Retina of the Mind's Eye

Man on Wire

2010-03-06T08:52:00.001-08:00

James Marsh’s Man on Wire tells the story of tightrope walker Philippe Petit’s adventure on a thin cable between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. The film won the 2008 Oscar for Best Documentary, and with good reason. You will not find a more dramatic or entertaining documentary film anywhere; I guarantee it. Just what Hollywood loves most! But there is more to this film than just entertaining drama: it is an homage to the human spirit, and to a city forever changed. Without even a hint of talk about the events of Sept. 11th 2001, Man on Wire is an elegy to the fallen towers – ironically by way of a story about their first major security breach. Made long after the towers were gone, the film deftly mixes interviews with archival footage and newly shot recreations. There is an abundance of footage available of the towers under construction, as well as of Petit’s earlier wirewalking escapades and his back yard preparations for the WTC adventure. In the first half of the film Marsh brings this parallel material together wonderfully to paint simultaneous portraits of the building of the towers and of Petit’s dream to walk between them.

However, despite the amount of film material the filmmakers had access to, the extreme nature of the WTC stunt ensured that there were no spare hands to document the proceedings as they unfolded. So Marsh relies on incredibly passionate interviews with Petit and his cohorts to set the tone of the film, and these interviews are supported by a wonderful series of re-creation scenes boasting fantastic set designs and cinematography that call forth the ghost of the towers from the inside out.

Always highly stylized, these re-creations begin during the film’s opening moments with shots of actors portraying Petit and his crew driving around the streets of Lower Manhattan on their way to the World Trade Center.

The tension builds as the team encounters a series of obstacles on the top floor of the towers before they can reach the rooftops.

The re-enactment scenes then move into a decidedly expressionistic realm once the team makes it up onto the roofs in the dead of night, facing their most difficult challenges as dawn draws ever nearer.

Through the stylized and evolving aesthetics of these re-creations, the film maintains a clear distinction between archival material and dramatization. This distinction works well to evoke the subjective intensity of the events, and to comment on the (perhaps) questionable veracity of Petit’s memory of this emotionally charged journey. Petit and his friends are in tears by the end of the film as they recount the climactic nature of the event, the peak of a group bond that inevitably dissolved after the once-in-a-lifetime stunt was done.

Despite the cinematic skill Marsh demonstrates through his stylish re-enactment scenes, he decided NOT to stage any material for the walk itself. As Petit is about to step out onto the wire, Marsh gives us one simulated POV shot peering over the edge of one tower with a wire extending to the second.

And then the film pulls back, making a dramatic shift in tone from its expressionistic heights. We watch the walk unfold through a series of still photographs set to the sullen solo piano of Erik Satie, a major break from the pulsating Michael Nyman cues and “heist music” by J. Ralph that have driven the bulk of the film.

Once in a while we cut to shots from a movie camera on the street below, but all it captures is the air of mystery caught up in the mist gathered at the peak of the towers.

For a film with such a major emphasis on archival footage and dramatic re-enactments, the climax of the film demonstrates remarkable restraint on the part of its director, and makes for an absolutely sublime finish to a riotous tale. In its own way, the film manages to comment on the status of the towers as symbols of the nation by telling the story of a foreigner who conquered them 25 years prior to 2001. At the same time, the film offers a glimpse into the heart of an artist who broke the law to give the world some joy. Amazingly, the authorities respected Petit’s walk as art and he was not charged. Instead they gave him a permanent pass to the WTC observation deck! If he tried this today Petit would be in solitary confinement somewhere on the Cuban coast, the US would be on amber alert, and the CIA would be listening a bit more closely to their French wiretaps. Without breathing a word about world politics, James Marsh has created a film that is as much about the changed nature of the world after Sept. 11th 2001 as it is about the indomitable spirit of an exuberant French acrobat. And all in a format that is accessible enough to garner the director an Academy Award. Rarely do so many strands come together so wonderfully.

*Note: This review was originally published in Offscreen (Vol. 13, No. 5) as part of my report on Festival Nouveau Cinema Nouveau Media 2008.

Who Needs Dynamite When You've Got Film?

2009-09-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

This is an introduction to Nazi Propaganda by way of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. This guide works in conjunction with the reading “The German Cinema under the Nazis” from Film History by Bordwell and Thompson (pp. 271-276 in the second edition).

The fictional plot of Inglourious Basterds revolves around “Operation Kino,” an attempt by allied forces to infiltrate the premiere of an important Nazi propaganda film entitled Nation’s Pride at which the entire Nazi high command would be in attendance, including Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels and Reich leader Adolph Hitler himself. In actuality, no film called Nation’s Pride was ever made, and the entire Nazi high command was never brought down under one roof. However, Tarantino’s film does reflect an important reality of Nazi Germany: that propaganda filmmaking was one of the most powerful tools at their disposal in winning the hearts and minds of the people, helping to convince Germans to fight for their cause. Hitler and Goebbels saw film as a weapon of war, and in Tarantino’s film he invents a story where film is literally used as a weapon back at them: Shosanna Dreyfuss burns them to the ground inside her movie theatre using silver nitrate film stock as an incendiary device. While this event re-writes the historical outcome of the war, the story that Tarantino creates around it is actually quite plausible: the Nazi high command believed very strongly in the importance of celebrating Nazi ideology through film, and holding special events with important attendees was part of their military strategy. So, let’s learn a bit more about the history of propaganda filmmaking in World War II, and how this history is referenced in Tarantino’s film.

Film as a Weapon of War

Dawn of the Eye - CBC - 1997

First, here’s an excerpt from a CBC documentary series on the history of news media called Dawn of the Eye. This clip talks about the importance of propaganda filmmaking to the Nazis, and the lessons that allied forces learned from them. This clip features an interview with Fritz Hippler, director of the infamous Nazi film The Eternal Jew (discussed below).

