard University alongside future-president John F. Kennedy, he was also familiar with the working class experience, making his living at various points in his life as a peddler, a book editor, and the captain of a river barge (among other duties).
After serving in the military during World War II as a bomber pilot, de Antonio returned to the United States where he frequented the art crowd, often associating with such Pop artists as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, in whose film Drink de Antonio appears. Warhol was famously quoted praising de Antonio with the words, "Everything I learned about painting, I learned from De."
The book Necessary Illusions (1989) by Noam Chomsky and the documentary Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) by Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick are dedicated to Emile de Antonio.
Filmography Point of Order (1964) McCarthy: Death of a Witch Hunter (1964) Rush to Judgment (1967) America Is Hard to See (1968) In the Year of the Pig (1968) Charge and Countercharge (1969) Millhouse: A White Comedy (1971) Painters Painting (1972) Underground (1976) In The King of Prussia (1982) Mr. Hoover and I (1989)
a new THREAD!
This thread doesn't say "only" in the title, so feel free to post your reactions, additional info, back and forth arguments, etc. whatever
Maybe you run across good stuff, bring it here, I'd like a thread of "quality" longer form sources. The video-only thread should stay for shorter and/or less talkative stuff. Make sense?
