Point of Order! (1963)

Directed by Emile de Antonio

Point of Order! is at once a landmark in political cinema and an incendiary aesthetic statement. Constructed entirely from CBS kinescopes of the controversial 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, the film famously eschewed both expert testimony and narration. Said a characteristically blunt Emile de Antonio, narration is "inherently fascist and condescending." But like the best of the concurrent direct cinema works, Point of Order!'s attitudes are constructed in its edit: a surface-level "objectivity" that is, in reality, brilliantly fabricated. The result is not just a searing indictment of McCarthyism, but an exposé of the fissures in American democracy as filtered through the new medium of television.

Point Films. Producer: Emile de Antonio, Daniel Talbot. Screenwriter: Emile de Antonio. Editor: Robert Duncan. 35mm, 97 min.