Key points to remember: wartime filmmakers discovered that films could be as powerful a weapon as any army, and that “good footage can serve two masters.” One of the most important things about propaganda films is that they are heavily biased in favour of one side, and often distort the truth in order to support an unbalanced argument. Often their strategy was to spin images towards one side of an argument by providing biased voice-over commentary that doesn’t necessarily reflect what was being shown on screen. The allies learned the power of propaganda and started making their own films to reflect their side of the argument, and they found they could often use the enemy’s own footage to make exactly the opposite point: where images of the Nazi fighting machine could be used by the Nazis to suggest their strength and might and help bolster morale at home, the Canadians used these same images to show their people how brutal and evil the Nazis were. This is why you can never simply take images at face value: their meaning can always be manipulated, depending on the agenda of the filmmaker.

For a comprehensive overview of WWII propaganda filmmaking, follow the new CBC television series Love Hate and Propaganda.

Three Categories of Propaganda Film

In the reading, Bordwell and Thompson list three basic types of Nazi propaganda: pro-state films designed to make the home government look as good as possible; anti-enemy films designed to attack those that the government is opposed to; and films that glorify war in an attempt to win support for the government’s military actions abroad. In fact, propaganda filmmaking became commonplace on all sides of the conflict in WWII, and all sides have made films in these three categories. Below I will provide examples of each of these three categories with reference to both Germany and the United States.

1. Pro-State Propaganda

1.1 - Pro-Nazi Films of Leni Riefenstahl

Triumph of the Will – Leni Riefenstahl - 1934

This film is part of the category of pro-Nazi films designed to make the Nazi party and its leaders look as good as possible in order to help sway public opinion and gain support for their actions.

In Tarantino’s film, when we meet Shosanna Dreyfuss four years after her escape from SS Col. Landa, she is running a movie theatre in Nazi occupied France and is forced to show German films. In a conversation with Private Zöller, who introduces himself to her while she changes the cinema’s marquee, she indicates that she does not much care for the work of Leni Riefenstahl. This is because Riefenstahl, once an actress famous for adventure films, was hired by Hitler to create documentaries that celebrated Nazi ideology, and she made them very, very well. The success of her most famous film, Triumph of the Will, was responsible for helping millions of Germans buy into Hitler’s hype and was one of the most valuable tools the Nazis had.

The full movie can be viewed here:

I’ll discuss two clips, one from the beginning of the film, and one from the end:

00:00:50 - 00:04:47
01:38:50 - 01:41:28

These clips illustrate how the film is structured to make the Nazi party, and Hitler in particular, look as good as possible in order to convince the German people that they were loved and revered by millions.

The beginning of the film is intended to show Hitler arriving at the rally in Nuremberg, but it does much more than just this. Let’s pay particular attention to the mise-en- scène, framing, and editing. The film begins with titles that credit Hitler with saving Germany from the economic hardships that followed WWI. Then, the first images we see are a collection of aerial shots showing first clouds, then the town below, then a plane flying amidst the clouds over the town, then closer shots illustrating the civilians and military gathered below awaiting Hitler’s arrival, and finally the plane landing with Hitler disembarking and the crowds cheering and saluting him with reverence. Every aspect of the mise-en- scène of each shot, and the way the shots are edited together, are designed to give the impression that he is a god descending upon his people from the heavens. The images of heavenly clouds and aerial shots of the town below give us Hitler’s privileged point of view, that of an elevated being, and when we cut to shots on the streets below we see thousands and thousands of adoring fans eagerly awaiting his arrival, with all the ritual and pageantry that you would expect at a religious ceremony or royal visit. All of this is done to create the best possible image of Hitler, and to help put forth the idea that he is literally Germany’s saviour and should be followed without question.

The second clip is taken from Hitler’s closing speech at the rally, and is also structured to make Hitler look as strong and powerful as possible. Riefenstahl alternates between close-ups of Hitler making a point, and long shots of a large hall filled with loving supporters who cheer and clap and salute at every single thing that he says. The mise-en- scène is filled with Nazi symbols and iconography which helps give the impression of the power of the state. The speech goes back and forth this way, using the editing strategy of intercutting between Hitler and his supporters with shots emphasizing the Nazi iconography, cementing in the minds of the viewers the idea that Hitler is the powerful leader of a strong government and that he has a large following that adores him.

These were effective strategies in creating a portrait of Hitler as a loved and respected leader who would lead Germany to a powerful position in the world, and it had a strong effect on the German people. And it was so powerful that when allied forces saw the film they knew they had to use similar strategies back at home.

1.2 - Contemporary Issues

In fact, the approach to mise-en-scène and editing strategies that Riefenstahl mastered in Triumph of the Will are still used to this very day by current governments wanting to create a strong image for themselves in the media. Consider this excerpt from U.S. President G.W. Bush’s final State of the Union address in January 2008:

There are important similarities and differences between the messages of Hitler and Bush in these short examples. Like Hitler, Bush talks about the problems of unwanted “elements” causing problems at home, and emphasizes the military strength of the state and the righteousness of their ideology. Unlike Hitler, Bush is not in favour of a genocidal attack on Mexicans the way that Hitler wanted to wipe out the Jews; Bush says he’s in favour of maintaining a strong Mexican presence in the U.S. to help the economy, whereas Hitler blamed Germany’s economic problems on the Jews and wanted all of them out of the country. And while Bush and Hitler were both equally convinced of the moral righteousness of their particular ideologies, Bush argues that his invasion of foreign countries was a response to attacks on home soil, while Hitler’s invasions were not provoked by any such homeland attacks. You can make up your own minds about how these two heads of state have dealt with similar issues facing their respective nations.

But these issues are actually beside the point: even if we find major differences between these two heads of state, we need to recognize the similarities with which they are being represented through filmmaking strategies. Pay specific attention to the relationship between mise-en-scène, framing, and editing. As in the clip from Triumph of the Will, the Bush speech is structured around close-ups of the President speaking authoritatively, alternating with long shots of a large room filled with supporters who stand and cheer after every single thing that he says. And again, the mise-en-scène is very similar: the setting is a large stately hall filled with symbols and iconography of the government, all of which helps suggest the strength of the state and the power of its leader. These strategies are designed to make Bush look like a strong leader who is loved by his people, just as they were in the example from Riefenstahl’s film.

