Cold War Cinema

On this episode, the Cold War Cinema crew is joined by director, writer, and producer Adam McKay to discuss John Frankenheimer's paranoid, psychological thriller Seconds (1966). McKay has written and directed many celebrated feature films such as Anchorman (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), Step Brothers (2008), The Big Short (2015), Vice (2018), Don't Look Up (2021), and numerous others. Prior to this, McKay was a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade in the early 1990s, and head writer for Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2001. In 2019, McKay founded Hyperobject Industries, and has served as the executive producer of HBO's Succession (2019–2023), Game Theory with Bomani Jones (2022–2023), and, most recently, The Chair Company (2025) starring Tim Robinson. 
Synopsis of the film: Middle-aged banker Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) feels trapped in a life that has calcified into routine and regret. When he receives a phone call from an old friend who he thought was long dead, and a shadowy organization known simply as "the Company" offers him the ultimate second chance, he fakes his death, and undergoes radical surgery to assume a new identity. Reborn as artist Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson), he's given youth, wealth, and access to a new bohemian lifestyle on a seaside in Malibu. While his transformation at first feels intoxicating, the promise of freedom begins to fray and ultimately fracture. As Tony struggles to inhabit his new self, paranoia creeps in and the illusion of choice gives way to something far more unsettling.
Shot in stark black-and-white with disorienting lenses and claustrophobic compositions, Seconds is less a sci-fi fantasy than an existential nightmare—an unsettling meditation on identity, conformity, and the seductive lie that starting over can save us from who we are.
On this episode we discuss: McKay's work as a comedian, comedy writer, and filmmaker, his political and cinematic influences, the paranoid style of filmmaking in the 1960s, satire, the looming specter of climate apocalypse, why the world needs a Ho Chi Minh biopic, and much more.
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We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: 
Adam: Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident (2025) and Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan (2014) 
Paul: A Little Solitaire: John Frankenheimer and American Film by Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer
Anthony Ballas: The Black Race by Ho Chi Minh by Dai Trang Nguyen and "Ho Chi Minh and Black Liberation" by Gerald Horne and Anthony Ballas.
Jason: John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May (1964). 
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Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected].
To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. 
For more from your hosts and guest:
Follow Adam on Instagram @mr.ghostpanther, or on Bluesky @ghostpanther.bsky.social,
Follow Jason on Bluesky @JasonAChristian.bsky.social, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic.
Follow Anthony on Bluesky @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed @tonyjballas.
Follow Paul on Bluesky @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com 
Logo by Jason Christian 
Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). 
Happy listening!

The Cold War Cinema team, Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein, return to discuss Mikhail Kalatozov's 1959 drama Letter Never Sent. 
Synopsis of the film: Four geologists descend on the Siberian Taiga. Over the course of a backbreaking summer sifting minerals in the icy, rushing waters of boreal rivers, the group–the experienced guide, Konstantin, a young couple, Andrei and Tanya, and the brooding Sergei–search for diamond deposits to enrich themselves and their country. Throughout, Konstanin writes an extended letter home to his wife Vera. Sergei, too, writes a letter, though never meant to be read, expressing his jealousy and Andrei and love for Tanya. When a massive forest fire breaks out, however, the group must work together to survive, not only the blaze, but the ravages of the elements and the fast-approaching and deadly Siberian winter…
On this episode we discuss:
The unbelievable production of a film shot on location in the USSR taiga. 
How the film reflects the tenents of socialist realism in complex and creative ways. 
How the film shares many of the sensibilites of the western genre and pairs nicely with John Ford's The Searchers in this regard. 
The basic theoretical aspects of scientific socialism and how the filmmaker uses them to shape the film's narrative and themes. 
The allegorical use of a diamond in the Soviet context versus the same in the capitalist West. 
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We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: 
Paul: Two "Northwesterns": Bend of the River (Anthony Mann, 1952) and River of No Return (Otto Preminger, 1954)
Tony: Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War by Vincent Brown
Jason: Nail in the Boot (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1931) and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels
Also, check out this fascinating interview on the Actually Existing Socialism podcast with the scholar Sardana Nikolaeva, who studies the Indigenous peoples of the northern regions of the Soviet Union (and present-day Russia) and their connection to the diamond mines that are imagined in the film. 
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Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected].
To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. 
 For more from your hosts and guest:
Follow Aspen on Letterboxed at @aspenballas.
Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonAChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic.
Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed at @tonyjballas.
Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com 
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Logo by Jason Christian 
Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). 
Happy listening!

