Marx Reloaded
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| Directed by | Jason Barker |
| Produced by | Jason Barker Irene Höfer Andreas Schroth |
| Written by | Jason Barker |
| Starring | Jason Barker John N. Gray Michael Hardt Antonio Negri Nina Power Jacques Rancière Peter Sloterdijk Alberto Toscano Slavoj Žižek Ivan Nikolic |
| Music by | Markus Rieger |
| Edited by | Nebojsa Andric Stevan Djordjevic Carsten Piefke |
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| Distributed by | Arte |
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52 minutes |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | English French German |
Marx Reloaded is a 2011 German documentary film written and directed by the British writer and theorist Jason Barker. Featuring interviews with several well-known philosophers, the film aims to examine the relevance of Karl Marx's ideas in relation to the effects of the Great Recession. The name is a wordplay on "The Matrix Reloaded", the sequel to The Matrix, which is parodied in the film.
According to the film’s website, “Marx Reloaded … examines the relevance of German socialist philosopher Karl Marx's ideas for understanding the global economic and financial crisis of 2008–09.” The film also considers, in the context of an alleged revival of Marxist thinking, whether “communism might provide the solution to the growing economic and environmental challenges facing the planet”.
In an interview with Verso Books, writer-director Jason Barker described his intention in making the film “to reload or reimagine Marx as a thinker, without the usual totalitarian moralising.” Barker criticised the “cliché” according to which “Marx's diagnoses of capitalism are validated whereas his 'prescription' of communism is rubbished on the grounds that it's 'utopian'.” Asked whether the renewed popularity of Marx is evidence of a return of communism as a political force, or “just the spectre of Marx haunting the academies", Barker replied that "political thinking today is again converging on precisely the type of social conditions in which Marx lived."
In a separate interview, Barker also discussed the film's use of animation, in particular his decision to parody The Matrix, admitting that although it was an "obvious parody" and "fun to make", there was also a philosophical dimension to the animation scenes in which Marx meets Leon Trotsky and Slavoj Žižek.
Marx Reloaded features interviews with several well-known philosophers, among them those often associated with Marxism and Communist ideas, including John Gray, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri, Nina Power, Jacques Rancière, Peter Sloterdijk, Alberto Toscano and Slavoj Žižek. The film also includes animation scenes with Marx trapped in a surreal world resembling the 1999 science fiction-action film The Matrix, which starred Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. In one such animated scene Marx (Jason Barker) encounters Leon Trotsky (Ivan Nikolic) in a pastiche of the red pill and blue pill scene in The Matrix in which Fishburne's character Morpheus first meets Reeves' character Neo.
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