The biggest difference between the U.S. example from 2008 and that of Nazi Germany is that the Bush speech was followed by a long critique and analysis by reporters who were free to discuss the pros and cons of his message on national television. And you could change the channel and get a different point of view from someone else. In Nazi Germany no such discussions were ever made public. There was no freedom of speech, and there were no opposing points of view presented in the media. You heard only what the government wanted you to hear, and nothing else. One of the ideas behind democracy in the U.S., Canada, etc. is that the government is free to make its points to the people, and the people are free to respond as they see fit. If you did this in Nazi Germany, you would be jailed and possibly killed for speaking out against the government. But that doesn’t mean that the U.S. government won’t try its hardest to win the support of the people, because without that they cannot act on their ideologies. And so they have learned powerful filmmaking techniques to try and put their best face forward when presenting themselves in the media.

2. Attacking the Enemy

2.1 - Nazi "Enemies Films"

The Eternal Jew - Fritz Hippler - 1940

This is part of the category of propaganda known as the “enemies films”: films designed to cast enemies of the state in as bad a light as possible.

Here is an excerpt:

(Ironically, the above excerpt was removed by YouTube moderators as "hate speech," even though the user's intended purpose in posting it was to educate people about the perils of anti-semitism. This fact alone illustrates the reality that the same material can be used for opposite purposes depending upon the agenda of the user. YouTube, however, does not do a particularly good job at regulating its content, and other versions of this film are still available for viewing on the site. The above excerpt can be found from 4:08 to 8:40 in "Part 2" linked below. Also note that the YouTube user comments on many of the propaganda films I discuss here are rife with all manner of racial hatred, but YouTube doesn't seem to care much about that form of hate speech...)

This clip takes real footage of Jews in Poland and tries to make them look as bad as possible. Two main strategies are used: a voice-over commentary refers to the Jews using derogatory language, and editing strategies intercut the footage of the Jews with images of rats while the commentator speaks of their similarities. This is a particularly nasty bit of Nazi propaganda, and reflects the Nazi position that every single Jewish person is to be considered inferior and is responsible for causing problems for Germany. It is important to note that without the voice-over commentary and rat footage, this clip could simply be a documentary about Jewish religious practice and ethnic history. There is nothing in the mise-en- scène that shows Jewish people causing any harm to Germans. The negative connotations come from the way this footage is manipulated to suit the Nazi bias against them. This is how propaganda usually works.

In fact, the footage of the rats isn’t bad in and of itself either. Many of us have an instinctive dislike for rats, so we might think they are disgusting simply by looking at them. But if you like rats then these images would not necessarily be negative. Again, we don’t see the rats doing anything to harm humans. They are simply eating and running around, doing what rats do. The Nazis depend upon the negative social stereotypes of the rat as evil and diseased in order to transfer that stereotype onto the Jews through this comparison.

The comparison between Jews and rats is now very well known, and Tarantino refers to this in the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds. When Col. Landa interrogates the French farmer, they have a discussion about the idea of Jews as rats and Germans as hawks. Landa asks the farmer if he knows why he doesn’t like rats, and he doesn’t get a reasonable answer. Landa then explains that he doesn’t share this distaste for rats, and that, in fact, he respects them and has learned to think like them. And because Landa equates the rats with the Jews, he suggests that his rat-like thinking can lead him to think like the Jews as well. This is what allows Landa to discover that the farmer is hiding Jews beneath the floorboards, a common hiding place for rats. With this dialogue, Tarantino is commenting on nastiness of comparing Jews and rats while pointing out that the negative connotations of the comparison are based on social stereotypes rather than concrete facts.

To get a better idea of how the Nazi’s vilified the Jews, you can watch all of The Eternal Jew in six parts on YouTube:

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W6SgWyAwZo
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpnNRE3yDxQ
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmfLPRB7vv4
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnkyuFbVJlY
Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEjResdrclc
Part 6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhmyWwQQFgE

2.2 - U.S. "Enemies Films"

Your Job in Germany - Frank Capra - 1945

Here is the full short film:

This film condemns every single person living in Germany as part of the Nazi regime, stating that all should be treated as suspects not to be trusted by Americans occupying the country after war. The problem here is that an entire group of people are lumped together based on their nationality and are all blamed for the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi military. In principle this is not much different from the Nazis lumping Jews into a single group based on their religion and ethnic heritage and blaming them for “polluting” the “purity” of German blood. While the Nazis were notorious for vilifying entire groups of people based on nationality, race, religious beliefs, etc., this film is evidence that the allies often stooped to similar strategies. And it went further than simply making films: after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans and Canadians, with no particular affiliation to Emperor Hirohito, were rounded up, stripped of all their property, and forced to live in camps for the duration of the war. When they were finally released, their property was not returned, and they were forced to start their lives from scratch. These decisions were based solely on their national identity, believing that any Japanese person could be a spy for the Japanese military and cause damage on home soil. Needless to say, this was not a just way to treat citizens of Canada and the U.S. who happened to be of Japanese descent.

While we didn’t do the same thing to Americans or Canadians of German descent, Your Job in Germany is a clear example of the attitude that the Americans took towards the people living in Germany following the war. We might argue that the Americans are more justified in vilifying the Germans because of what the Nazis did, whereas the Nazi vilification of the Jews was based on a warped ideology rather than concrete actions perpetrated by the Jews. But as far as propaganda goes, the strategies used in Your Job in Germany are pretty much the same as those used in The Eternal Jew: single out a group of people and build an argument against the lot of them without any differentiation between individuals. Neither film shows either the Jews or German civilians doing anything wrong, and yet these films use images of these people in conjunction with a voice-over that explains why they are bad, and uses creative editing techniques to suggest similarities between Jews and rats, or between German civilians and the Nazi military.

