Production details
Blood in the Face was inspired by a nonfiction book of the same name by author James Ridgeway, who is also credited as one of the film's directors. This documentary was largely shot in Cohoctah Township, Michigan. It focuses on a gathering of neo-Nazis, racists, and conspiracy theorists who expect people of color to ignite a Racial Holy War in the U.S.
Filmmakers Anne Bohlen and Kevin Rafferty take an intentionally leisurely, conversational tack with supremacists who have assembled for lectures and workshops on everything from getting their message out via home videos to moving all like-minded "white Christians" to the Pacific Northwest, especially the Idaho Panhandle.
According to the audio commentary on the Roger & Me DVD, Academy Award-winning American filmmaker Michael Moore appears as an off-screen interviewer because he was originally contacted to arrange a meeting between the filmmakers and the supremacists since he had previously interviewed them for a magazine. At the last minute, the filmmakers backed out of the interview and Moore stepped in to conduct it. Moore is thanked in the end credits.
Michael Moore does appear on camera during one interview, and can be heard during another interview.
While the cinéma vérité filming style of "Blood in the Face" gives audiences an unfiltered exposure to far-right extremist practices, the absence of narration and direction may help recruit more people to adopt such bigoted and harmful worldviews rather than educating them about the impact of extremism in America. Without outwardly criticizing the neo-nazi subjects through either voice-overs or filmmaker interviews, "direct cinema can espouse that which it seeks to expose" (125, Rabinowitz, 1993). The film's failure to challenge problematic ideals and hate speech gave racism and anti-semitism a free nationwide platform, spreading such ideologies across the country in a time preceding social media and the internet. According to critics of the film, "the subjects were delighted that the film was being made by James Ridgeway because they knew it would get wide distribution, unlike a film made by a crew of insiders" (125, Rabinowitz, 1993).
Roger & Me is a 1989 American documentary film written, produced, directed by, and starring Michael Moore, in his directorial debut. Moore portrays the regional economic impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith's action of closing several auto plants in his hometown of Flint, Michigan, reducing GM's employees in that area from 80,000 in 1978 to about 50,000 in 1992.
The Atomic Cafe is a 1982 American documentary film directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty. It is a compilation of clips from newsreels, military training films, and other footage produced in the United States early in the Cold War on the subject of nuclear warfare. Without any narration, the footage is edited and presented in a manner to demonstrate how misinformation and propaganda was used by the U.S. government and popular culture to ease fears about nuclear weapons among the American public.
David Eden Lane was an American domestic terrorist, white separatist, neo-Nazi, and a convicted felon. A member of the terrorist organization The Order, he was convicted and sentenced to 190 years in prison for racketeering, conspiracy, and the violation of the civil rights of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio talk show host, who prosecutors claimed was murdered by a member of the group via a drive-by shooting with Lane acting as driver, though they were unsuccessful in getting murder convictions. He died while still incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
James Nolan Mason is an American neo-Nazi. Mason is an ideologue for the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi terrorist organization. After growing disillusioned with the mass movement approach of neo-Nazi movements, he began advocating for a white supremacist revolution through terrorism. He was referred to as the "Godfather of Fascist Terrorism" in the Fair Observer. He has been convicted of assault and weapons charges, as well as charged with sexual exploitation and possession of pornographic images of a minor. In 2021, Mason was one of only two individuals sanctioned by the Canadian Government on its list of terror-related entities.
John Ross Taylor was a Canadian fascist political activist and party leader prominent in white nationalist circles.
James Fowler Ridgeway was an American investigative journalist. In a career spanning six decades, he covered many topics including automobile industry safety, American universities, far-right movements including the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazism, and campaigns against solitary confinement. He was the Washington correspondent for The Village Voice for over 30 years between the mid-1970s to mid-2000s, and had also worked for The New Republic, and Mother Jones. He had also contributed to magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Wall Street Journal, and The Economist among others.
Mark Adrian Collett is a British neo-Nazi political activist. He was formerly chairman of the Young BNP, the youth division of the British National Party (BNP), and was director of publicity for the party.
