Matt Kaufman and Dean Bonzani got into an interesting discussion about propoganda and the Capra movie Why We Fight. I thought I'd bring it up to the front so they could go back and forth more easily.
BTW, you can subscribe to comments by checking the appropriate box when you leave a comment of your own (you have to supply your own email address obviously). Then you get an email when someone leaves a comment on this article, so you can follow the back and forth more easily.
Here's some discussion ideas from Matt:
I think a big issue today is that the “Mainstream Media” were long thought to present a balanced and objective viewpoint of news and events. There were exceptions - everybody knew that McCormick's Chicago Tribune was a conservative paper - but now EVERYONE feel that every media organ out there is “progogating an agenda” rather than “reporting objectively”. Propoganda need not have a bad name - it can have a noble objective, as WWF certainly did, but when it is presented as “truth” rather than “persuasion”, or in the case of totalitarian regimes, “indoctrination”, then you run into real problems.
And a thought from me is that Fahrenheit 9/11 was clearly a piece of propaganda. Perhaps I could call it Why We Shouldn't Fight.
Contrast that with some other films I've seen about Iraq like Iraqi Voices.
Anyways, here's a recap:
Dean:
I actually own the five VHS set of Capra's “Why We Fight” and like watching an old TV ad or newsreel. I picked it up thinking that it was a history series, and as I was watching it, it was clear that it was propoganda. For good reasons, but still propoganda, and it was hard to extract the history from it at times.
If a Capra were to make a film series in the present to explain to our troops why they're in the Middle East(if it hasn't already been done), I wonder how it would look and sound. Are we more sophisticated now? And if we are, is that why we demand more of our war flicks?
Any show is only as good as its writers, director, and actors anyway.
Matt:
The term “Propoganda”, as I recall, did not originally have a pejorative sense to it, ala “Ah, that's just a bunch of propoganda” meaning “Ah, that's just a bunch of lies and half-truths.”
One definition is:
Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation aimed at serving an agenda. At its root, the denotation of propaganda is 'to propagate (actively spread) a philosophy or point of view'. The most common use of the term (historically) is in political contexts; in particular to refer to certain efforts sponsored by governments or political groups.
The Propogandic purpose behind “Why We Fight” was to attempt to help soldiers and citizens understand why the US was sending millions of men overseas, hundreds of thousands of which would soon be KIA or wounded. As we know from history, Nazi Germany and Militaristic Japan were both well worth fighting against. The reasons for fighting them were certainly true. I'll grant that in the course of creating “Why We Fight”, Capra wound up making Chiang KaiShek and the Russians look a lot more palatable than they in fact were, however, at heart, “Why We Fight” presented very sound reasons for fighting the war.
Dean:
I'm just saying that it was a tad overblown at times from a modern viewer's perspective. I certainly wouldn't argue against its purpose or tone. It did what it set out to do, and did it well. The Japanese, for instance, came off looking like evil little hamsters with helmets in the film. Uh, which might actually be pretty accurate for the time.
So, I was coming in from a stictly cinematic angle.
And yes, there was some explaining to do to a public that was still puzzling over why Roosevelt, who had campaigned on a peace platform of sorts, was mobilizing in a huge way, and asking so much of the American people, which they gladly gave for the most part.
Matt:
Dean, I agree, WWF may be many things, but “subtle” isn't one of them. Leni Riefenstahl was arguably the better “art” filmmaker, but Capra had the heart.
Just had a strange thought. Imagine “Leni Reifenstahl's ”It's a Wonderful Life“. Egad.