Tarantino deals with some of these issues in Inglourious Basterds through the actions of the Basterds themselves: they want to make sure that ALL surviving Nazi soldiers are recognizable as such after the war is over so that they can be differentiated from innocent civilians. It’s a nice plan, but does not account for the fact that many German soldiers were drafted into the army under fear of imprisonment and death and did not necessarily buy into Nazi ideology. But at least the Basterds attempt to acknowledge a difference between soldiers and civilians. And in fact, the film as a whole presents quite a diversity of German types: there are true Nazi ideologues like Hitler and Goebbels; there are footsoldiers like the one Raine brands in the forest who seems to bear no particular allegiance to the Nazis; there are staunch anti-Nazi Germans like Stiglitz and von Hammersmark who work as either civilians or soldiers to try and take down the Nazis from within; and then there are German-born men like Hicox and Wicki who have left Germany and now fight for the Allies, demonstrating that Germans living abroad do not necessarily pledge their allegiance to the home country during times of war. There is no such diversity acknowledged in Your Job in Germany, a film that treats all Germans as having equal allegiance to the Nazi party. Condemning an entire group of people based on the actions of a few is never the right thing to do. But this is what propaganda tends to do, and all sides of the WWII conflict were guilty of this biased approach to their enemies.

A subset of U.S. "enemies films" during WWII were the animated cartoons created by various studios. These often used offensive humour to denigrate the enemy, and nowhere was this more apparent than in our beloved Looney Tunes featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Consider the following two cartoons:

Daffy the Commando - Friz Freleng - 1943

Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips - Friz Freleng - 1944

Both of these cartoons make fun of the enemies of the United States by drawing on offensive stereotypes associated with Germans and Japanese, and both films position the homeland boys (Bugs and Daffy) as superior to their foreign adversaries. They outsmart their enemies with ease. These strategies combine to create a sense that the U.S. is a superior country, and that the military’s efforts against Germany and Japan were justified because of the inferiority of the people that live in those countries. It’s a sly way of getting people on the government’s side through humour. They are particularly nasty because they took pre-existing characters that were already beloved by the people, and used them to support government ideology. This is a strategy that still exists today: political campaigns are often supported by celebrities who use their social standing to help get the public on their side. This causes people to identify with their favourite movie stars or singers instead of with the platform of the government, and can lead people to place votes without properly investigating the issues on the table. “I love Oprah, so if she supports Obama then I should too.” This is not the way a true democracy should work…

It is clear that cartoons like these are part of the film historical background that Tarantino is drawing from, as Inglourious Basterds is often comedic and tells the story of a small number of American soliders dropped behind enemy lines who manage to get the better of their adversaries and pokes fun at the Germans in the process, particularly Goebbels and Hitler. And did you notice a line of dialogue that Tarantino borrowed from Bugs Bunny? “Business is boomin’!” But unlike these two cartoons, Tarantino also pokes fun at the Americans, representing the Basterds as redneck hillbillies who are lacking in culture, don’t read much, and can only speak English (and not very well at that). So Inglourious Basterds is not one-sided in its humour, which sets it apart from these cartoons, and other pro-American WW II films like Pearl Harbor and Saving Private Ryan. As a side note, Clint Eastwood recently made two Hollywood films about WWII in which he attempted to provide a balanced view of the U.S. war with Japan. Flags of Our Fathers presents the U.S. point of view, while Letters from Iwo Jima is presented from the Japanese perspective. This is an attempt to counterbalance the mostly pro-American stance that Hollywood movies take on WWII.

2.3 - Case Study: Germans vs. Japanese as Objects of Ridicule in WWII Propaganda

There is a tendency to find Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips to be more offensive than Daffy the Commando, and it has certainly been protested more openly. In fact, earlier releases of the cartoon on VHS were recalled after pressure from Japanese anti-defamation groups, and you will not find it on the current DVD releases of the Looney Tunes catalogue. The offensive humour in Daffy the Commando, however, is generally accepted as justifiable because we can’t argue about how terrible the Nazis were. Accordingly, you can find Daffy the Commando on Vol. 6 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD series. But we forget that the Japanese military during WWII was also a vicious enemy, and in fact more allied soldiers died fighting them than the Germans. So why do we now feel uncomfortable about making fun of them?

One major reason is because of how people of Japanese descent were treated in North America after the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941. We vilify the Nazis for rounding up Jews and people of other non-Aryan backgrounds and placing them in concentration camps, depriving them of their civil liberties and their property. And yet this is exactly what happened in North America when both the US and Canadian governments decided that it was unsafe to allow people of Japanese descent to remain at large where they could potentially sabotage local military operations. The story of the internment of Japanese Americans and Canadians is well known, and it marks a low point in North America's supposed openness to the mixing of cultures. The governments of the U.S. and Canada knew they were on thin ice when they implemented the relocation measures, and produced several propaganda films to try and assure the public that these measures were justified and humane, unlike those similar measures enacted by the Nazis in Germany. One example of such a film is Japanese Relocation from 1943:

(Download the film here.)

Yet the reality of Japanese internment camps was quite different than how they are represented here. Though not subject to the same level of atrocity as was common in the Nazi camps, life in the North American camps had serious and long-lasting effects on the people who were forced to live in them against their will. In this excerpt from the film A Rabbit in the Moon, filmmaker Emiko Omori compares her own experience of the camps to the kind of propaganda that was produced during the war:

This is a perfect example of how the same story can be told two different ways, depending on the bias of the filmmaker.

And let us not forget that the U.S. finally stooped to drop two nuclear bombs on the Japanese, with long-term effects that far outweighed expectations. While seemingly justifiable at the time, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki now take their rightful place amoungst the worst crimes committed in the history of the world. North American governments would prefer to forget their actions towards the Japanese during WWII. So while Germans are still ripe for ridicule, we don’t pick on the Japanese anymore (although if you read the user comments on YouTube beneath some of these propaganda films it is clear that anti-Japanese hatred is still rife throughout the world).

Tarantino would have been booed off the world stage if he had replaced Germans with the Japanese in Inglourious Basterds, even though certain factions of the Japanese military were as cruel and vicious to their enemies as were the Nazis. But in principle, both Daffy the Commando and Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips are equally offensive in their comedic strategies, and if we are offended by the representation of the Japanese military in one, then we should be equally offended by the representation of the German military in the other. And there is little difference in the Nazis vilifying the Jews using racial and ethnic stereotypes and the kind of thing we see in these cartoons.

