Olympus Sized Pool of Bullshit

Poor defenseless pwesident and the all-powerful swarthy hordes of foreigner tewwowists.  Popcorn buckets can double for puking in.  The promotional scene, which I can’t bring myself to post, shows valiant glorious white male secret service guy vs. the largely incompetent, nameless, faceless darker skinned animals of the third world, as they destroy all that is honorable and good on the white house lawn.

You know, it probably never occurred to anyone in Hollywood or Washington that attacking the “Commander in Chief” of a military empire doesn’t exactly fit the definition of “terrorism” (political violence against civilians),  but is a military action.  Hmm, I guess we were well past all that semantic nonsense a decade ago when we declared “war” on a tactic.  If they’re not white, or at least American, it’s “terrorism.”  Got it.

Why isn’t Chuck Norris in this thing?

Deeper Look at “Skyfall”

Bondage

by Mark Epstein

Writing about the latest Bond movie may seem like an exercise in futility to many, but having read many positive reviews in the corporate mass-media and a couple of negative ones in CP (Paul Carline has intelligent and detailed comments about the franchise and the world of intelligence; Peter Lee makes a couple of good points about British history and foreign policy: but in my view both really don’t acknowledge Mendes’, and his scriptwriters’, intent), I decided I would jump into the fray, since the negative comments didn’t seem specific to the latest film directed by Mendes (in fact he was barely even mentioned), and many of the positive ones really didn’t seem to have seen the same movie I saw.

In fact knowing that Mendes was the director was the decisive point that made me go to see the movie, since I thought, and still think, that “American Beauty’ was one of the best movies to come out of Hollywood in the last decades.

Below I analyze the movie and try to establish the following points:

-“Skyfall” is not a paean to British patriotism and imperialism

-It is a movie that contrasts encompassing, historical, networked and networking understanding, with blind, mechanical, repetition-compulsion and obedience

-It is a movie that itself requires decoding, decrypting and “human intelligence” in the best sense of the word to be understood

-References to recent episodes in UK “national security,” (over)reactions and escalations are intended to make the viewer(s) ask what should ultimately be on trial

-It is a movie that puts the very foundations of certain aspects of serialized ‘entertainment’ into question, including the most popular ‘hooks’ (and ‘hookers’…) in the Bond franchise..

-Mass-art and mass-culture in very late monopoly capitalism have not infrequently led directors to use forms of Aesopian language. I argue Mendes in “Skyfall” is one important such example

“Skyfall” (although some of the information relating to his ancestral home and parents does come from Fleming written material, the symbolic twists given the name, the purpose of the “return home” etc. are all the scriptwriters’ and Mendes’) advertises its difference from other films in the franchise starting with the title itself and continues doing so for the careful viewer throughout the movie… While superficially, phonetically, it might resemble the titles of other flicks in the series, “Thunderball” for instance, semantically it immediately catches your attention. The “sky falling” hardly has very positive connotations in anyone’s cosmology, and in this case as we shall see appears to echo meanings coming from negative apocalypses…

Already in the movie’s opening sequence Mendes is asking the viewer to pay attention: we see an out of focus Bond in a corridor. As we come closer and the shot comes into focus, we transition to a counter-shot of what Bond sees. Corpses and bleeding bodies, violence and destruction in a room: the sort of handy work that is routine in this genre of “spy” “action movie”, in fact part of the “popcorny” repetition compulsion of these genres and the franchise itself.

We soon find out thanks to the soundtrack, that Bond is actually in constant communication with M, and the object of the search is revealed: a hard drive, with, as we will duly find out, an extremely important encrypted file with the names of agents belonging to NATO countries inside “terrorist organizations”. The fact Mendes chose this as the content for the files is itself very important and revelatory. What is the purpose of NATO having double-agents in “terrorist organizations”? How does that relate to so many important events of the last decades, from 9/11 to the London subway bombings, to renditions, to covert uses of Islamic fundamentalist organizations (Al-Qaeda among them) for the destabilization of other countries? Of course the propagandistic/ ‘official’ answer will always be along the lines of: “defense”, “prevention” and “monitoring”. Careful analysis of events, foreign policy and otherwise, from the break-up of Yugoslavia to the destabilizations of Libya and Syria prove otherwise. As I have argued elsewhere these kind of “double-agents” are literally the kind NATO used in programs such as “Gladio” and the “strategia della tensione” in Italy, as ways to destabilize and attempt to foment authoritarian coups there on behalf of the US, UK and NATO.

But one of the most important pieces of information in helping us to try and decode the film, is that while Bond’s instinct is to help the shot and bleeding fellow agent, compressing his wound, M wants him to leave him immediately and engage in pursuit to recover the stolen drive. As we shall see this initial signal and cue as to M’s behavior and modus operandi will be a constant and a central factor in understanding the “commanding officer”, the end of the (in-house, institutional) chain of command of this particular incarnation of MI6. As I shall argue later, we should contrast it with Silva’s almost obsessive preoccupation and interest in the physical well being of others, or the wounds they have been subjected to (something we will find out is probably connected to the torture and physical abuse and destruction he had to suffer as a consequence of M’s betrayal).

