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From Caligari to Hitler, a psychological history of the German film

Kracauer, Siegfried, 1889-1966. . From Caligari to Hitler, a psychological history of the German film, by Siegfried Kracauer. series [Princeton, N.J.] Princeton university press, 1947.
Call#: Ctr for Adv Judaic Studies Lib, 4th & Walnut Sts. CJS PN1993.5.G3 K7 1942

Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler, a psychological history of the German Film. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947.

“Nazi Views And Measures”

All films in Nazi Germany were propaganda films. Newsreels and features were the two forms of propaganda. Newsreels were a means of propaganda not information. The purpose of newsreels was to give the German people skewed world views. The production of newsreels greatly increased at the onset of WWII. While newsreels portrayed falsified messages, the scenes shown were never faked—they were always actual footage taken on site. This element made these propaganda newsreels more believable. The Nazis prided themselves on the fact that the cameramen for newsreels were like “regular soldiers, doing a soldier’s full duty, always in the first lines…” (Kracauer 276). The deaths of these cameramen and reporters at the front lines were emphasized to the public to reiterate the fact that the reporters were, indeed, amongst the soldiers on the war front. These newsreels were considerably long, so that the propaganda techniques could be repeated for increased effectiveness. While newsreels were long, unlike feature films, newsreels were produced rapidly so that the information was timely and viewed as actual news.
While in my thesis I use the broad term film, I only consider the term to describe feature films. This chapter highlights the importance of the newsreel. The newsreel is a form of film propaganda that I really should not have ignored. Because of the newsreel’s entirely different nature, its inclusion would have given my thesis more depth. The newsreel did not have the same production costs or length of time needed for production because all the footage is filmed live at the scene. Considering these facts, newsreels as film propaganda were much more cost effective than feature films. While newsreels directly told Germans what to believe, newsreels still were subtle forms of propaganda because they were being portrayed in documentary style as fact. In my thesis I argued that film was overvalued by the Nazis at times because of its great cost when resources were needed badly for the war effort. Newsreels, though, would have served as a good compromise. Still, though, when the situation with the war became very dire, resources should never have been diverted from the war effort.

Kolberg

Kolberg. Dir. Veit Harlan. Perf. Horst Caspar, Gustav Diessl, Heinrich George, Kurt Meisel, Kristina Soderbaum . DVD. UFA, 1945.

Kolberg is a historical epic of the Nazi film era. It is about the patriotism of the people of Kolberg during the Napoleonic wars and the importance of the average citizen. The film highlights the patriotism of Nettleback. He steps on the toes of his superiors to make sure that victory was had in Kolberg at all costs because that is what the people of Kolberg desire, for they are a proud and loyal people. The officer in charge of Kolberg’s defense is doing a poor job and conflicts with Nettelback, imprisoning Nettelback, who was merely trying to correct the deficits in Kolberg?s defenses. Nettelback sends his trusted Maria to the king to ask for a different officer for Kolberg. Maria meets with the queen and is struck speechless by the Queen’s beauty and majesty. She is successful in getting Nettelback’s request granted. The way Nettelback and the newly appointed officer work together shows how the citizens and the government can truly combine efforts for the greater good. Romance also finds its way in the film with Maria and Lieutenant Schill. The reoccurring theme throughout the film is that a citizen must be willing to sacrifice all for his country. Honor and loyalty to one’s country trump all else. This theme is illustrated in Maria and Lieutenant Schill's conversation about their willingness to sacrifice all for Kolberg and how only then would it be enough.
Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda, felt that Kolberg would inspire the citizens to support World War II by drawing on astounding examples of patriotism by average citizens and its great significance to Germany. Because of the importance Goebbels placed in the impact of the film, he was willing to divert many of Germany’s much needed war resources to the making of this movie, which was the one of costliest of this era. Two hundred thousand troops were used in the making of the film, troops that were taken away from battle. The cost of the film was very extravagant, and Germany really did not have the surplus of resources to accommodate such a project. Film production began in 1943 and was not completed until 1945, so the film’s impact as a source of propaganda was very minimal, considering Germany was on the brink of defeat and most of the theaters were closed from the mass destruction from the Allies’ bombings. “The film remained virtually unseen as the city fell to Soviet troops” (Thompson and Bordwell 274). Overall, Kolberg was a great folly of Goebbels and a waste of money and resources that Germany could not afford. (Thompson and Bordwell 274)
Thompson, Kristin, and David Bordwell. Film History An Introduction. 2nd. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003.