2.4 - Current Issues

There are two major problems with the stratgy of the "enemies films" : they try to gather support for one group of people (i.e. the Nazi party) by putting down another group of people (i.e. the Jews); and, these films tend to vilify an entire population based on nationality or religious/political affiliation without accounting for differences between individuals. Both of these problems persist to this day in contemporary versions of the "enemies film" in which the media is used as a weapon against one group of people for the benefit of another. We'll now consider two contemporary examples that illustrate these problems.

The strategy of gathering popular support by using the media to attack an enemy of the state remains a staple of North American politics to this very day. Many election campaigns are designed to concentrate on attacking the faults of the opposing party rather than emphasizing the positive attributes of one's own party. A classic example of this was the negative campaign strategy adopted by the Republican party during the 2004 election race between Bush and Kerry. The democrats tried to run a "clean" campaign that emphasized Kerry's positive attributes while refraining from attacking Bush, even though Bush was, by then, a rather unpopular president and would have made an easy target. Bush's team, on the other hand, spent most of their energies attacking John Kerry incessantly on a number of issues. As explained in the following excerpt from the documentary film So Goes the Nation, the mistake made by the democrats was not to fight back using this same technique. Bush ended up winning the election, providing an example of the power of the contemporary version of the "enemies film" to vilify the enemy through the power of the media.

The negative ad campaigns used by political parties during times of election are generally geared towards a political group or, more often, the single head of that group. However, the enemies films during WWII tended to condemn an entire population based on nationality or religious affiliation. This problem also persists to this day, which is why it is important to remember the lessons of history. The Jewish holocaust was the most extreme example of genocide the world had ever known, but it didn’t happen over night. It started with small steps towards blaming the Jews for Germany’s problems, and bit by bit this led to denying them public services, then running them out of the country, then rounding them up for the camps, and finally killing them off. It is important to try and stop this sequence of events early in the chain, and this begins with recognizing that stereotyping a whole country or religion is never the answer to any problem.

To provide a current example: one hour after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, the news began reporting on footage of Palestinians supposedly celebrating in the streets:

The problem with this footage is that there is no evidence in the images themselves that explains why these people are celebrating. Like the images of the Jews in The Eternal Jew or the images of German civilians in Your Job in Germany, there is no evidence within the mise-en-scène of this footage that suggests they are anti-American in any way. We rely specifically on what we are TOLD by the voice-over commentary to make sense of the material, and you have to ask yourself: who is doing the talking, and is there another possible point of view? After the footage was aired, many picked up on this problem and suggested that the footage was actually from some other event, perhaps a birthday party or celebration after the victory of a local sports team. Some suggested the footage was planted in order to condemn the Palestinians and other Arab nations for the attack and provide moral support for a U.S. retaliation. You can read about the controversy over this footage here:

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/cnn.asp

On September 12th, CTV took steps to help diminish the growing backlash against people of Arab and/or Islamic heritage by running the following report:

In this report they illustrate the problems of stereotyping an entire group of people based on the alleged actions of a few. In North America we have come a long way since the days of WWII: we have not rounded up people of Muslim faith and thrown them in camps until the “war on terror” is over. However, there continues to be many injustices perpetrated against Muslims living in North America, and this is the first step along the long road to the kind of genocidal holocaust we saw with the Nazis in WWII. You can do your part to ensure this never happens again by simply remembering to treat people as individuals rather than stereotyping them according to their nationality or religious background, and understanding that the actions of a few do not necessarily account for the beliefs of the many. And remember to be critical of what you see in the media: apply the skills you are learning in film class to help you deconstruct the information you are being given on the news and in the movies. The people who run the media are always trying to make you respond a certain way to the material you see; it is your job to take a step back and learn to make up your own minds based on a critical examination of everything that you see.

3. Glorifying War

Kolberg - Veit Harlan - 1945

Here's an excerpt:

This is part of the “glorifying war” category of propaganda films and is an interesting case. As you’ve read, the film is about a small German town in Prussia named Kolberg that managed to resist France’s encircling armies during the Napoleonic wars. So, it doesn’t have anything directly to do with WWII or the Nazi party, but it was produced at a time when the situation depicted in the film was very much like the one that faced the Nazis at home: the allied forces were on the doorstep of Germany, and the Nazis could only resist defeat for so much longer. Goebbels never wanted to show the Germans in a bad position in any of his propaganda films, so he could not make a film about the reality of their inferior military position towards the end of the war. But by using the story of a previous battle he could address the situation indirectly, and make a film that showed the glory of the underdog standing up to insurmountable odds for the pride of the nation. This is what we call “subtext”: make a film about one thing on the surface, but which deals with something else indirectly. WWII was the subtext for Kolberg, and Goebbels hoped it would rally the German people one last time to stand up and fight for their country despite the reality that they were about to lose the war.

Tarantino doesn’t reference Kolberg directly in Inglourious Basterds, but the film his characters gather to see at Shosanna’s theater is functioning exactly the same way. In Tarantino’s version of history, Nation’s Pride was the film that Goebbels made just before the end of the war. Like Kolberg, it was about a German underdog standing up to insurmountable odds – in this case, a single sharp shooter named Zöller who managed to kill off most of a 350-person army until they were forced to retreat. Like Kolberg, Nation’s Pride uses a previous battle to create a subtext about the current Nazi situation. And like Kolberg, the point of making the film at that particular time was to try and bolster national pride amoungst the Germans so that they might continue to fight despite their impending defeat. That is why Tarantino’s Hitler decided to attend the premiere at Shosanna’s theatre: his presence would help boost the morale of the people celebrating German resistance to the allied forces. And ultimately, this is what brings them down.