As the chase scene develops in the tradition of many Bond and other “action” flicks, Bond finds himself on the roof of a train with the hired killer who has stolen the hard drive, Patrice. The agent who had been with Bond, Eve Moneypenny, has been following the duo, and now has a brief moment in which she could take a shot, but advises M that she does not have a good shot. M once again goes for it, regardless of the consequences for her agents, in this case Bond. Moneypenny misses the shot and hits Bond, who has already been shot previously by Patrice. He falls into a river from hundreds of feet above, we presume he has died… Preparations are made for his funeral, and the bureaucratic wrap-up of his career, M herself writing his obituary (the glimpse we catch is of an extremely brief, and cold couple of sentences…). In the course of the film we will find that, significantly enough, MI6 has sold his flat and the house of his birth in Scotland, yet another significant piece of information about the system MI6 sacrifices its agents to defend…

Mendes invites the viewer to focus on his movie, not as the killer (Bond) but as the decoder (Bond? Perhaps, not likely, this is not Le Carre’..). So while the plot obviously has to fit into the Bond franchise, and has to obey many superficial rules of the “spy” “action” genre, Mendes complies, but only superficially. He is really inviting the viewer to decode the literalized metaphors that are like a “trail of breadcrumbs” throughout the movie, and to connect them to some key revelatory (“apocalyptic”) moments, such as the monologue about islands and rats, a very striking piece of story-telling which is how Silva (Rodriguez) introduces himself to Bond…

So while superficially Silva fulfills all the required plot roles to play the “villain”, even only the colors he is associated with, the colors of his preferred clothing: white, cream, light, as contrasted with those of Bond: dark, gothic, gloomy, aging, symbolically tell the viewer something more is going in this film than “meets the eye” (golden or otherwise…). Silva obviously sounds like “silver” and his hair, cybernetic abilities, close association with hacking and computers, ability to uncover information the government(s) want suppressed, and some physical resemblances have led a number of critics to make a connection with Julian Assange.

During the course of the entire movie, the information provided by Silva turns out to be correct and corroborated (whether about Bond’s “unresolved childhood issues” or about his not having passed any of the examinations which M, ready to sacrifice him one more time for her career, draped by her ego in the colors of the imperial Union Jack, has, true to what we will find her character to be, falsely stated to Gareth Mallory, and Bond himself, he has passed). The same of course, and crucially, is true about his having been betrayed by none other than M herself: he is a former MI6 agent himself, betrayed, tortured and left to rot in prison. He took the (supposedly standard issue) hydrogen cyanide capsule hidden in the fake tooth to commit suicide to escape his predicament (after he has figured out M’s betrayal), only to have yet another MI6 device and caper malfunction, so instead of killing him, it merely destroys his insides (very symbolically of course in terms of his relations to MI6, i.e BOTH the “physical” AND the “inside” part…).

So although “Skyfall” is not the only film in the Bond franchise in which the villain is a former MI6 agent or affiliate, it is certainly the only one in which M herself and MI6 headquarters are the principal targets. This in and of itself should be another significant clue to tell us that this specific Bond movie is NOT about “external enemies”, but it is a reflection on the “organization”, the activities, the goals, etc. themselves… In her attempt at defense and self-exoneration at the inquiry, M states that one no longer knows who the enemies are, since they are part of the hidden world of the “shadows”… In the opening credits (which of course do not open the film…) the graphics show Bond actually shooting at his own shadows, a very significant other clue about the meaning of the film. M in her incompetence and arrogance tries to mystify the inquiry and oversight into her behavior, by talking about the “unknown” nature of these “enemies.” Yet as the film makes quite clear, both literally and metaphorically, the enemies M is fighting and has to fight have been created by her own actions, bad judgments, incompetence, and pig-headed resolve to continue regardless, without ever learning from any of her mistakes (these are M’s and MI6’s own “shadows,” in other words “the enemy is us”…). She leaves the agent in the opening sequence to die, she has Moneypenny take the poor shot which to all intents and purposes would have killed Bond, she decides to let the hacking of the MI6 system continue instead of shutting it down, causing (indirectly) the explosion at MI6 headquarters and the deaths of many more agents. The drive she is trying to recover, has been stolen, and the names of agents revealed, BECAUSE she had betrayed Silva due to “unauthorized hacking”…. Her decision to decrypt the code in Silva’s computer actually allows the ultimate breach of the MI6 system, enabled also by Bond’s “decoding”… Ultimately even her final moments are marked by the utter selfishness that has characterized her life. She refuses to accept Silva’s invitation for her to pull the trigger and kill them both (an undoubtedly more selfless and perceptive, in terms of an understanding of his ‘superficial’ self/role, act than she ever offers), clearly because she is not willing to engage in any real form of self-sacrifice (even though this would of course be the highest…). Instead, immediately after Bond murders Silva, she passes away… highlighting the futility of her self-centeredness in the grand scheme of things…

So “Skyfall” is also in some sense a test of the viewers’ (remaining…) moral code(s). Will they follow the superficial markers of the ‘action’ and the plot, and accept Silva as the ‘villain’ or will they actually judge both M and Silva by what they do, say and accomplish, what their past has been, based on the information we have from the movie…?

