Film as a Tool for Propaganda: Manufacturing Truth

The North Star (1943) was a film produced by Samuel Goldwyn that was written by Lillian Hellman and directed by Lewis Milestone. It has been known as one of the most controversial movies in film history and apart from that, it is a great example of the power vested in cinema as a tool for propaganda. Originally released in 1943, the film was intended to sympathize Americans with Soviet Russia by neglecting Stalin’s harsh ruling period and its effects on townsfolk and farmers of the countryside. It showed the daily lives of Soviet Russians as simple and pastoral lives on countryside, as if collective working was compulsory and the traces of communism on daily lives was nearly invisible. As political history suggests, the film was released at a time when U.S. and Soviets were allies. 2^nd World War was a period of history when White House approached Hollywood film industry to “clarify” U.S. relations with Soviets and many films like Mission to Moscow (1943), Song of Russia (1944) or Days of Glory (1944) were produced by kind requests of president Franklin Roosevelt. Everything seemed so rational especially after Nazi Germany invaded Soviet territories and the war became even more brutal: U.S and Soviets were now brothers in arms (Damian Cannon, 2000). What could be more bona-fide than to praise Russian life, humanizing it, and to show its people as fellow victims of this violent war?

The North Star was nominated for 6 Oscars, and everything changed when the war was over, and these two brothers in arms had now found themselves enemies-to-be for a long time to come with the cold war. Samuel Goldwyn was now called over by the House Un-American Activities Committee to respond for his “naïve” and pro-communist image of the Soviet Russia. This led to one of the most interesting and desperate moments in film history: The North Starwas recut, and re-released with the name Armored Attack on 1957, but this time, its cute details about soviet farmland life was removed, the location was changed from Russia to Hungary with the use of a voice over, and it became a movie about the Soviet Invasion of Hungary! An important thing to mention here is that the film was only recut, not re-filmed!

Propaganda is socially determined; its success is determined by the factors that are present that particular context, time and environment. What the story tells has to make sense in front of an audience and this social context allows existence and success of propaganda. The state of mind in which society is, is of great importance for the accomplishment of discourses: fear, suspicion, enemies and monsters are usually “defined” concepts by the use of mass media and its instruments. As we can see, producing facts is possible and manufacturing truth is only a matter of perception.

Reference:

- D.Cannon, 2000. Film Notes 2. State University of New York : Retrieved from: http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/filmnote2.html

Further Reading:

- Eilene Toppin Ording, 2010. The North Star: Classic Controversial Film from 1943. Retrieved from : http://www.suite101.com/content/the-north-star-a192511

- Andrea Passaflume, 2000. The North Star. TCM Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved from : http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=276075&mainArticleId=276063

ESCHER’S MALL

Shopping malls get bigger and bigger everyday. They usually have multiple floors, several entry & exit points: the act of shopping now requires longer distances to walk and higher grounds to climb. But luckily, we have escalators that are built for the purpose of facilitating our experience of buying. These automated stairs enable us to spend less energy in traveling and more, in money-spending. Moreover, escalators not only serve our “benefits” as fellow potential buyers, but they also contribute to the benefits of the stores that are the very reason of our existence in shopping malls. Closer spaces to escalator ends tend to have much higher rental rates compared to far ends of corridors... Escher’s Mall is a design concept that has been inspired by Maurits Cornelis Escher’s litograph “Relativity” ( 1953 ). This project aims to criticize the architecture of shopping malls that rely on “form follows function” understanding on a 3 dimensional level by compositing Eschers’ paradoxical work, and combining it with a twist of capitalism from an acrophobic perspective.

CinemaGrotesque and Everyday Body

One of the most unfortunate events in cinema history is that Gilles Deleuze never had the chance to see Lloyd Newson's recent projects, since the former passed away on 1995... The role ofbody in cinema and theatre has been the center of an important debate especially after the emergence of modern approaches towards acting and dance for a long time. Physical theatre constitutes a key turning point for these discussions. Although some scholars argue that this form of theatre was a product of the influence of Brecht theatre on traditional theatre, it has nevertheless, evolved in such a way that it is now possible to categorize it as a completely new genre. Starting with Constantin Stanislavsky , directors and actors like Antonin Artaud, Jacques Lecoq, Jerzy Grotowski and Pina Bausch, started to ask questions on human body and the use of it in a modern context that could break the chains of the old, traditional, mostly text-oriented, epic form of acting. The emergence of mime, the re-interpretation of movement and the mixing of theatre with sound and cinema are among many reasons why we can now talk about gracious and grotesque at the same time.

Lloyd Newson, the founder of an independent collective of dancers called DV8, managed to bring the above mentioned postmodern approaches of acting and choreography into cinema in a very successful way with his filmCost of Living (2005). Although this film was preceded by three other important films by Newson, ( Strange Fish, Enter Achilles and Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men), Cost of Living was the most successful project to bring in almost all vital elements of cinema and theatre together.

The very first characteristic of Cost of Living is that the whole concept relies on actors and their bodies. The actor's role is his presence as himself on the screen: performers do not have proper character names, their names are their real names. Therefore from the start, an actor is not pretending to be someone else. Costumes do not force them to be members of a specific social group or class; they seem to be regular people we see walking on the streets. Real people from real life... On one hand, the reason why they are being filmed is closely linked with their abilities to ways they make use of their bodies but on the other, they are everyday bodies. If they get tired when performing, they really get tired: The drops of sweat we see are real...

An important character in the film, David (David Toole) is handicapped and has no legs. It is not theperfect body that we're after, but the body itself. Choreography written by Newson for Cost of Livingpresents this perspective in very creative ways: There are some parts of the film where the choreography is based solely on possible movements of a handicapped body, or some parts of it , where the same handicapped body is impersonated with perfect dancers having flawless bodies. Newson questions our notions of aesthetics and norms by giving us alternative examples to how things would be, in a parallel universe.

Bringing in everyday body to cinema offers us a new understanding on acting and body. Although Cost of Living is mostly seen as an example for experimental cinema, 16 international awards clearly indicate that there is something more beyond simply experimenting. Other than transmitting important social messages, this film should be considered as a figure de proue for interdisciplinary arts where there are no longer solid boundaries between ways we expose ourselves...

Links:

http://www.dv8.co.uk/projects/costoflivingfilm

http://www.disthis.org/CostOfLiving.htm

http://www.body-pixel.com/2008/05/13/what-dance-could-be…-in-dv8-and-david-toole’s-vision…/

http://www.article19.co.uk/06/interview/lloyd_newson.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EayAmhSsBZI