This is the first book to survey the entire career of Joris Ivens, a prolific documentary filmmaker who worked on every continent over the course of seven decades. More than a biography of a leftist committed to changing the world through film, The Conscience of Cinema is also a microcosmic history of the documentary and its form, culture, and place within twentieth-century world cinema. Ivens worked in almost every genre, including the essay, compilation, hybrid dramatization, socialist realism, and more. Whether in his native Netherlands, the Soviet Union, the United States, Vietnam, or beyond, he left an indelible artistic and political mark that continues to resonate in the twenty-first century.

Thomas Waugh is University Research Chair in Documentary and in Sexual Representation at Concordia University, Montreal, where he has taught since 1976. His most recent books are The Right to Play Oneself: Looking Back on Documentary Film (2011) and The Perils of Pedagogy: The Works of John Greyson (2013).

Introduction: "Joris Ivens and the Legacy of Committed Documentary"1. Ivens and the Silent Film Avant-Garde 1926-19292. The Radicalization of the Poet 1929-1936 3. The Anti-Fascist Front 1936-19414. World War II 1941-1946: Coalitions, Retrenchments5. Cold Warrior Behind the Iron Curtain 1946-19566. The Poet Reborn: "Lyrical Essays" 1956-19667. Southeast Asia 1966-1970: Reinventing the Solidarity Film8. China 1971-1989: from the Other to the Self