“Skyfall” is also about history, time, origins and aging in a way I believe no other films in the franchise are. This is the only movie in which the relationship between M and Bond is explored in such depth and detail, it is the only Bond film in which we learn about Bond’s childhood, and in which we return to his childhood home. It is the only Bond film in which we repeatedly turn to Bond’s signs of aging and physical fragility, a theme raised to another level by the whole issue of his passing the tests, which he hasn’t, and Silva knowing about this (as M is caught in yet another fraud). And of course nothing is more deadly to the ‘action’ flick than meditations about aging… And Mendes is quite clearly undermining this aspect of the genre, as well as the compulsive drives of the audience who watch them, as he proceeds… Even Bond’s abilities in terms of repartee seem to be drastically (intentionally) curtailed and hampered, as in the exchanges with both Silva and Q, and Moneypenny, which could also be interpreted as signs of aging. Clearly the information Silva provides in the film helps the viewer to reconstruct history, to start building a whole picture, a big picture, from fragments, deceptions, etc. Silva’s parable of the island and the rats is perhaps the most important, trenchant, and key of all the story-telling in the movie, in terms of finding our ethical bearings, as opposed to the ‘hooks’ of action-movies superficialities, glitz, booms’, babes, and gadgets… As deuteragonists to Silva, M and Bond are instead bent on erasing history, as M threatens to do to the traces of Silva’s past at MI6, and as Bond so successfully does to the traces of his childhood past and home in the film’s finale. Silva is decoding and putting together a whole, M and Bond are blowing intelligent connections to smithereens, and fetishistically venerating the most kitschy, meaningless, superannuated, evacuated, symbolic junk of ersatz-‘patriotism’ in the land… The following dialogue between Q and Bond on their first meeting at the National Gallery looking at the painting of a warship is also indicative of the theme of time and history, and the different levels of sensibility and awareness (or lack thereof) the protagonists have (I believe the fact that the dialogue centers on the interpretation of a work of art is not casual): [Q] Always makes me feel a bit melancholy. A grand old war ship, being ignominiously hauled away for scrap. The inevitability of time, don’t you think? What do you see? [Bond] A bloody big ship. Excuse me. [Bond starts to get up] A telling exchange, where once again Bond is shown as not particularly perceptive, since he obviously was supposed to meet Q. But also because the warship symbolically seems to represent British imperialism, its self-importance, and pre-historical barbarism in terms of both ends and means. Later in the dialogue, time, history, age and competence/efficiency, sense of purpose again come into play:

Q: My complexion is hardly relevant.

James Bond: Your competence is.

Q: Age is no guarantee of efficiency.

James Bond: And youth is no guarantee of innovation.

Q: I’ll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of Earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field.

James Bond: Oh, so why do you need me?

Q: Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled.

The line about “efficiency” being of course particularly accurate and telling in the case of this Bond in this movie..

The theme of “going back in time” is quite explicitly a dominant theme for the final part of the movie, after Silva’s first attempt on M’s life at the inquiry. It is also a return that in terms of plot (I believe an intentional decision on Mendes’ part) seems barely plausible. Returning home, using more primitive technology, including the Aston Martin from “Goldfinger”, as well as the weapons and communications (or lack of them) deployed in Bond’s ancestral mansion of “Skyfall”. The line about “leaving a trail of breadcrumbs” also refers to a more primitive, childish, phase of story-telling, fairy tales, though this one is a particularly dark overturning of the genre. As we shall see, “going back in time” also means being aware of one’s cinematic history, and how this knowledge also contributes to the layers of meaning in the movie.

The Multiple Meaning(s) of M

Though the character of M has obviously been a fixture in the franchise, never has decoding very richly layered references to this letter/character been as important as in this movie. Understanding and decoding M is in one sense the most important point of the movie, both in terms of the ‘surface’ plot (Silva’s revenge) and in terms of the viewers’ decryption of the movie and gaining intellectual and moral bearings. The fact that M is a woman obviously works symbolically to Mendes’ advantage in establishing symbolic connections to the ‘supreme’ head of the Empire, Her Majesty, representative of the Monarchy. At a lower institutional level the head of MI6, a central institution in the projection, defense, coordination and projection of Empire.

 

Kicking ZD30 One More Time

All-American Babe Who Didn’t Torture Anybody Wins Oscar

 

One more waterboarding for Bigelow and Boal. Glenn Greenwald, who always keeps his razor sharp, gives a needed fuck you to the bootlicking film critics who ignore morality, ethics and propaganda, even when it’s right in their faces.

