Propaganda Films in Europe of the 1940s - Case Study Example

Propaganda Films in Europe of the 1940s 2009 The word propaganda, according to the dictionary, is a noun for “organized propagation of a doctrine by use of publicity, selected information, etc., used usually in the derogatory ideas, etc. so propagated (OUP, 1996, p146).” To some, propaganda, intentionally attempts to deceive us, using half-truths, or changing facts. Nelson (1996) defines propaganda as “a systematic form of purposeful persuasion” (p ix) trying to manipulate the “ emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels." (p x). The term propaganda per se is value neutral and denotes the process of persuasion (Taylor, 2003). However, it is typically considered in a derogatory sense and thought to be a means of unfair persuasion. Typically in times of war, propaganda is thought to be a most-used tool for “intrusive and unwanted manipulator of free flow of information” (Taylor, 2003, p2). It suggests the manipulation of emotions in human minds rather than information and logic for the purpose of the government or totalitarian regimes. By the beginning of the World War II, technological advances had made cinema an important medium for entertainment and communication. This resulted in a greater use of films as a propaganda tool, rather than the radio or posters as in World War I, by both the Axis and the Allied Powers. The excesses of propaganda by Nazi Germany during World War II, which in fact adopted the British example from the previous war and took it many steps ahead, increased the negative connotation even more (Taylor, 2003, p2). In particular, there was a heightened competition between Britain and Nazi Germany in creating films that would both communicate with the people and justify the reasons for going to war (Fox, 2007, p31). This paper will discuss three films that have been made from the two distinctive camps in World War II –representing the Axis countries were the French cartoon film Nimbus Libere, made in 1944 during the Nazi Occupation of France and the Italian film, A Pilot Returns (1942) made by Roberto Rossellini, which was one of the propaganda trilogy made for the Mussolini government and representing Allied powers was the British film, Let George Do It (1940) by Marcel Varnel, a comedy film in which mistaken identities lead to a German plot against the British to fail. All of these films, typical of propaganda films, have the common characteristics of combining entertainment and political communication, and are fiction-based rather than the newsreel-style documentaries that had been associated with World War I propaganda films. While the propaganda films made by Axis powers, Nimbus Libere and A Pilot Returns, were rebuttals of American and British propaganda respectively, Let George Do It was a satirical indictment against Hitler and Nazism. Typically, films have been used to maintain the morale of the civilians, as it was done in Britain and Nazi Germany during World War II, by harping on the historical glory of the respective countries, or to show the vicious elements of the enemy (Fox, 2007, p 159). It was usually officially sponsored films that served the purpose of propaganda in the 1940s. However, especially during the World War II, many entertainment films offered narratives that affirmed wartime sentiments. Although clichéd attitude towards propaganda films are usually thought to be blunt and motivated, many entertainment films from Hollywood as well as European films took up the challenge to weave narratives that have come to be considered as great films in posterity even while the narratives were based on wartime plots (Polan, 1986, cited in Branigan, 1992, p 265). During the war, films were made as spectacles, to take their minds away from the hardships as well as to communicate the government’s viewpoint. As a result, there has been a continued debate over the historiography of World War films to ascertain whether these were aimed at entertainment or propaganda. This is all the more important since films also comprise an industry and have a commercial aspect hence there is interplay between propaganda and entertainment objective (Fox, 2007, p11). Nimbus Libere, a short, black and white propaganda Nazi film during the Occupation of Vichy, directed by Raymond Jeanin, bore the message 'This might happen to you'. This was the only cartoon propaganda cartoon film that was shown in French cinemas during the Occupation period at a time when cartoon films, like for example Walt Disney Studios were quite common in the United States. However, the film was censored after the fall of the Vichy government and was recovered much later by Claude Chabrol (Delporte, 2001, cited in Roger, 2005, p 495). Nimbus Libere opens with a comic character called Cal in a peaceful evening in Nazi-occupied France. The man and his family listen to the radio announcing that France will be liberated by Allied forces. The announcer, incidentally, has a pronounced Jewish Londoner accent. with an ordinary Through the rest of the film, the family is bombed by characters from US cartoon films, like Mickey Mouse and Goofy (from Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse series), Felix the Cat (another cartoon character with black body, white eyes, and huge smile, created during the silent film period), and Popeye (the fictional sailor hero of the comic strips). The film ends with a gloomy note after the man's house is shelled, the radio carries on broadcasting and the angel of death comes in to switch it off, laughing hysterically (Shakarian, 2006). This particular film proves the power of the animation films produced during the World War II era (like Disney's "On The Frontlines") to propagandize the world war from the Nazi angle and making the audience believe how the so-called amusing characters of the American cartoon world (read, the apparently peace-loving America) were cheerfully bombing French civilians in the pretext of "liberating" them. British propaganda during the World War II was fairly straightforward, aimed at informing the people about the just and necessary war in its own defense, and also to boost the morale of its civilian and military population (Fox, 2007, p7). In Let George Do It (1940), George Hepplewhite, a ukulele player with the Dinky Doo Concert Party, is by mistake sent as a replacement for a British spy murdered in Norway. He is supposed to be working under cover with a dance band that the British suspects to be owned by a Nazi agent. Gradually, George gets involved in a sequence of events in which George foils the Nazi attempt to get British troop boats torpedoed. The most significant scene of the film is when, in a dream sequence, George flies in a balloon to Germany and punches Hitler. The film was quite a success, much because of the performance by George Formby as George, so much so that it called for a re-release in 1944. Besides the