The documentary film no matter it styles is a powerful way for a filmmaker to put forward their point of view – they are also very successful on how they influence the audience and how they can even influence how history is remembered. It is said that the victors write history and also in the modern world filmmakers write it to.

The film maker can put forward any story or theme in any way he chooses; through the story and script and how the film’s edited, and the narrative presented to the audience. By their nature films are believable and real to an audience.

Take the early observational documentary Nanook of the North after watching the film I was surprised (perhaps naively) that most this film was constructed and staged by the film-maker – if it seems real to me in today’s modern world, it must have been viewed as absolute truth by the early cinema-going audiences.

Combs & Combs in Film Propaganda and American Politics: An Analysis and Filmography say “To classify a film as propaganda does not require demonstrable proof that filmmakers deliberately intended that a movie contains a propaganda message. Rather a film story emerges as a propaganda message if advocacy is sought and political learning is embedded in the body of the picture.” This definition is can be applied to most films made, which are documentary based or factual in their original story.

Perhaps one of the most telling of how film can influence the audience and the overall reflection of history the Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin; while this section is famous and influential in it use of editing and montage to enhance the drama of the scene it is also added to the film for dramatic effect. There was no massacre on the steps but many now believe this to be a real piece of Russian history.

I have watched or rewatched several films over this section of the course and I have grown a little cynical that can I really believe anything that is put in front of me?

Director:

Cutter Hodierne

Cast:

Abdikani Muktar, Abu Bakr Mirre, Ali Daudi Osman

Summary:

Pirates in Somalia, from the perspective of the pirates.

Review & Reflection: 

This short film packs a lot into is 17 minutes and was rewarded with success at the Sundance film festival. Cutter Hodiene directs a film that shifts the focus in the discussion/representation of modern pirates, presenting it through the eye of the pirates who also happen to be poor Somali pirates that have little in the way of prospects than that joining the pirate gangs. (Berndtsson & Kinsey, 2016). The film introduces the pirates from the outset, placing they in a small boat with guns dwarfs by the size of the ship before bringing them back to their natural surroundings.

The initial cinematography is cinematic; the following shots appear to be more from a documentary, with the medium close-ups and how the characters address the camera directly. This is juxtaposed the unsteady camera that follows them to the ship in the next scene which gives the feeling of first-hand involvement. The action is framed by narration from the pirates who discuss their strategy and why tey do what they do: “We don’t have to shoot! Only shoot if they don’t cooperate.” (Hodierne, 2012, 00:01:41-00:01:47). The use of camera angles and shots provides a realism that emphasises the reality of those who feel they have no choice but to be a “hapless criminal” (Macauley, 2012).

The film re-establishes modern piracy on the political agenda but challenges the status quo. That is, showing from the pirate’s point of view and therefore demonstrates the point that we have been looking at within this project that the deliberate use of issue can be used as propaganda by an individual filmmaker.

]]> https://petewalker-ocalearninglog.com/a-hijacking-2012-kapringen-original-title/ Sat, 04 Feb 2017 19:06:45 +0000 http://petewalker-ocalearninglog.com/?p=1453 Read more]]> A Hijacking (2012)

Kapringen (original title)

Director:

Cast:

Summary:

Review & Reflection: 

Tobias Lindholm’s was shot on a genuine cargo ship had was hijacked off Somalia to establish a realistic environment for the narrative. The opening of the plays to this realistic environment as it provides a framing for Hartmann against an open sea while he is on the phone to his family. This opening shot seeks to introduce Hartmann as our main protagonist but also establish the juxtaposition of his life and his life as a dedicated family man.

Director:

Paul Greengrass

Cast:

Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman |

Summary:

The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the U.S.-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.

Review: 

In contrast to A Hijacking and Fishing without Nets, Paul Greengrass’ “true story” Captain Philips is more of an action thriller crime movie – particularly with it gung-ho pro-USA 3rd act.