Zero Dark Thirty, the CIA and film critics have a very bad evening

The stigma attached to the pro-torture CIA propaganda vehicle, beloved by film critics, results in Oscar humiliation

Red Dawn (1984–>No Pun Intended)

RETRO ACTIVE: Red Dawn (1984)

From GreenCine Daily
http://daily.greencine.com

by Nick Schager

[This week’s “Retro Active” pick is inspired by the
North Korean-centric remake Red Dawn.]

Of all the places to invade America, Colorado—cutoff from any reasonable air or naval support—would seem a pretty terrible choice. But don’t tell that to Red Dawn, John Milius‘ eminently ridiculous time capsule of Cold War paranoia and teenybopper play-acting, which finds small-town Colorado overrun by Russian and Cuban soldiers. The sight of paratroopers landing outside a high school classroom window is the sole iconic image mustered by Milius’ film, which otherwise details, with dreary and unearned self-seriousness, the efforts of a local group of kids to hide in the mountains, school themselves in the ways of resistance, and then fight back against the invading commie hordes as the Wolverines (a name taken from their high school football team). Thus, the fate of American sovereignty rests in the hands of Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey, who along with a few other nondescript twerps co-opt Latin America guerilla tactics in an adventure that—either laughably or insultingly, depending on your vantage point—embraces the role-reversal fantasy of America as the righteously subjugated underdog forced to battle back against tyrannical oppressors.

 

Furthering that bizarro-universe situation is the fact that the nominal commander of the communist invaders is a Freddie Mercury-lookalike Cuban named Bella (Ron O’Neal) who repeatedly expresses confusion over how to operate now that he’s not the insurgent, but the aggressor—a notion that reaches its hilarious apex during the film’s climax, when Bella writes home to his wife that he misses her, hates the frigid cold of Colorado’s winter (a sentiment that would no doubt be ridiculed by his Russian comrades!), and is morally lost without a revolutionary cause driving his actions. This upside-down fairy tale would be more tolerable if it were played with at least a bit of self-conscious humor, but no, Red Dawn is all solemn posturing and speechifying, most of it done by a cast of young Hollywood up-and-comers who carry with them not a shred of believable gravity. Milius and co-screenwriter Kevin Reynolds don’t flesh out these kids as three-dimensional characters, but rather as stock types with predefined roles—the brooding leader (Swayze), the loyal brother (Sheen), the tragedy-damaged loose cannon (Howell), the tough chicks (Thompson and Grey) —whose main function is to flip-flop between acting battle-hardened and traumatized.

 

Early on, Swayze and Sheen find their father (Harry Dean Stanton) in a reeducation camp, where the elder—before hilariously exhorting them to “Avenge Me!” —tells them that, no matter what happens, they shouldn’t cry. It’s advice that goes unheeded, as there’s endless male weeping in Red Dawn, with everyone bawling after another member of their clan is killed, thereby turning the entire proceedings into some sort of unintentional Big Boys Do Cry comedy. Milius’ story is concerned with the loss of innocence suffered by his protagonists, who are forced to assume adult responsibilities and roles until they can lie down and die near a public park swing set, a symbol of youth finally regained. The problem, however, is that amidst such a ludicrous The Commies Are Coming! scenario, this portrait rings ridiculous, especially given the Breakfast Club-style characterizations on display. Swayze’s tormented alpha-male routine is the silliest of the bunch, all over-the-top agonized screaming, but it’s almost matched by the performance of Powers Boothe as a downed American fighter pilot whose grizzled-vet jadedness merely confirms that both kids and adults alike behave like overwrought G.I. Joe phonies in this Us-vs.-Them universe.

 

When not giving the teenage set a Rambo-style saga to call their own—replete with numerous sequences of the Wolverines attacking Russian soldiers and bases with a skillfulness that’s out-and-out absurd—the film also doubles as a bit of unvarnished right-wing propaganda. In Red Dawn, the 2nd Amendment is what allows the kids to resist occupation—note the “They Can Have My Gun When They Pry It From My Cold, Dead Fingers” bumper sticker—and triumph is ultimately achieved through old-school mountain-man camping and hunting in the glorified natural splendor of Arapaho National Forest. With Jeremiah Johnson as their patron saint, the Wolverines are homegrown militiamen whose survivalist skills prove vital and valiant, even when they go loony like C. Thomas Howell and gun down a friend-turned-traitor—an act that’s justified because the victim in question was a wimpy class president, not a venerated jock like Swayze and Sheen. It’s all so much nonsense, even with the participation of the usually dependable Stanton and Ben Johnson (as a Wolverine benefactor). And it’s undone by not only the unbearable affectation of its cast, but by the fact that, ultimately, a world with these kids as heroes seems less palatable than Russian occupation, which at least involves art houses showing nothing but Sergei Eisenstein‘s great Alexander Nevsky.

