G. Thompson
Today: workshop 80% drafts of essay 1; view and discuss portions of Triumph of the Will.
Recap from last time
Overview of propaganda:
Some overlap with persuasion, but the key difference is that propaganda is to the advantage of the source, and may use deceptive means. Persuasion cannot use deception.
Propaganda came to public awareness particularly with WWI, as it was used to great advantage by the allies in that conflict's total warfare. Concern increased because of fascism and Nazism. Wartime propaganda cemented the negative associations with propaganda; in peacetime propaganda uses more subtle methods, overlapping with advertising and public relations texts.
One key theme in WWI and WWII propaganda was atrocity propaganda, stressing cruel acts by the enemy (sometimes true, often invented) in order to build support for war. Example--false testimony before Congress by Kuwaiti girl, the ambassador's daughter.
Visual texts are important means of propaganda--more direct emotional impact. Visuals often are combined with text to prompt interpretation.
One means of analysis of persuasion, including propaganda, is to focus on ethos, logos, and pathos.
Next class--draft of assignment. Finished version due Sept. 13; 80% draft due Sept. 6. Bring a hard copy, as we will spend about 30 min. of class working with these in peer groups. Be prepared for your essay to speak to your group about your image, what it is, and how you see it as deceptive.
Essay #1: How can a photograph or image be untrue? For this assignment, find an image (still or video) which you regard as untrue. Reproduce the image for your paper, describe it verbally, and then discuss why it is in some way deceptive (500 words).
We will also view part of Triumph of the Will in class, and that will be the subject of an informal writing Sept. 11.
Form into groups of four. Each person should take five minutes--show your image, discuss why you chose it, discuss why you consider it deceptive. Then focus on the text of your essay itself: what have you done so far, how do you plan to develop it. At this point, the others in the group should pose questions to the author about the draft so far.
The Triumph of the Will--context.
For this and the shorter film to be viewed next week, we are thinking about visual propaganda which moves. Some aspects of film or video are the same as still images: we still have an implied relation to the subject (large? small? Seen from below, from above? Distant, close-up? The subject's appearance and various codes--class, symbols, and so on?) However, moving images flow, so that images replace other images, and we may not have time to articulate them or think about their effect on us--which is why viewing on computer or with VCR / DVD is so helpful. We can stop the flow and see it repeatedly, and see it under our control. That's not the case in the cinema, and it wasn't the case before popularized remotes, etc.
Visual images connect us to what are assumed to be our own experiences and pre-existing cultural ideas. Some of the visuals from last time showed us "doctors" with lab coats, stethoscopes, and other symbols which we associate with trustworthiness. Another example: the images of the leader showing seriousness and resolve, or looking up--a gesture of idealism. Military costume carries its own associations.
Assume that nothing in an image is there by accident. Even if it wasn't consciously selected, it has a function. Look at Rockwell image (savings bonds poster).
Function of the camera--this pertains to still images as well, but is more crucial for film. The camera functions essentially as our eyes, so that we seem to be in different places:
Film has far more details than we can consciously register. We can debate about whether, if you don't notice it, it has an effect--perhaps unconsciously it does. The "hidden persuaders" thesis has been pretty much debunked, but cultural associations have more plausibility.
When we view film analytically, with an eye to its propaganda value, we have to keep reminding ourselves that what we see as a flow was constructed. The term for this construction is montage (also used for a succession of images). Films are shot in short intervals and spliced together (done digitally now) so as to create a seamless flow--the idea is to prevent the audience from thinking about what they are seeing, because we become involved in the story, we identify with characters and situations, and so on. This immersion makes film a powerful medium for propaganda. Television is not as immersive.
Effective propaganda aspires to be natural--it's just reality, nothing manipulative about it. As the audience, we have to work to consider how we are being nudged. Perceiving it as propaganda depends on how distant the message is from our own ideology: since we are presumably not Nazis, we are not likely to be drawn in by the film we are going to see next, but we very well could be with Chrysler's ad.
One of the classic examples of propaganda was a documentary of the 1934 Nazi party congress in Nuremberg, Germany, made as a feature film by Leni Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl's film, The Triumph of the Will, established some of the devices of political campaigns--for us these will seem somewhat crude and obvious, but keep in mind this was the first time, and it was 82 years ago.