JSTOR: Journal of Contemporary HistoryVol. 28, No. 1 (Jan., 1993), pp. 163-192; Propaganda and Caricature in the First World War by Eberhard Demm-Jared Newman 2011

The author claims that World War I was the “first total war” and the use of propaganda was an important aspect. He says that the First World War was “waged not only against the enemy’s armies, but also against the civilian population” because it was also a war of ideologies. He discusses how censorship suppressed information and how propaganda became influential. According to the article, German leaders felt that “only an effective propaganda campaign could re-establish confidence” in Germany. The author goes on to explain that cartoonists were “bound by the restrictions of military censorship and obliged to observe the propaganda guidelines laid down by the press bureaus.” The role of cartoonists changed significantly, as “before the war they were social critics,” but after the war broke out they needed to “behave as good patriots.” The author describes the situation in Germany, but states that many countries experienced “similar developments.” He claims that cartoons “took on a new function: its task was to mobilize the population both morally and intellectually for the war, explain setbacks, confirm belief in the superiority of the fatherland and proclaim the hope of final victory.”
This article is important because it shows how propaganda was used during World War I. Obviously, this lead to new developments and influenced the way propaganda was utilized for World War II. It also explains the role that cartoonists had during the Second World War and how cartoons were transformed into propaganda carriers. Though the article focuses on Germany, the author claims that many nations used propaganda similarly, so the article is still applicable to my thesis, which investigates propaganda in the United States.

JSTOR: Journal of Interdisciplinary HistoryVol. 4, No. 1 (Summer, 1973), pp. 81-93; The Cartoon as a Historical Source by Thomas Milton Kemnitz- Jared Newman 2011

This article goes into the history of the cartoon and how it was developed. The author argues that cartoons can be used to show historians the attitudes of the societies that produced them and he explains that there are two types of cartoons: joke cartoons and cartoons of opinion. He chooses to focus on cartoons of opinion, which are defined to be “visual means of communicating opinions and attitudes or of ‘summing up’ situations.” They deal with “domestic politics, social themes, and foreign affairs.” Kemnitz does discuss a few joke cartoons however, “such as William Mauldin’s great World War II cartoon.” Regardless of type, the author claims that cartoons are more effective than other mediums in communicating because they convey messages “quickly and pungently.” He also acknowledges that the “cartoon too frequently has been employed as a propaganda tool.” He believes that cartoons were used in the First World War “to whip up hatred and thereby sustain the civilian enthusiasm which made the sacrifices of total war tolerable.”
This article is important because it defines cartoons, which my thesis discusses. It also explains how propaganda was first used in cartoons, which is important because it is likely that cartoonists at the Disney Company watched these cartoons and used them as a reference when making cartoons for the Second World War. Additionally, it says that cartoons are the most effective form of propaganda, so the second part of my thesis is addressed. According to Nelson, it is probable that Disney cartoons had a significant impact on public opinion in America during World War II.

The First World War and Popular Cinema : 1914 to the present / edited by Michael Paris.

First World War and popular cinema : 1914 to the present / edited by Michael Paris. [0813528240 (alk. paper)] New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2000.
Call#: Van Pelt Library D522.23 .F57 2000

Film is a media that will always respond to global events. But the way in which films represent these events may change over time. One aspect of Doctor Zhivago that fascinated me was its particular stance on the Great War, as the film depicts it. David Lean portrays the First World War in a very grim manner, and suggests that the Russians simply used the conflict as a tool to spark a revolution at home. Michael Paris's novel, The First World War and Popular Cinema, sheds light on international cinema's changing perception of World War I. In chapter three, entitled Enduring Heroes: British Feature Films and the First World War, Paris explains how British filmmakers changed their portrayal of the Great War in cinema between the years of 1920 and 1970. I found this section of the book particularly applicable to the making of Doctor Zhivago, because it was filmed with a largely British cast, and most importantly, by a British director. Paris begins by stating that in the 1920's, a large amount of the World War I literature being published depicted the conflict as a justified event, and one that would provide another glorious page for Britain's history books. And so filmmakers followed suit with these beliefs, often putting memoirs to film. In fact, British audiences loved the idea of war films. Many people wanted to know what it had been like on the Front, and their falsely romanticized impressions of the Great War heightened their curiosity. Films such as Comradeship (1919) and Mademoiselle from Armentieres (1926) were extremely successful among British audiences, and internationally as well. But as with any social movement, there arose a backlash against the conventional portrayal of the War in film. Independent directors argued that popular culture was emanating a false impression of the Great War, and they began releasing films with a more realistic interpretation of events, and films that stressed the futility of the war. In response to this, audiences started to question the actual motives for the first world war and by the 1960's, films began to break away from the traditional portrayal of a noble hero in an inevitable war. Instead, directors began pointing fingers to corrupt politicians and British imperialism as the causes for the war. This notion is reflected in David Lean's portrayal of the first world war in Doctor Zhivago, which was filmed in the midst of this 1960's, anti-war movement. Instead of heightening its importance, he refers to it as a result of a corrupt national agenda. At one point, Yevgraf even states "The ones who got back home at the price of an arm, or an eye, or a leg, these were the lucky ones...even comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that 900 mile long front, and our cursed capacity for suffering". In Doctor Zhivago, the politicians are blamed for the futility fo the war, and this view is precisely in line with Paris's study of 1960's British film. The First World War and Popular Cinema clarifies David Lean's particular stance on the war in his film.