The Lies Screenwriters Tell Themselves

I’m not posting this video here. It’s a discussion of some highly-paid word jockeys, some of whom penned notable political films, including Argo and Zero Dark Thirty.

I stopped watching after the Argonaut tried to pretend that he wrote a balanced portrayal of Iranians, when the most glaring complaint about the film is the exact opposite interpretation:

The film offers only scant insight into how the Islamists came to win over a country that had previously been quite secular and sophisticated.

Very, very few Iranian characters are individualized in Argo, and most of the time when we see Iranians on-screen, their words are not translated for us. Take Farshad Farahat’s character. He is an officer in the Revolutionary Guards, one of the final terrifying obstacles the escaping protagonists must face at the airport. Farahat tries not to play stupid or cartoonish like so many ethnic villains in Hollywood movies, but most of the little he has been given to say is un-translated, so Farahat has to do almost all of the work with his eyes. The movie apparently never intended much more for him: his character’s name is merely “Azzizi Checkpoint #3″.

Another Persian, Reza (Omid Abtahi), makes an appearance in the marketplace in Tehran. His defining characteristic is whether the Americans can trust him. When he is friendly, his words are translated. When an altercation breaks out, there are no subtitles.

And even the point of the jokey snippet of dialogue that is translated seems to be to mock his idea of a Hollywood movie even more than Argo sends up the fake sci-fi B-movie. This dialogue emphasizes his cultural Other-ness, making him sound as sexist and out-of-touch as a Sacha Baron Cohen creation.

Nowhere, in a caper that exists in part to celebrate movie magic, is it mentioned that Iran has its own cinematic tradition…
–Iran, Politics, and Film: “Argo” or “A Separation”?, by Jennifer Epps

“The movie is packed with rioting American-hating Iranians with guns, yet the film has no tension whatsoever. Other than a brief history lesson in the beginning of the film and one scene in a public market when an outraged Iranian insists that the diplomats give him a Polaroid photo they shot and mentions that the Shah killed his son, the movie completely neglects to provide the Iranian’s side of the story. The film is a sanitized version of the events. It minimally alludes to the back story of the Iranian revolution but then turns the Iranians into window dressing. They are simply a backdrop that allows the film to tell its patriotic story of the American Hollywood-CIA heroic and covert operation to rescue the diplomats.” –“Argo, Fuck Yourself”, by by KIM NICOLINI

The other Big Lie I’ve heard from screenwriters since time immemorial is that “it’s just entertainment,” as opposed to art. The implication being that films don’t affect the viewer and alter their perceptions of the world. Obviously this is a false view. The father of modern propaganda said it in 1928:

“The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world to-day. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions. The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation.” (Propagnada, Edward Bernays, 1928) more

I included the above link to the screenwriter’s discussion mostly because Michael Haneke makes some interesting points about the responsibility to history, and the exploitation of historical situations by the movie business.

Reactionary Politics of Comic-Book Movies

Agree or disagree?  Have they overstated the case, or just scratched the surface? Indiewire:

The Reactionary Politics of Comic-Book Movies: NY Times Critics Unleash Ideological Attack on Our Beloved Superheroes

 

Propaganda in the Cinema (101)

You’re Being Attacked

 

by Joe Giambrone

Propaganda takes innumerable forms and is all around us.  Early cinema thrived on the overt type of propaganda, as in The Birth of a Nation a.k.a. The Clansman.  This 1915 outrageously racist story was the highest grossing film of its day, the first blockbuster (History.com).  The Soviets and the Nazis used film propaganda skillfully and pushed the envelope in their efforts to homogenize their populations and to create unanimous consent for official policy goals.  Film propaganda techniques have succeeded in driving nations toward war, and they remain widely in use today.

Nazi Reich Marshall Hermann Goering’s famous quote is perhaps the most authentic definition of war propaganda in existence:

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.  This is easy.  All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger.  It works the same in every country.” (Gilbert  278)

The hyper-nationalism of so-called patriotism is central to war propaganda.  The propagandist wraps himself and his characters in the flag.  His flag and his national symbols will feature prominently as unifying beacons and to shut down honest debate and criticism.

The U.S. pentagon sees the value of propaganda in mainstream films and offers tens of millions of dollars worth of assistance and hardware to productions that portray the U.S. military in a favorable light.  David Sirota writes in the Washington Post that Top Gun, “proved to be a major force in resuscitating the military’s image” as well as boosting recruitment, and that “polls soon showed rising confidence in the military”  (Sirota).  The U.S. military demands script changes in exchange for its participation, and it gets them.

Film naturally lends itself to good guys and bad guys.  Good guys are attacked by bad guys, but in the end the good one rises up and defeats the evildoer.  Film welcomes a problem, reaction, solution formula.  It welcomes violence and violent solutions to conflicts.  Conflicts on film are far more often decided by superior force and tactics than through mutual understanding, agreement or peaceful resolution.   This repetitive conditioning of populations to the supposed urgent need for military supremacy distorts the audience’s perception of reality.