Context for the film is important: when Germany lost WWI, they were forced by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles not only to cede some territory (chiefly what became Poland), but also to pay reparations for having started the war. These were seen by Germans as unfair--not without reason--and led to economic hardship throughout the 1920s. Ruinous inflation, labor problems, threats from USSR. This created an opportunity for demagogues--in 1922, Mussolini took power in Italy. Early Nazi party tried to do so soon after, but failed--Hitler was jailed for a few months, and wrote Mein Kampf, My Struggle, in which he echoed popular anti-Semitic sentiment, blaming Jews for Germany's economic problems. (Propaganda often depends on creating an enemy to blame for problems.) The Nazis made a comeback, and Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933, in hopes of buying him off; but instead he consolidated power and was presented as the Leader (Fuehrer) who would bring Germany back as a European power. Hitler was Austrian, and one of his goals was to unify German-speakers into one state (Germany and Austria, along with portions of Czechoslovakia, Poland, USSR).
In 1934, however, Hitler's power was far from established. Potential opponents to his leadership had recently been eliminated in the Night of the Long Knives, and he was interested in having a film, not obviously propaganda, to present him as the leader of a unified Germany seeking its rightful place in the world. He persuaded Riefenstahl, a successful actress / director, not obviously political, to make a very expensive film--she shot more than 60 hrs. of film in order to make this 90-min. documentary associating Hitler with Germany's past traditions, with mythic archetypes (the god descending from the clouds), with art (statuary and Wagnerian music), with the folk (costumes, etc.), with the military, labor, pretty much all of German tradition.
we observe the plane from outside, so we are among the crowds; we view Nuremberg from above, so we are in the plane looking down; we are behind or ahead of Hitler, looking up at him, etc.; we are in the car viewing the motorcade, so we briefly become Hitler-in-the-car. When you continually look at something, it becomes the object of your attention, and you are technologically forced (if you view the film) to become fascinated with it.
At other times the camera shows us Hitler and other important speakers, shot from a low position, so as to magnify their importance. In these shots, they are not looking at the camera, but looking at the people looking at them; the fact that we are looking at them but they are not looking at us indicates that we are unimportant members of the crowd—they are literally and symbolically above us, and we are subject to them. That is what is meant by subject position. The camera places us in that role, whether we like it or not. (Haskins 95)
I'm more interested in showing the parts of the film leading up to the speeches. The speeches are of only antiquarian interest now. The speakers did downplay the anti-Semitic attacks somewhat. Because we know about WWII and the Holocaust, we will necessarily bring knowledge of what the result would be to what we see in the film. Part of this I'll speed through, and I'll stop the film periodically for commentary and your observations.
The film is in black and white, which may distance us a bit--for us, the choice to film in black and white is either for purposes of stylization / art, or to keep expenses down. In 1934 color film was very expensive, and audiences didn't expect it. (Early color--Technicolor--was part of the appeal of Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and other blockbusters from the late '30s.)
Opening scenes--I will speed past these. The film shows us Wagnerian music, shots of the clouds, and the airplane carrying Hitler flying over Nuremberg to the airport, where he is received by crowds. Flying between cities was still pretty new and would have been a sensation in itself. The only text in the film besides the speeches comes in the opening titles, in black-letter archaic script:
On 5 September 1934
20 years after the outbreak of the World War
16 years after the beginning of German suffering
19 months after the beginning of the German rebirth
Adolf Hitler flew again to Nuremberg to review the columns of his faithful followers
Haskins:
101 “The transition from the virile beauty of the young men in the camp to the picturesque garments of German peasants bolsters the ideal of a united people”
102 “The spectacle communicates to the Germans what they should be by showing them what they can be . . . offering the viewers an aestheticized vision of themselves as political performers.”
Segments to view:
0:43 Titles as listed above
1:26 Aerial shots
2:37 First view of Nuremberg
Visual propaganda message: old town, medieval and classic buildings of old Germany, with transition to modern, new Germany (Nazi swastikas)
3:50 Waiting crowds at airport.
Note interspersed reaction shots: juxtaposition implies without stating that this is a response. Juxtaposition is a means of lying or deception or manipulation.
Experiment--the same woman's photo, following different contexts, is read as sorrowful or joyful.
6:45 Army--important for Hitler to get them on his side, but also to be in control.
Party congress follows closely after Night of the Long Knives--June 30-July 2, 1934--SA / Brownshirts systematically executed. Street violence was a threat to Hitler now that he was in power. Ernst Röhm -- and perhaps hundreds of others--executed. Röhm wanted more socialism . . .
9:10 Torchlight parade
10:30 lights, "HEIL HITLER"
11:40 Morning shots--show a bit.
13:16 Tents
Talk about spectacle
21:50 Opening of party caucus
30:08 Speech, shovel brigade. Recitation of home towns, etc.
33:15 Song (Horst Wessel?). Utopian speech
37:29 Evening
42:45 Hitler youth
52:00 Speech
57:50 Spectacle leading up to 1:09:00
1:34:00 purification