3.2 - Current Issues

Contemporary Hollywood films often glorify war with a pro-American take on world events. We may think that films like Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor are meant for entertainment, but they contain powerful messages that can act as pro-state propaganda for the U.S. government. And although we don't have a state controlled media in North America, there are many ways in which the state can influence the ideological content of Hollywood films. It is by now well known that big-budget films that deal with war often rely on the real military for equipment that would otherwise be too expensive for the filmmakers to create. But you can bet that the U.S. Army isn't going to lend tanks to a film about WWII unless they first approve of how the war is going to be represented. Needless to say, if the film intends to be critical of the U.S. military, the filmmakers won't be getting any help from them. So, there is often a direct connection between the government and the messages put forth in films about war which you can read about in more detail in an entry by Kristin Thompson on the blog Observations on Film Art. And because Hollywood has access to more screens across North America than alternative forms of cinema, this means that the U.S. military can effectively put out large scale works of government propaganda in a climate where alternative voices are often not heard.

Conclusion

The big point that Tarantino makes in Inglourious Basterds is that film in WWII was used as a weapon by all sides of the war, and was a major contributor to how the events of the war played out. Propaganda is a powerful tool for shaping the minds of the public. It usually comes in the form of state controlled media designed to sell an idea to the people in order to sway public opinion towards the viewpoint of the government. This is what propaganda film is all about, and we need to remember that it exists in many forms to this very day, even in democratic countries in which the right to free speech exists. Consider the following excerpt from the CBC series Dawn of the Eye in which you will hear a discussion of the U.S. military's attempts at controlling media coverage of Operation Desert Storm back in 1991:

It is clear that the U.S. government would prefer to control all media relating to its wartime activities abroad, and it makes major attempts to silence all alternative points of view. This is not what you would expect from the land of "freedom" where every citizen supposedly has a right to free speech and has a voice about the activities of its government. No, this kind of media control is much more in line with the mentality that Goebbels and the Nazis adopted during WWII. The desire for state controlled media within a democracy raises serious questions about the extent to which the people have a right to balanced news coverage. If we only hear the government's side of the story, then we can't possibly educate ourselves well enough about the issues to engage with democratic activity intelligently. This one-sided form of media was one of the tools used by the Nazis to win over the hearts and minds of so many Germans during WWII, and led to the atrocities with which we are all now so familiar. This is not acceptable, and the first step towards doing something about this problem is to become aware of how the media works and remain ever vigilant in the face of its often powerful (and powerfully biased) messages.

*Updated March 13th 2010

Introducing mise-en-scène, framing, and editing.

2009-01-30T09:51:00.000-08:00

This is a brief introduction to the concepts of mise-en-scène, framing, and editing within narrative cinema, using the following television advertisement as our example:

What is this ad selling? Outdoor patio furniture. What is the selling point of this furniture? It is so stylish and comfortable that it resembles indoor furnishings more than dingy outdoor ware. How does the ad make this point? By a particular relationship between the elements of mise-en-scène, how the camera frames these elements, and how the framed mise-en-scène is broken into shots that are joined together according to the principles of continuity.

The ad’s rhetorical message is delivered by playing a trick on the audience. When we first see the family seated at a table and eating a meal, we are meant to believe that they are inside. By making us believe they are inside, the ad then surprises us when we discover that they are actually outside. This surprise is the hook that the ad uses to sell its product: the furniture needs to appear compatible with an interior setting in order for us to believe the premise of the ad.

Mise-en-scène

The trick of the ad is established primarily through the use of mise-en-scène. In Film Art, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson define mise-en-scène as “the director’s control over what appears in the film frame” (Bordwell and Thompson 2008, p.112). There are two main points to consider here. Firstly, mise-en-scène involves anything that we can see within the frame; secondly, filmmakers have a large measure of control over what we see in the frame. So when we analyze mise-en-scène, we are exploring how and why its elements have been arranged by the filmmakers in order to give us specific information.

The elements of mise-en-scène are: setting, lighting, costume, and figures (people/animals/objects). When considering these categories we must remember to think of their positioning and any movement and/or performance that takes place. We must also remember that the elements of mise-en-scène work together as a system, and so we must always consider the relationships between them as well as their individual qualities.

So how does mise-en-scène function in our example?

The first thing we need to pay attention to is how the elements of mise-en-scène are used at the beginning of the ad to create the impression that the family is seated indoors.

Setting: the elements of setting are deliberately presented in order to suggest an interior space. The furniture (visible mainly as the backs of the chairs) does not call attention to itself as what we would expect from outdoor patio ware. The curtains are hung over the windows to suggest that we are seeing them from their interior side. And there is a clock hanging on the wall top right, not a usual object to be found on the outside of a house.

Lighting: a typical feature of interior space during the daytime is that the brightest source of light will come from the windows leading outside, and this appears to be the case here. The window positioned behind the table is the brightest light source in the image. However, look more carefully and you will see that there is another bright source of light illuminating the family from screen left. The source of this light is not apparent on the screen.

Costume: the characters are dressed in casual clothes, but these clothes are not overtly outdoorsy. The seated men are in collared shirts and slacks, and the woman who enters with a bowl and sits down is wearing a long dress. These are not clothes we would expect people to be wearing in their back yard, and lend themselves well to the idea that they are enjoying a meal in their interior dining room.

Figures: there is very little in the performance or movement of the diners that suggests either an interior or exterior space. People are sitting and eating. Their demeanor is well suited to an interior space and so does not contradict the other elements of the mise-en-scène, but their behaviour would not seem out of place outside either. So while the rest of the mise-en-scène is designed so that it seems decidedly interior in nature, the movement and performances of the figures is fairly neutral. It is not until the Frisbee flies into their space and hits the table that a particular figure overtly suggests exterior space.

The filmmakers deliberately control all of these basic elements of mise-en-scène in order to give us information about the location of the scene. However, by the end of the ad we realize that we have been misled, and that this group of people is actually seated outside:

Here a new set of elements enters the mise-en-scène that gives us a more complete picture of the space in which the action takes place. Most importantly, we see new elements of setting: the exterior of the entire house, more of the patio area, the back lawn, blue sky with clouds, and the fence. All of these work together to tell us that the action is taking place outside. The final view allows us to understand how the first view of the dining area fits into this larger world. However, surprise is created because the mise-en-scène in the first view contains elements that seem inconsistent with the environment pictured at the end.