Film’s visceral and emotional qualities communicate scenarios effectively and manipulate the audience to desire certain outcomes for the characters in which they invest and identify.  This may all seem obvious, but covert manipulation is a double-edged sword, dangerous.

The father of modern propaganda, Edward Bernays, wrote in the late 1920s:

“The American motion picture is the greatest unconscious carrier of propaganda in the world to-day. It is a great distributor for ideas and opinions.  The motion picture can standardize the ideas and habits of a nation.” (Bernays 1928)

Bernays noted the “unconscious” character of much film propaganda.  It was not necessary to directly state messages, but to let the scenarios and the story world carry the messages in the background.  Once immersed in the foreground story — whatever it was — the “unconscious” background elements were passed to the audience without critical interference and often without the viewer’s knowledge.

This subliminal quality is praised by Bernays as a positive thing, in his view. This is hardly surprising as Bernays’ concept of propaganda is broad in scope encompassing every medium and method of communication that exists.  Bernays’ seminal book Propaganda begins:

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.  We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.” (Bernays 1928)

Bernays considered nearly everything that could be seen, touched or heard to be a propaganda opportunity, that is people pushing their opinions of what society should be onto other people, all of them competing for attention.  This meant goods, services and ideas, all of the basic building blocks of modern life.

Taking this expansive view of propaganda and applying it to films leads to analyses of characters and class, the interpersonal relationships, casting, prejudices and biases expressed, wardrobe, locations, the role of authority figures, the role of money, gender relations, power relations, subservience, levels of education, patterns of speech, the desires and aspirations of the protagonists and the antagonists, even the style of music, etc.  It also requires an investigation into the puppet masters themselves: the studios and the producers who wield the power of the purse.

Because of the high cost of producing mass marketed cinema, film is inherently hierarchical, and in a capitalist regime its on-screen content is steered by the money men.  In Bernays’ view, these men will use their positions whether knowingly or unknowingly to propagandize in their own perceived interests.  Why wouldn’t they?

In fascist regimes, the state run film industry propagandizes in the interest of the nationalist agenda.  In communist regimes the state run film bureau propagandizes the official party myth of worker equality and the glory of the proletariat.

Early overt propaganda films, those which consciously and obviously pushed political ideologies, are instructive for studying the on-screen techniques used to convince audiences and to gain their approval.

The Birth of a Nation

The Birth of a Nation played to the worst fears of racist whites.  On the screen history is rewritten completely such that the blacks of the reconstruction era reign over the defeated southern whites.  As one title card proclaims, “The helpless white minority” (Griffith 1915).

These situations are taken to absurd heights in order to make white audiences uncomfortable and to demonize the black race.  Numerous African American actors are featured in bit parts.  However, a number of the more sinister and despicable characters are actually white actors wearing not very convincing blackface.

The most hot-button moment of the film is when the black legislature proclaims interracial marriage legal.  The black assembly erupts into wild celebration as the few minority whites quietly escape.  After this point the protection of the white women becomes the main goal of the heroically-portrayed white southerners.

Despite the preponderance of overt racism in The Birth of a Nation unconscious techniques are also employed.  By the selection of very young and petite white female actresses their vulnerability is enhanced.  By placing the girls on screen for long periods of time, and usually isolated without any male guardians present, the idea of the need to protect them from outside forces is reinforced.

The Ku Klux Klan was reborn in 1915 after William J. Simmons viewed the film, and he set out to organize a resurgence of Klan activity.  “When ‘Birth of a Nation’ opened in Atlanta, [Simmons] ran an advertisement for the Klan next to the movie’s ad in the Atlanta newspaper” (ADL).   This new Klan directed its hatred not just at blacks but also at immigrants in general as well as Jews and Catholics.  “At the peak of its strength in 1924, membership in the KKK is estimated to have been as high as three million” (History.com).

Triumph of the Will

One of the most successful propaganda films of all time was Triumph of the Will, which depicts Adolf Hitler’s 1934 Nazi rally in Nuremberg Germany.  This film sought to place the viewer in the rally with numerous camera setups that gave a visceral experience of attending such a highly coordinated and staged event.

Hitler was himself an accomplished propagandist and showman who studied earlier works in order to sway his audiences in person, over the radio waves and in these Nazi films.  From the uniforms to the swastika symbols to the sea of flags to the camera angles to the regimented placement of all in attendance to the music and lighting Hitler indeed followed the expansive interpretation of propaganda voiced by Bernays.  Everything in Triumph of the Will is designed to communicate strength, leadership and the fawning love and admiration of the German people for their supreme leader. Wide overhead shots capture the full expanse of the large crowds giving weight and credibility to the speaker, Hitler.