attraction of comedy as a genre, the film was also popular because the people identified with Formby’s working class identity. Therefore, comedy and star power together was used by the propagandists to attract viewers with an entertaining film through which they could disseminate a political message. The film was more in the nature of “subconscious propaganda” than a documentary-like propaganda (Fox, 2007, p159). The entertainment film, particularly the knock-out blow at Hitler, was the typical comic-book type of approach towards Nazi Germany and Hitler prevalent in Britain in the 1940s. The protagonist’s mix-up in roles is a standard comedy intrigue that had already been much tested as well as songs that later turned out to be extremely popular, including “Grandad’s Flannelette’s Nightshirt” were typical of entertainment films of the time (Bar, 1998, p 192). In Mussolini’s Italy, which was an authoritarian regime unlike Hitler’s totalitarianism, the government interfered into film-making for the purpose of propaganda less than was the case in Nazi Germany or Britain. As a result, Italian films of the 1940s were less propagandists than those of Nazi Germany even though there were a number of fictional films based on the war. The typical propaganda films were the short black-and-white newsreels shown before the main films in theatres, unlike the full length propaganda feature films made by the Nazis and Soviets. Yet, many Italian films of the time contained war scenes that may also be considered as propaganda. This period also saw the beginning of realist films, which were shot on location and the cast included non-professional actors, a type of films that after the war grew to be neo-realism (Bondanella, 1993, p11). One of the major proponents of such realistic films was Roberto Rossellini, who made the fascist trilogy over 1941-43: La Nava Bianca (The White Ship, 1941), Un pilota ritorna (A Pilot Returns, 1942) and Uomo dalla croce (Man of the Cross, 1943). La Nave Bianca (The White Ship, 1941), began as a documentary project with military funding as a result of Rossellini’s friendship with Mussolini’s son, but was developed into a feature film with amateur actors as sailors and hospital workers. The film was awarded the Cup of Nationalist Fascist Party and brought Rossellini closer to the party (Bondanella, 1993, p 11). A Pilot Returns starts with a woman giving a child a piano lesson, followed by a young man, her son, who reaches at a military base to train pilots. Later, his plane is shot down and he is seized by the enemy, the British, taken to a concentration camp, where he falls in love with an Italian girl. However, at the first chance, he seizes an enemy plane and lands back but is mistaken as someone from the enemy camp and subsequently attacked by his own countrymen, finally being informed that Greece (from where he has just fled) has surrendered. The pilot’s gallantry then appears ridiculous (Salas, 1977). The film, funded by Air Force, was a propaganda film, glorifying the Italian air force. By this time, the party had begun to interfere into the process of film-making and, in fact, the script was changed by the Party. However, since Rossellini hardly ever followed a formal script while shooting, it did not much matter to him. Despite the propaganda that was thrust on him, Rossellini weaved together a soft love story that hinted at the negative aspects of the war. The culmination was the shot when the pilot declared his love inside the shelter with bombs exploding outside (Bondanella, 1993, p11). Despite the propagandist quality, the film is significant in its realistic attitude, although it used professional actors, which too was a deliberate thrust that the censor board took in order to positively change public opinion without being too imposing, like Nazist or Russian propaganda. The film, perhaps because of its dry narrative style that was mistaken by the political authorities as a propaganda, was awarded the first prize in an international film competition by the youth wing of the Facist Party in 1942 (Reich and Garofalo, 2002, p89). Compared to A Pilot Returns, the other two films had a more direct propagandist message and are both in the nature of entertainment films, with a fair dose of humor, especially the satirical, jeering type, to ridicule or condemn the enemy. Nimbus Libéré, produced by Nazi Germany that occupied France, from the very beginning eulogized the Vichy government (the pro-Nazi regime that was in power in France from July 1940 to August 1944, succeeding the Third Republic and called itself the French State (État Français), contrasting the earlier, French Republic). The film overtly caricatured the Jews characters of London, made the favorite cartoon characters of the children, appear aggressive attackers, cruel bombers since they were created by artists of the U.S. Let George Do It, too, was a war fiction film directly indicting Hitler and the Nazi Party. The three films show that propaganda films of the 1940s usually used techniques that could draw audiences the most. Nimbus Libere and Let George Do It, although the latter drew a much larger box-office than the former, used the most popular forms of films – animation and comedy respectively. A Pilot Returns, even though it was funded directly by the government which was not the case for the other two films, was made in a more dexterous manner, weaving in a strong anti-war narrative within an ostensibly war rhetoric. Works Cited Bar, C, Ealing Studios, University of California Press, 1998 Bondanella, P E, The Films of Roberto Rossellini, Cambridge University Press, 1993 Cull, N, J, Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American “Neutrality” in World War II, Oxford University Press, 1996 Delporte, C, Humor as a Strategy in Propaganda Film: The Case of a French Cartoon from 1944, Journal of European Studies, 2001 Fox, J, Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany: World War II Cinema, Berg Publishers, 2007 Polan, D, Power and Paranoia: History, Narrative and the American Cinema, 1940-1950, Columbia University Press, 1986 The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English, Revised 8th Edition, edited by Della Thompson, Oxford University Press, 1996 Nelson, A and Richard, A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, Greenwood Press, 1996 Reich, J and Garofalo, P, Re-viewing Fascism: Italian Cinema, 1942-43, Indiana University Press Salas, H, Roberto Rossellini, June 3, 1977, http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/rossellini.html Shakarian, P, Cartoons for Victory!, DVD Review, February 18, 2006, retrieved from http://reviews.goldenagecartoons.com/2006/victory/ Squires, J D, British Propaganda at Home and in the United States from 1914 to 1917, Harvard University Press, 1935 Taylor, P M, Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present Times, Manchester University Press, 2003 Read More