Portraits of Mars.

Bayles, Martha. "Portraits of Mars." The Wilson quarterly [0363-3276] 27.3 (2003). 12-. EBSCO MegaFILE. EBSCO Publishing. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 28 Mar. 2006. http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/14900

This article discusses the evolution of war films through the twentieth century. The main argument of the article is about the shifting focus of combat films from films that are patriotic and depict soldiers as honorable men fighting for a noble cause, to films that focus less on plot and character development and more on the spectacle of battle.

The article begins by tracing the origins of the combat film. The first war films created in the 1920s focused on blood lust as a means of obtaining honor. However, by the 1930s, war films adopted a more pacifist view.

In the 1940s and 1950s, films about World War II focused on the idea that while the idea of war was wrong, it was necessary because it meant protecting the ideas of democracy. This concept of fighting tyrants in the name of freedom gave rise to a new form of honorable soldier.

In the late 1970s, when films about Vietnam began to appear, the cause of the war was no longer certain, and many people were ambivalent about whether America should be involved in the fight. This caused a new type of war film to develop – the lone wolf film. This group of films, in which The Deer Hunter is included, focuses on an antihero who abides by his own code in search of honor. While Michael is a good example of this, the article argues that he is too self-reliant, managing to find a way out of the most complicated situations, and rescue all of his friends as well.

The article concludes by discussing more recent war films, arguing that the focus has again shifted, this time to buddy stories, where soldiers would do anything to save their fellow unit members. However, while they would do anything for their friends, the article argues the reasons why are they fighting get lost in the background in favor of more violent, gory scenes.

Rollins, Peter C. “The Vietnam War: Perceptions Through Literature, Film, and Television.” American Quarterly. (1984). JSTOR. Oklahoma State University. University of Pennsylvania Library, Philadelphia. 31 Mar. 2006. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0678%281984%2936%3A3%3C419%3ATVWPTL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Q.

This article discusses how literature, film, and television have interpreted the Vietnam War. The article argues that artists have struggled to create convincing metaphors for the war and its effects in their works, and because of the nature of the content these works have been very controversial.

The article begins by exploring the different ways in which novelists have explored the themes of the war. Many of the writers, writing from the point of view of soldiers, chose to focus on the theme of loss of innocence.

Next, the article discusses how filmmakers have interpreted the Vietnam War. Here, the article mentions The Deer Hunter. The article argues that this film is probably the most ambitious of the Vietnam films in its attempt to discuss themes of American life, but criticizes it for losing its focus at times. The themes the film attempts to explore, according to the article, are sexual and ethnic identity, the individual versus society, and civilization versus nature. The article explains that the film reaches no real conclusion about any of these issues; instead, it remains ambivalent, echoing the opinions of many Americans on such subjects.

The article concludes by exploring how television has explored the Vietnam War, examining news casts, documentaries, and propaganda. It discusses the role of Vietnam as the first “television war,” and examines how the use of television affected how Americans perceived the war and America’s role in it.

By examining the different ways each medium has treated the issue of the Vietnam War, the article concludes with a call to researchers and scholars to examine these differences and to find connections between the different interpretations.