The reason given for the enormous gathering captured in the film is the 20th anniversary of the start of the first World War.  A title card opens the piece:

“20 years after the outbreak of the World War… 16 years after the German suffering began… 19 months after the beginning of Germany’s rebirth Adolf Hitler flew to Nuremberg again…” (Riefenstahl 1934)

Triumph then opens with the aircraft delivering Hitler to immense crowds of admirers.  Before we see Hitler, we see his plane circling above Nuremberg, and the camera glimpses more and more of the gathered flock below in the town.  Perhaps the most powerful images are of the adoring children, no doubt Hitler Youth, who hail the arriving savior.

Many shots that day place the camera at waist height looking up to the perfectly symmetrical lines of storm troopers, as swastika flags are carried by rows and rows of identical groupings.  Strong compositions place the leadership in the center where all focus is directed and all salutes are aimed in at the undisputed Fuhrer.

The Battleship Potemkin

The Soviet propaganda film The Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1926)tells a revolutionary narrative loosely based on an actual incident from 1905.  Here the officers of the corrupt old regime are cast as the villains and demonized.  The downtrodden sailors of the Czar’s navy are pushed to their breaking point by the abusive officers.  This is the class struggle personified.

When the ship’s crew is offered only rotted maggot-infested meat to eat this becomes the final straw.  Mutiny follows, and then solidarity with the nearest Russian town Odessa.

The Czarist soldiers ruthlessly massacre the civilians of Odessa, an event that actually did not occur as portrayed in the film, although other atrocities were reported at the time (Ebert).   The rebellious ship sailors fire on the enemy stronghold, destroying the opera house in a hail of artillery rounds.

Soon more Czarist ships are sent to battle the mutinous Potemkin.  A tense standoff on the high seas climaxes with numerous montage cuts that show the ships in action and approaching one another, guns ready.  Eisenstein was a pioneer of montage and of placing contrasting images next to one another for effect.

Solidarity wins out, and these new ships join in the rebellion taking the cue from the revolutionary actions of the Potemkin’s sailors.  Revolution wins in the end.

Demonization

Jumping ahead to modern times, Dr. Jack Shaheen studied negative portrayals of the Arab race in Hollywood’s films.  He analyzed over 1,000 such films from the early days right up into the present.  In Reel Bad Arabs Shaheen opens the discussion:

“For more than a century Hollywood too has used repetition as a teaching tool, tutoring movie audiences by repeating over and over, in film after film, insidious images of the Arab people.  I ask the reader to study in these pages the persistence of the defamation, from earlier times to the present day, and to consider how these slanderous stereotypes have affected honest discourse and public policy.” (Shaheen p. 7)

Public perception of Arabs is relevant to multiple current wars, and to likely future conflicts.  “Arabs are the most maligned group in the history of Hollywood.  They’re portrayed basically as sub humans, Untermenschen, a term used by Nazis to vilify Gypsies and Jews” (Shaheen film).

Shaheen contends that the willingness of the US population to wage war on Iraq and elsewhere in the region naturally follows from a century of conditioning to regard Arabs as less than human.  Such conditioning leads to apathy in regards to real atrocities perpetrated against Arabs, including civilians.  The torture crimes at Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Base fit with a desensitized people who regard the objects of their violence as undeserving of sympathy or humanity.

Shaheen followed up with a documentary film of the same name. Numerous ugly portrayals of Arab characters are presented in ways that if applied to other races or religions would be met with protests and public wrath.  For Arabs and Muslims generally this negative stereotyping not only passes without protest in the American culture but is often celebrated as realistic.

“The movies that we see basically follow Washington’s policies… Islamophobia now is a part of our psyche.  Words such as Arab and Muslim are perceived as threatening words.  And if the words are threatening, what about the images we see in the cinema and on our television screens?” (Shaheen film)

Deceptive, Insidious

Propaganda is pervasive, insidious, often subliminal and is in evidence even in today’s so-called mainstream films.  The use of out groups and demonization continues despite cultural trends toward more inclusiveness and acceptance of others.  Film is a powerful force for rewriting history and for glorifying one’s own side at the expense of the truth.

One-sided depictions are overwhelmingly the staple of film narratives both in fiction and in supposed non-fiction.  In fiction, the protagonist’s view is the dominant view expressed, and events are concocted to reinforce this view.  Those whom the protagonist sees as bad or evil the audience is led to see in the same light by the unfolding of the plot.

As for non-fiction film:

“Selection and half truth are the corner-stones of propagandist documentary, and it is a psychological fact that half truths serve as well as whole truths in supporting cinematic illusions of what is real.” (Furhammar- Isaksson 152)

It is all too easy to accept a film as reality in whole or in part because of the convincing manner in which the events are staged.  This tendency in gullible audiences has been exploited for propaganda reasons and will continue to be exploited.  For that reason, film will remain a battleground, of ideas and clashing views, which needs to be monitored and commented upon.