Comments (4)
The very best film that I’ve seen on WW2 to date is called, I believe, “A Fighter Pilot’s Story.” I got it from the library, and it’s a documentary on a P-47 pilot’s tour in Europe from D-Day on. It gets straight to the point, and has some awesome footage of the actual combat scenarios he participated in, and his story was painfully honest and real. It, more than anything I’ve seen, drove home the grit, blood,and valour of the conflict. The bits and pieces of the current conflict that filter through the various media channels now, or end up on TV shows, won’t compare with what will come long after this is all over, when it can be approached in a different way. It took a good fifty years later for the “Pilot’s Story” documentary to appear, with it’s realistic, no frills look into one man’s experience of the air war for Europe. Who knows how long we (the civilians) will have to wait to get a more than a glimpse into what the men and women of our armed forces are truly going through right now, without having Ben Affleck types portraying our friends and relatives in the war. Even History Channel ofttimes “MTV“‘s its programs, which is annoying. I’ve watched enough of that channel to see the difference between an extended advertisement for some admittedly cool weapons system or philosophy, and a thorough telling of some important event or historic chapter. Again, whoever’s behind the show is in charge of what we get to see or not see, be told or not told. Same with the “news.”
Jeez, just think if there was a website or cable channel like C-Span, where we could tune into “helmet cams” of what’s actually going on. Morbidly voyeuristic perhaps, but can you imagine? Maybe that’s going too far, or would allow the enemy an easy source for intel, but it would be kind of like being a ghost or a fly on the wall, and you’d be certain of no or little coloration of the events transpiring. I think that people everywhere on the political spectrum simply want the truth of what’s going on, though many wouldn’t be able to deal with whatever that might be once they found out, and have a disproportionate faith in television’s giving them that, based on, in a lot of cases, their having been raised on that and movies. This faith is easily taken advantage of. It’s the same faith that audiences gave Bill Shakespeare’s plays, I would contend. Just the modern version.
As for propoganda, it’s an art form. Every propogandist will have their fans and foes, subscribers and rejectors. It’s all theater.
Sorry. Wrote a novella here.
Posted by dean bonzani | August 4, 2005 7:45 PM
Posted on August 4, 2005 19:45
I hear what you say about the History Channel - when you tune in there it is really hit or miss. Some of it is excellent and informative stuff, but other material is either shallow, wrong or just a pure appeal for ratings - “The History Channel Presents - “The History of Area 51”, yeesh.
That said, other than the occasional resurrected WWII piece that’s been aired “as is”, you don’t find much propoganda there. The only thing THEY’RE propogating is eyeballs on their channel.
I took a documentary course way back when, and the key message that came out of it was - while documentaries can try to be fair, the media of film, and the expecations of the film audience, don’t allow enough time or depth to present a truly neutral take on anything of substance.
Posted by Matt Kaufman | August 5, 2005 8:17 AM
Posted on August 5, 2005 08:17
What the makers of “Pilot’s Story” were trying to get across was very much the human element of the war, and in doing so, they managed to leave all the conclusions up to the viewer. The pilot and his wife back home exchanged a great many letters, many of which were read in the course of the film, to convey the relationship of the woman and her husband off to war, but most importantly, the fact that he wasn’t telling her of the horror he was experiencing. In other words, he was heavily filtering what he was saying to her, so as not to worry her or reveal that he was dealing with experiences of a horrific nature. For instance, he saw one of his best buddies bail out of a crippled bird and plummet to earth, his chute having failed to open. Bad enough, but he also saw the guy HIT. After a while, this got to be too much, and he began to subtly convey to his wife just how bad it really was, and how weary and shocked he was becoming. All true, straight up how it was for him. No “anti-war” slant, just a recounting of a P-47 jockey’s point of view as he was rightfully strafing German infantry. He found the images of their upturned faces as he mowed them down with eight .50’s returning to him again and again, though. It’s how it was. My uncle lost his leg in that same theater.
So, I tend to hold films like that and “BHD” up as benchmarks to these “fluff” pieces made for the folks who don’t mind laxative commercials intersperced with their history lesson.
Posted by dean bonzani | August 5, 2005 9:15 AM
Posted on August 5, 2005 09:15
I will have to watch that documentary.
Posted by Matt Kaufman | August 5, 2005 11:55 AM
Posted on August 5, 2005 11:55