Her Socialist Smile & Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind

Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind

Traversing the continental United States, John Gianvito documents four centuries of America’s history through lesser-known monuments, markers, and cemeteries—vestiges of the lives and labors of people who, during their time, were famous for opposing economic and social repression. Along the way, he views the sites of bygone struggles—King Philip’s War, the Boston Massacre, the Stono Rebellion, the Homestead Strike—and finds the final resting places of resisters and renegades who opposed the excesses of power: Frederick Douglass, Cesar Chavez, Mother Jones, Malcolm X, Susan B. Anthony, Crazy Horse, Frank Little, and a host of others. Softening these elegiac scenes is a sense of passive neglect—yet always with the glorious, timeless landscape and the sound of the wind over the din of distant traffic. As scholar David James notes, Gianvito “recalls the English Romantic poets, who similarly articulated love for the landscape with an outspoken condemnation of tyranny and venality.” (John Gianvito, 2007, 58 minutes)

Her Socialist Smile

Author, activist, lecturer, and crusader for those with disabilities, the extraordinary Helen Keller was unable to see or hear, yet through hard work became highly accomplished and famously outspoken. Her autobiography The Story of My Life and its dramatic adaptation The Miracle Worker made Keller’s name a household word. John Gianvito’s new film Her Socialist Smile is a spare, pure, and beautifully composed account of her political life as a supporter of progressive causes. Incorporating footage of her home life, her surroundings, and her teacher Anne Sullivan, the film’s focal point shifts to Keller’s own words—her many speeches—as she ardently advocates on behalf of the causes in which she so firmly believed. (John Gianvito, 2020, 93 minutes)