Lawrence of Arabia: Elements and Facets of the Theme

The article separates Wilson’s writings into seven different ‘sections,’ each discussing a different theme in the story of T.E. Lawrence and, in some cases, how best to incorporate that theme into the film’s story. Like Crowdus’s article, Wilson comments on the real T.E. Lawrence, especially his idiosyncratic and eccentric characteristics. Wilson images T.E. Lawrence’s exploits in the Middle East as those of a man searching for his own identity. Wilson begins the article, by establishing the main narrative theme as, “A man attempt[ing] to shed one identity (English) and […] assume another (Arab).” In the film, this, in fact, emerges as a main theme. Wilson also imagines Lawrence, in some ways, as a naïve idealist, “for him the word liberty was the romantic abstraction of a schoolboy, and he never stopped to ask whether it meant the same thing to Feisal and the Bedouin tribes.” Tying into this theme is Lawrence’s “longing for immortality,” which Wilson envisions as the driving force behind many of Lawrence’s actions. Wilson sees this as a central theme to the film he is writing, explaining in his notes that, “Lawrence’s obsession with immortality serves to account for so much in his psychological make-up and his behavior during that period of his life with which our picture deals.”
This is not the only point in which Wilson makes reference to the film he is writing. While Wilson’s notes are often simple descriptions of the themes in Lawrence’s life, at some times Wilson tries to figure out how best to make these themes work in a film. In the final ‘section’ of the article, Wilson comments in depth on the character S.A., who was very important to Lawrence, both as a friend and confidant, but whose identity remains a mystery. Wilson wrestles with this character’s imagined personality and how he should fit S.A. into the script, eventually decided that, “if it can be said that S.A. stands at Lawrence’s left hand, then our story requires a British character who stands at his right.” In this imaginary British character, we get an amazing look at the way in which Hollywood rewrites history in order to sell a film. Wilson notes, “Our British officer will inevitably be a composite character, with perhaps certain attributes not found in any of the actual men (Young, Newcombe, Joyce, etc.).” This character that Wilson wants to create is not a historical figure and is written in to serve as a foil for Lawrence. Wilson doesn’t describe why exactly he needs a British man to sit at Lawrence’s side, since he already has (an Arab) one in S.A., but perhaps Wilson has an assumption concerning the audience’s reaction to having an Arab as Lawrence’s sole confidant. Wilson further imagines the character to be “a man who (like our audience, we hope) would be baffled and intrigued by his mercurial companion-in-arms and through him we would try to fathom the enigma.” Wilson creates this imaginary, composite character is order to give the audience someone to relate to, subtly insinuating that the audience will not be able to relate to the Arab S.A. He may be correct in his assumption (we are dealing with early 1960’s America after all), but the film itself has no such character, so we will never know how audiences would have reacted.

Lawrence of Arabia and American Culture : The Making of a Transatlantic Legend

T.E. Lawrence was British, but he holds an important place in the hearts of Americans. This is due in large part to the film, Lawrence of Arabia, which remains one of the best films ever to come out of Hollywoood. Joel Hodson’s book goes behind the scenes and uncovers the story behind the making of the film, which, in many cases, is more interesting than the film itself. The production of Lawrence of Arabia was mired in the politics of the 1950s and 1960s, and after spending a semester learning about the history of Hollywood, I can truly appreciate and understand the significance of these politics in Hollywood.
Hodson dedicates much of the chapter on the film adaptation of T.E. Lawrence’s life, Chapter 7, to describing the effect of the blacklist on the film. Sam Spiegel, the producer, originally chose Michael Wilson, a blacklisted writer, to write a film adaptation of the life of T.E. Lawrence. Spiegel had won an Oscar for On the Waterfront, a pro-blacklist film, while Wilson, although living in exile in France, had managed to keep writing films, even though he was blacklisted. In hindsight, it is ludicrously ironic that Spiegel, who made a film shunning ‘unfriendly witnesses,’ like Michael Wilson, would hire him and actively try to convince Hollywood executives to let Wilson write the script.   Wilson wrote a few versions of the screenplay, but director David Lean, a Brit, believed Wilson’s script to be “”too American,” and failed to capture the complex character of Lawrence.”   Lean found another writer, Robert Bolt, to write the screenplay, which eventually became Lawrence of Arabia. As it turns out, Bolt borrowed a lot from Wilson’s screenplay is crafting his screenplay, even though he denied it.   Despite the fact that Bolt’s screenplay was basically co-written by Wilson, “his name was not listed in the screen credits for Lawrence of Arabia, presumably because he refused to sign a statement recanting his radical past.”   The blacklist has an interesting relationship to the film, but Lawrence’s own history proved to be the most dubious element in the film’s production.
Hodson recounts the battle between Spiegel and Lawrence’s brother, A.W. Lawrence, over the film’s representation of T.E. Lawrence, which adds a new dimension to the film’s rewriting of history. Even though the film was based on T.E. Lawrence’s own autobiography, his brother still wanted to rewrite history and make Lawrence even more of a hero. Another problem with the film’s historical value comes from the information that was available. As Hodson describes, “England had not yet lifted an embargo on various government records pertaining to [T.E. Lawrence].”   Lawrence’s story was altered, not only, by Hollywood, but by his own brother and the British government, so there was really no way that the film was going to have much historical accuracy.
Hodson further chronicles the film’s “license with history,” as well as its reception, but my favorite part of Hodson’s book is his description of the film’s manifestations in pop culture. The parallels this book shows, between 1960s America and today’s America, are uncanny, especially when it comes to the film’s marketing. As Hodson explains, “Fashion was another angle Columbia Pictures and American retailers worked in promoting “Lawrence mania” in the United States.”   Product tie-ins are something I think of in relation to today’s idea of corporate synergy, but apparently the idea was alive in the 1960’s as well.