“It is fundamental to propaganda that the message must be expressed in a way that does not invite discussion. The effect depends upon being received without question, on drowning out all criticism or analysis. Its appeal is purely emotional and excludes all alternatives.” (Furhammar- Isaksson 201)

One of the keys to sneaking in propaganda in a way that doesn’t invite question or discussion is to embed it in genre films.  The audience fixated on the genre conventions and plot ignores the political messages that accompany the story.  This is the most common type of “unconscious” or subliminal propaganda.

Judith Hess argues that the classic genres of horror, western, sci-fi and gangster seek to reinforce the status quo and to dissuade any disaffected masses from challenging the existing order.  While token gestures are offered in the telling, the end result tends to suppress criticism of the system and to reinforce the status quo.

“Genre films produce satisfaction rather than action, pity and fear rather than revolt. They serve the interests of the ruling class by assisting in the maintenance of the status quo and they throw a sop to oppressed groups who, because they are unorganized and therefore afraid to act, eagerly accept the genre film’s absurd solutions to economic and social conflicts.” (Hess)

By reducing complex structural social problems to simplistic dilemmas these films redirect the audience’s concerns into politically safe harbors.  The organization of society is never questioned, according to Hess, but instead society is simply a backdrop to the drama.  Often the conflicts are simply attributed to the character flaws of individuals, and not to the injustice of his or her situation.

The genre conventions play with the idea of addressing real world problems only to bait and switch.  In the classic Western, we are told to adhere to a “well defined and unchanging code.”  In classic horror, we must solve problems “based on tradition and faith.”  In science fiction invasion stories we must choose isolationism as no “knowledge gained from communication could possibly outweigh the dangers it represents.”  The gangster’s troubles arise from his seeking to challenge for power inside the system, to rise above his class.  He does not seek to change the system, but to overreach.  The gangster narrative serves as a “warning to stay within one’s station if one is to survive—all [these genres] militate against progressive social change” (Hess).

Propaganda of one sort or another is found in most films.  Editorial selection insures that a particular view gets a better close-up than its opponents.  It is important to realize that films are designed and contorted to manipulate audience perceptions.

Awareness and discussion of propaganda should be front and center from early childhood on through to the retirement home.  Whether in film, on the radio, in print, on television or now on computer screens or phones the fact is that we are bombarded by complex messages that often carry subliminal characteristics. Television commercials are but one type of obvious propaganda, clearly blatant, but are these discussed and dissected in the classroom?  Does our education system account for slanted messaging and biased sources generally?  Are our citizens taught to even recognize when someone is constructing a tall tale in order to sell them a specious worldview?

Propaganda, like fascism, is generally relegated to the historical dustbin.  People assume that they are immune and that propaganda doesn’t affect their lives.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Some further research:

The Century of the Self

Psywar

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People

 

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Joe Giambrone is a filmmaker and author of Hell of a Deal: a Supernatural Satire. He edits the Political Film Blog. He be reached at: polfilmblog at gmail.

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Sources

ADL, Ku Klux Klan – Extremism in America, web, Anti Defamation League, web, November 19, 2011, http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/kkk/history.asp?LEARN_Cat=Extremism&LEARN_SubCat=Extremism_in_America&xpicked=4&item=kkk

Bernays, Edward, Propaganda, 1928, History is a Weapon, web, November 17, 2011, http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html#SECTION1.

Ebert, Roger, Battleship Potemkin, originally published in Chicago Sun Times, web, November 19, 2011, http://www.ebertfest.com/one/battleship_rev.htm

Eisenstein, Sergei, The Battleship Potemkin, Russia: MosFilm, 1926, film.

Furhammar, Leif and Isaksson, Folke, Politics and Film, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971, print, p. 152.

Gilbert, Gustave, Nuremberg Diary, Interview with Hermann Goering, New York: Farrar Strauss and Co. 1947, pp. 278-279, print.

Griffith, D.W., The Birth of a Nation a.k.a. The Clansman, 1915, film.

Hess, Judith, Genre films and the status quo, Jump Cut, no. 1, 1974, pp.1, 16, 18, web, November 18, 2011, http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC01folder/GenreFilms.html

History.com, Birth of a Nation Opens, A&E Television Networks, LLC., web, November 19, 2011, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/birth-of-a-nation-opens

Riefenstahl, Leni, Triumph des Willens a.k.a. Viljans triumf  a.k.a. Triumph of the Will, Germany: Reichspropagandaleitung der NSDAP, 1934, film.

Shaheen, Jack Ph.D., Reel Bad Arabs, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2001, p. 7, print.

Shaheen, Jack Ph.D., Reel Bad Arabs, Media Education Foundation, film, 2006, web, November 19, 2011, Google Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-223210418534585840

Sirota, David, 25 years later, how ‘Top Gun’ made America love war, The Washington Post, Aug. 26, 2011, web, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/25-years-later-remembering-how-top-gun-changed-americas-feelings-about-war/2011/08/15/gIQAU6qJgJ_story.html

Propaganda in the Cinema (101)