The Cold War Cinema team returns with special guest Aspen Ballas to discuss John Ford's 1956 western The Searchers. Aspen is a PhD student of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research primarily focuses on aesthetics of race and class, and the relation between genre, medium, and politics.
Synopsis of the film: Texas, 1868. A lone figure approaches a windswept homestead, against a dusty blue sky and flaming red buttes and cathedral-like mesas. Returning from the fight for the Confederacy, Ethan Edwards arrives home to his brother Aaron, Aaron's wife Martha, and to their children Ben, Lucy, little Debbie, and their adopted son Martin Pawley. But this is rough country, and a Comanche raid leaves the Edwards family torn asunder–Aaron, Martha, and Ben dead, and Lucy and Debbie taken captive. For seven years, Ethan and Martin search the vast wilderness, motivated not only by family bonds, but in Ethan's case, bloodlust and wild, racist hatred–a search not only to find Lucy and Debbie, but to enforce racial and sexual purity and to define Americanness itself…
On this episode we discuss:
The American mythmaking in The Searchers and in westerns generally. 
John Ford's attempt to critique anti-Indigenous racism, and the limitations of such a critique in the context of Hollywood filmmaking of this era. 
Militant Liberty, a top-secret psychological warfare program created by the Pentagon to promote anti-communist themes in Hollywood movies during the Cold War. John Ford was an eager participant in the program.
The broader US imperialist context of the film's release and the historical background of the setting. 
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We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: 
Aspen: The Face on Film by Noa Steimatsky; Raoul Peck's docuseries Exterminate all the Brutes (2021)
Paul: The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend by Glenn Frankel 
 
Tony: Unsettled Borders: The Militarized Science of Surveillance on Sacred Indigenous Land by Felicity Amaya Schaeffer
 
Jason: Versions of  Hollywood Crime Cinema: Studies in Ford, Wilder, Coppola, Scorsese, and Others by Carl Freedman
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Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected].
To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. 
 For more from your hosts and guest:
Follow Aspen on Letterboxed at @aspenballas.
Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonAChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic.
Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed at @tonyjballas.
Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com 
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Logo by Jason Christian 
Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). 
Happy listening!

The Cold War Cinema team returns to discuss Grigory Chukhray's 1959 war drama Ballad of a Soldier. 
Alyhosha is 19-years-old private on the Eastern Front during the Great Patriotic War (A.K.A. World War II). After destroying two German tanks, Alyosha, played by Vladimir Ivashov, is rewarded with a short leave to return home to see his mother and repair her roof. Over the next six days, the young soldier travels home across the countryside, often crossing paths with his countrymen in both mundane and profound ways: A one-legged soldier running from his wife, the wife of another private, found living with another man, and a tender vagabond girl, Shura (Zhanna Prokhorenko), who he meets while hiding out in a rail car. Throughout his quiet picaresque, Alyhosha learns about the sacrifices and tenderness of a nation torn apart by war.
Join hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as we discuss: 
The film's treatment of individualism versus collective responsibility. 

The train as a metaphor in both the Soviet and US contexts. 

The Soviet romance versus Hollywood romances. 

The Soviet treatment of nature and rural spaces in this film and others. 

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We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: 
Paul recommends the film The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, William A. Wyler) and the book The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens 1946–1973 by Tony Balio.
Tony recommends the book Peasants and Capital: Dominica in the World Economy by Michel-Rolph Trouillot
Jason recommends the film The Forty-First (1956, Grigory Chukhray).
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Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected].
To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. 
For more from your hosts:
Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. 

Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas.

Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com 

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Logo by Jason Christian 
Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). 
Happy listening!

In this bonus episode of Cold War Cinema, Jason Christian is joined by the independent filmmakers Eric Marsh and Christopher Jason Bell, to discuss the films and legacy of the British filmmaker and media theorist Peter Watkins, who died on October 30, 2025, one day after his nintieth birthday. Watkins stands apart in film history for his bold cinematic vision, his innovations of the pseudo-documentary, and for his unflinching cinematic attacks on the mass media and authoritarian states. For these reasons and others, he has never been given his due in the academy or in popular culture. We discuss why this radical filmmaker is so important to us personally, and why his legacy should—and probably will—continue to grow. 
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We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: 
Eric recommends the film Bisbee '17 (2018, Robert Greene).
Christopher recommends the film Revolution Selfie (2017, Steven de Castro).
Jason recommends the book Future Revolutions: New Perspectives on Peter Watkins (2018, various authors).
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Find Eric Marsh's films here. 
Find Christopher Jason Bell's work here.
Find our previous interview with Christopher Jason Bell here. 

Jason's essay on Punishment Park (1971) is found here. And his short piece on Privilege (1967) is here. (Scroll down.)
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Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected].
To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. 
And for more from your hosts:
Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. 

Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas.

Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com 

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Logo by Jason Christian 
Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). 
Happy listening!