Lawrence of Arabia: The Cinematic (Re)Writing of History

Crowdus’s article begins with heavy praise for the film and most of the people associated with it (especially director David Lean). While this all comes off as a little much, Crowdus eventually gets to the meat of his argument, which concerns the film’s representation of historical fact. Crowdus writes, “The question posed by such a film is whether good cinema and accurate history or biography must remain mutually exclusive qualities.”   After a brief synopsis of T.E. Lawrence’s life, Crowdus gets to the film’s depiction of Lawrence, and the validity of that depiction.
Lawrence’s life, as Crowdus explains, is still the subject of debate, so much of the ‘history,’ that the film is based on, may in fact be falsehood. Crowdus’s explanation for this is that, “Lawrence […] provided conflicting, ambiguous, or half-truthful accounts of the same incidents to biographers and friends.”   As a result of this, Robert Bolt, who wrote the second (and final) screenplay for Lawrence of Arabia, “base[d] his screenplay solely on Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” Lawrence’s autobiography, “despite being convinced that the book contained considerable exaggeration and not a few outright lies.”   This revelation serves to remove much of the blame for the film’s rewriting of history on Bolt, because Lawrence himself rewrote it.
The Hollywood system takes its toll on historical fact, because, “Many […] incidents have […] been dramatically simplified to comply with the genre requirements of big screen spectacle.”   Although it was T.E. Lawrence who began the rewriting of his own history, the restrictions imposed by Hollywood further erode the validity of much of the story. Crowdus also singles out the casting as another reason for the film’s historical ‘falseness,’ explaining that the casting of (the tall and handsome) Peter O’Toole “immediately eliminates a key motive for the overcompensatory physical efforts of a pocket Hercules like the real life Lawrence.”   There are other problems that Crowdus has with the film’s representation of history, but he does have some good words for the film.
The film gets some things right in its depiction of Lawrence, such as Lawrence’s “sado-masochistic [sic] tendencies,”   which Lawrence discusses in Seven Pillars of Wisdom. O’Toole’s performance, especially in the torture scene, captures this side of Lawrence. The inclusion of this darker side of Lawrence is noteworthy, because it shows that although Sam Spiegel, the film’s producer, was intent on making a Hollywood ‘blockbuster,’ the film did have uncomfortable elements that certainly would not have appealled to every moviegoer. By including some historical facts, the film not only keeps true to history, but it takes risks that are uncharacteristic of a major Hollywood film.
   Crowdus ends his analysis of the film, by critiquing the film’s depiction of Arabs. He uses the scene of the meeting between the Bedouin leaders in Damascus, as a key example of the film’s racist undertones and its colonial implications. The film has strengths and flaws, as noted by Crowdus, but in the early, praiseful paragraphs of the article, we see Crowdus’s true views on the film. Although Crowdus has many problems with the film’s rewriting of history, there is still a reason that it is one of the most beloved and respected Hollywood films.

Lawrence of Arabia

Apocalypse Now - Annotated Bibliography by Brian Goldstein

Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, made in 1979, tells the tale of a rogue Green Beret during the Vietnam War and the measures Captain Willard (Sheen) takes to stop him. The film is heavily based on Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Brian Goldstein