While the furniture may indeed reflect the product that Wal Mart is selling – outdoor furniture that looks like indoor furniture – the basic set up in the first view is deliberately misleading. For example, it is unlikely that anyone would hang curtains and a clock on the outside of their house. So when we see the final view, the curtains and clock contradict the newly revealed exterior elements of the mise-en-scène. These contradictions are necessary here to play a trick on the audience, but in many cases such contradictions are unintentional. Filmmakers have to remain constantly aware of the relationship between all the elements of mise-en-scène if they want to tell their stories effectively. If one element contradicts another, then the effectiveness of the storytelling can be undermined.

Framing

The revelation of the exterior setting is created by a shift in the framing of the mise-en-scène.

The borders of the screen create a frame in which a limited amount of information can be placed. Filmmakers must always decide how much or how little information they will position within the frame, and from what perspective this information will be presented. Therefore, framing refers to the vantage point imposed upon the material that is visible within any given image (Bordwell and Thompson 2008, p.182).

One of the main ways to control framing is through the position of the camera. At the most basic level, you can change the framing of a particular setting by changing the distance of the camera in relation to this setting. This is exactly what happens between the beginning and the ending of our example here, and this is how the filmmakers manage to mislead us about the location of the action taking place on the screen. At the beginning of the ad, the camera is positioned in such a way that we see only a portion of the wider view we get at the end. By limiting our view of the setting, we are denied the information necessary to understand the true location of the action.

This ad consists of three basic camera positions: close-up, medium distance, and long distance. We begin with a medium distance framing, and end with a long distance framing. The medium distance framing presents us with a more detailed view of one portion of the long distance framing. The medium distance framing thus gives us a closer view of the dining area than we get in the long distance framing. However, the medium distance framing withholds information about where this dining area is located that is denied the audience until we see the long distance framing.

Between these two framings there are a series of five close-ups that call attention to details of the mise-en-scène that are not available in either the medium or long distance framings. Here we see specific details of the table setting as a Frisbee flies into the dining area and creates havoc for the diners. The details of the series of events that the Frisbee sets up are rendered in greater detail because they are presented in close-up. The man’s reaction to having food thrown in his face is also more clearly visible because it is presented in close-up.

By adjusting the framing - shifting the distance of the camera in relation to its subjects - the filmmakers can guide our attention to specific details that we would otherwise miss out on, and they can also control what information we get and when.

Editing

To control the order in which these different framings are presented, and the length that each framing will be shown, they are broken down into discrete shots that are then joined together through the process of editing.

A shot consists of “one or more exposed frames in a series on a continuous length of film stock” (Bordwell and Thompson 2008, p.218). Today a shot can also exist on a length of videotape or as a digital file. But the same principle holds true. A camera is turned on and records a single shot until it is turned off. This shot is a single unit until it is interrupted by a transition to another shot.

Editing is “the co-ordination of one shot with the next” (p. 218). In other words, editing is the process of transitioning from one shot to the next. There are many ways to transition from one shot to the next. At the most basic level, transitions are created by direct cuts: one shot changes immediately to the next. One length of film is glued to another; one digital file is placed next to another in an editing program. This is the most common form of transition, and is the only form of editing used in our example.

There are seven individual shots in our example:

shot 1

shot 2

shot 3

shot 4

shot 5

shot 6

shot 7

Filmmakers will often cut from one shot to the next in order to change the setting. However, scenes that take place in a single setting also usually contain a great deal of editing. The main reason why filmmakers cut from one shot to the next within a single setting is to change the framing, to present us with a different perspective on this setting and the action that takes place within it. This means that each shot presents a different camera position. Putting a series of shots together thus provides a broader perspective on the space and action than would be possible from a single framing. Filmmakers can also choose to change framing by moving the camera within a single shot, but there is no such camera movement in this example. The camera has moved between each shot, but this movement is not visible on the screen. Each shot is taken from a static position.

Another major function of editing is to determine the order in which individual shots will be presented. The seven shots of this ad could be presented in any order the filmmakers wish. However, in order to maintain the element of surprise at the heart of this ad, these seven shots need to follow a certain order. For example, if we had been presented with the long distance framing first, then the point of the ad would be lost. It is crucial that the ad begins with the medium distance framing and end with the long distance framing.

Continuity Editing

This ad also uses editing to construct a sense of continuous uninterrupted time and space across all seven shots.

Real-Time: The ad is thirty seconds long (screen time), and the action depicted within the ad amounts to thirty seconds in the lives of the characters (story time). When the screen time of a scene matches the story time, then the scene is playing out in real-time.

Filmmakers have three main options for presenting a scene in real-time. The most straightforward way to depict real-time is to present the action in a single uninterrupted shot. If a single shot runs at normal speed, then the actions we see within it are unfolding before the camera in real-time. Another method is to film a scene with several cameras rolling simultaneously, each taking their own individual shots, and then edit these different shots together. In both of these options, the action is filmed in real-time. The third and most common option is to film a scene several times over with a single camera, once from each of the different camera positions that the filmmakers want. In this option, the scene is not filmed in real-time, and can actually take several hours, days, or even weeks and months to complete. Despite the fragmented nature of the filming process, such scenes can still be edited in such as way that they feel as though they are taking place in real time.

The same is true of space. Sometimes a single setting is constructed out of two or more sets or locations. A long distance shot might be taken at one location, while close-ups of figures are taken on a separate set. If this is the case, then to create the illusion that this setting is a single three-dimensional space, the filmmakers can put together the shots taken in these different locations so that each shot seems to be part of a single setting.

The style of editing that creates the illusion of real-time and real space across a series of separate shots is called continuity editing.