"The Fourteen Words" is a reference to two slogans originated by David Eden Lane, one of nine founding members of the defunct white supremacist terrorist organization The Order, and are accompanied by Lane's "88 Precepts." The slogans have served as a rallying cry for militant white nationalists internationally.
Kevin Brownlow is a British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, author, and film editor. He is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent documenting and restoring film. Brownlow has rescued many silent films and their history. His initiative in interviewing many largely forgotten, elderly film pioneers in the 1960s and 1970s preserved a legacy of early mass-entertainment cinema. He received an Academy Honorary Award at the 2nd Annual Governors Awards given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 13 November 2010. This was the first occasion on which an Academy Honorary Award was given to a film preservationist.
Barbara Kopple is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work. She is credited with pioneering a renaissance of cinema vérité, and bringing the historic french style to a modern American audience. She has won two Academy Awards, for Harlan County, USA (1977), about a Kentucky miners' strike, and for American Dream (1991), the story of the 1985–86 Hormel strike in Austin, Minnesota, making her the first woman to win two Oscars in the Best Documentary category.
Prussian Blue was an American pop music duo which was composed of Lynx Vaughan Gaede and Lamb Lennon Gaede, fraternal twins who were born on June 30, 1992, in Bakersfield, California. The duo was formed in early 2003 by their mother April Gaede, a member of the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance. Their music was described as racist and white supremacist, promoting neo-Nazi rhetoric such as Holocaust denial.
The California Reich is a 1975 documentary film on a group of neo-Nazis in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tracy, California, USA. They were members of the National Socialist White People's Party, another name for the American Nazi Party that was started by George Lincoln Rockwell. It was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but wasn't entered into the main competition. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Kevin Gelshenen Rafferty II was an American documentary film cinematographer, director, and producer, best known for his 1982 documentary The Atomic Cafe.
Clark Reid Martell is an American white supremacist and the former leader of Chicago Area SkinHeads (CASH), which was founded in 1985 by six skinheads under his leadership. This was the first organized neo-Nazi white power skinhead group in the United States. The group was also called Romantic Violence, and was the first US distributor of records and tapes from the English band Skrewdriver.
Stormfront is a neo-Nazi Internet forum, and the Web's first major racial hate site. The site is focused on propagating white nationalism, Nazism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as antifeminism, homophobia, transphobia, Holocaust denial, and white supremacy.
Friends Stand United (FSU) is an American anti-fascist, anti-racist, and anti-drug group. It was founded in the late 1980s by Elgin James in Boston, Massachusetts, evolving out of the hardcore punk scene and in particular the straight edge subculture. While originally having a reputation for fighting against Neo-Nazis and racist groups, in later years FSU members were accused of unprovoked violence and intimidation tactics. The group is classified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a street gang.
Welcome to Leith is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K. Walker about white supremacist Craig Cobb's attempt to take over the North Dakota city Leith. The film premiered on January 26, 2015 at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and, after a limited theatrical release on September 9, was broadcast on PBS' series Independent Lens on April 4, 2016.
Thomas Linton Metzger was an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi leader and Klansman. He founded White Aryan Resistance (WAR), a neo-Nazi organization, in 1983. He was a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Metzger voiced strong opposition to immigration to the United States, and was an advocate of the Third Position. He was incarcerated in Los Angeles County, California, and Toronto, Ontario, and was the subject of several lawsuits and government inquiries. He, his son, and WAR were fined a total of $12.5 million as a result of the murder of Mulugeta Seraw, 28, an Ethiopian student, by skinheads in Portland, Oregon, affiliated with WAR.
Skin is a 2018 American biographical drama film written and directed by Israeli-born filmmaker Guy Nattiv. The film stars Jamie Bell, Danielle Macdonald, Daniel Henshall, Bill Camp, Louisa Krause, Zoe Colletti, Kylie Rogers, Colbi Gannett, Mike Colter, and Vera Farmiga. The film is inspired by the true story of an American neo-Nazi skinhead named Bryon Widner.