The use of a single uninterrupted shot for an entire scene is extremely rare. When filmmakers want to create a scene that plays out in real-time within a single setting, there are many reasons why they choose to build it using continuity editing. One is the complexity factor. It is often very difficult to depict complex actions in a single shot. Imagine if the filmmakers of this ad wanted to present the Frisbee’s chain of events in a single shot. They would have to set up the dining table and create the chain of events in real-time. This would be a considerable feat of engineering to pull off, and could take a considerable amount of time. Instead, the filmmakers have chosen to break the action up into five shorter shots, each one depicting a single link in the chain that is very easy to set up. In shot 2 the Frisbee knocks over the bottle, and that’s it. In shot 3, the bottle knocks over the corn. And so on down the line. Then when these shots are presented together in just the right order and with just the right timing, it creates the illusion of a single uninterrupted series of events. By the end of this string of five shots we know exactly what has happened, even though we actually haven’t seen it as a single shot. In fact, these shots are taken separately, at different times and from different camera positions. In terms of the filmmaking process, considerable time is passing between each shot. But the filmmakers join them together so that we don’t notice that this time has passed, and instead think of the series of shots as being continuous.

Even if the filmmakers could stage this series of events in real-time, there is the problem of how to draw attention to each link in the chain through changing perspectives. Filmmakers often like to guide our attention to specific details within the scene through changes in framing. They could constantly move the camera within a single shot, but this again can become very complicated. They could shoot the scene from a variety of perspectives with several cameras running simultaneously, but then they are limited in where these cameras can be positioned so as not to reveal the cameras to each other (not to mention the expense of having multiple cameras on set, complete with a team of operators for each one).

For example, to get shot 1 with a normal lens, the camera has to be positioned fairly close to its subject. Shots 2 – 6 are even closer to their subjects. If all of these cameras were to be set up at the same time, it would be very difficult to hide them from each other. For example, in shot 7 we don’t see any of the cameras that are responsible for getting shots 1 – 6. While it might be possible to get shots 1 – 6 with a zoom lens from cameras positioned far away, this would introduce distortions into the images that are not generally desirable for these kinds of shot. These distortions are not visible in shots 1 - 6, so they must have been taken from cameras positioned relatively close to their subjects. So it is impossible that shot 7 was actually taken immediately after shot 6. And yet shot 7 appears to follow shot 6 directly in time. This is an illusion created by continuity editing.

It is also very likely that shots 1 – 6 were taken in a different location from shot 7, most likely an indoor studio where the filmmakers could have more control over the lighting conditions and fewer constraints on camera positioning. Again, if the first six shots were taken on a studio set, then shot 7 was obviously taken at a different time. Yet shot 7 appears to follow shot 6 directly in terms of space. Again, this is because the filmmakers have built continuity across the shots.

Strategies for building continuity:

Continuity editing involves matching consecutive shots in various ways.

Consistency across all elements of the mise-en-scène is crucial for matching one shot to the next in order to create continuity. For example, lighting is one of the most important elements in continuity. In this ad, the lighting on the dining area is a fairly good match between all the shots. The dominant source lighting the setting and figures is from screen left, and this is maintained across all seven shots. The consistency of lighting suggests that all shots were taken in the same place and at the same time. Consistent setting is also crucial. Elements of the setting such as room décor and objects on the table need to remain consistent from one shot to the next. For example, in shot 1 there are metal objects visible in the foreground at the bottom of the frame on both the left and right sides; however, no such objects are visible in shot 7. This is an error in continuity because it provides evidence that the mise-en-scène has changed from one shot to the next even though the time and space are intended to be continuous.

Eyeline matching is when a character looks in a certain direction, and the following shot presents the object being looked at in such a way that it matches the direction of the character’s eyes in the previous shot. For example, towards the end of shot 6, the man looks screen right in the direction from which the Frisbee came. Shot 7 then shows us the house adjacent, along with the person responsible for throwing the Frisbee. So there is a continuous spatial relationship across these two shots that binds them together.

Matching on action is when a single continuous figure movement is presented across two or more shots. For example, at the end of shot 6 the man begins to stand up, but this action is not completed until part way into shot 7. The act of standing up is presented across these two shots, and so there is a continuous temporal and spatial relationship that binds them together. The series of events presented across shots 1 - 6 also depend on matching on action, as each shot ends with a figure movement that continues into the following shot. Again, this creates a sense of continuity across the shots, making us feel as though the actions we see are taking place in real-time and across a consistent space.

Continuity editing has been the preferred method for constructing scenes in mainstream narrative fiction. Even if the possibility exists to film a scene in a single location from a variety of perspectives simultaneously, filmmakers will generally still choose to use a single camera and shoot one shot at a time. This is because filmmakers like to have complete control over each single shot, with lights positioned specifically for a single camera, and to get the best possible performance out of an actor or object without worrying about what will happen in the following shot. The system of continuity discussed here works very well to build relationships between shots to create the illusion that each shot flows continuously from the last, thus solving logistical problems of shooting an entire scene in a single shot, or using a multiple-camera set-up.

Duration and Rhythm

Editing is also used to control rhythm and pacing across a film, and they do this by deciding how long each shot should run, and how the length of one shot should relate to the length of the next. This is certainly the case in our example here. The first shot is quite long in relation to the five that follow. Shot 1 sets a relaxed tone without much figure movement, giving us the time to explore the qualities of the mise-en-scène in detail. Attention to the mise-en-scène is essential for the surprise of this ad to work, and so it is crucial that this shot give us enough time to view the mise-en-scène without any distractions.

When the Frisbee enters the frame at the end of the first shot, a dramatic change in the rhythm of the ad occurs. This change in rhythm is controlled by the duration of the next five shots. Each of the close-up shots detailing the cause/effect chain of events set in motion by the Frisbee are very short. All five shots together take up less screen time than the first single shot alone. This is done, in part, to be able to present a series of events in separate shots while maintaining a sense that it is happening in real-time, as discussed above. The fast pace of these shots is also suitable to the kinetic nature of the action being presented. The Frisbee is a fast moving object, and the chain of events it puts in motion is a high level of action compared to the minimal action of the first shot. Filmmakers will often use fast paced cutting to support faced paced action on the screen, and this is another of the many ways that they can develop a relationship between editing and mise-en-scène to mutual benefit.

* * *

There are many other strategies for the use of mise-en-scène, framing, and editing that are not in effect in our example here. This ad illustrates simply a few of the most common ways in which these basic elements of cinema can be used, and my purpose here has been to illustrate these techniques and to explain their functions. Other techniques will be discussed in future entries.