Paul Greengrass is usually synonymous with a handheld camera and frenetic style which disorientates the audience. However, here the editing serves to deliberately frame the pirates as stereotypical movie villains, promoting the West versus the others paradigms that have long been associated with race and perceived as a threat to a specific way of life (Newman, 1997). The editing also together with the casting Tom Hanks frames Captain Philips himself as a self-sacrificing hero; this appears to have drawn some criticism in the press from former crew members who have suggested that he was perhaps the cause of the actual hijacking.

Greengrass’ techniques illustrate how the use of cinematography and editing can be use to create different outcomes and helps cast the filmmaker in the role of propagandist in producing a film which is tonally very different to its two contemporaries, Fishing without nets and A Hijacking.

Director:

Gillo Pontecorvo

Cast:

Bra;him Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi

Summary:

In the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight for independence from the French government. (IMDb)

Synopsis: 

A film commissioned by the Algerian government that shows the Algerian revolution from both sides. The French foreign legion has left Vietnam in defeat and has something to prove. The Algerians are seeking independence. The two clash. The torture used by the French is contrasted with the Algerian’s use of bombs in soda shops. A look at war as a nasty thing that harms and sullies everyone who participates in it. (IMDb)

Review

This a well-balanced portrayal of a difficult period in French and Algerian history, It shows the battle of independence and struggles against the French from both sides without over bias to either side. The film has a real feel, and I was surprised to read that no documentary footage was used because there are sequences that seem so real, particular the bombing by the woman disguised as French.

The film propagates thoughts in the reviewer because the film is equally sympathetic to both to the French colonial forces and the partisans fighting against them. We see the partisans has real people with genuine wishes against what see as oppression from the French – we do see example of this prosession. But the French soldiers are shown as heroic and just doing their job not over zealous.

Overall over a film to judge all other that hope to dramatise or remake the past.

I found this video helpful when looking when watching the DW Griffith films ‘The Birth of a Nation” and “Intolerance” – it sumerised the build-up of cinema style in those early years showing how Editing developed to create these early narrative films. It helped keep my attention on the subtleties, that I could have easily missed.

Director:

Quentin Tarantino

Cast:

Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender

Summary:

In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a plan to assassinate Nazi leaders by a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers coincides with a theatre owner’s vengeful plans for the same. (IMDb)

Synopsys:

In German-occupied France, young Jewish refugee Shosanna Dreyfus witnesses the slaughter of her family by Colonel Hans Landa. Narrowly escaping with her life, she plots her revenge several years later when German war hero Fredrick Zoller takes a rapid interest in her and arranges an illustrious movie premiere at the theatre she now runs. With the promise of every major Nazi officer in attendance, the event catches the attention of the “Basterds”, a group of Jewish-American guerilla soldiers led by the ruthless Lt. Aldo Raine. As the relentless executioners advance and the conspiring young girl’s plans are set in motion, their paths will cross for a fateful evening that will shake the very annals of history. (IMDb)

Review

Tarantino makes films about films. He is a student of film and me makes no excuse for that, he uses his influences in all his movies. I the above interview he acknowledges that Inglourious Basterds is a homage to the Spaghetti Western and the caper film. I did feel that way back in 2009 when I first went to the cinema to watch the movie – although I didn’t  spot the Spaghetti Western then but it reminded me of one of my all time guilty pleasure film “Kelly’s Hero’s.”

The first 3rd of the movie is classic Spaghetti Western, with the use of cuts between close-up and extreme close-ups. The drama of the opening scene with Col. Landa interviewing the dairy farmer is incredibly tense, although Landa has a slight cartoon-ness to his character, which again is reminiscent of the Spaghetti Western.

While not classic propaganda Tarantino is putting forward his point of view in his films; profoundly influenced by the earlier film “The Battle of Algiers”  which is a well-balanced film about the struggle for independence in Algeria from both the French Establishment and the insurgent’s point of view.

The referencing people shot hiding behind false walls echoed in Inglorious Basterds, and the female rebels were hiding in plain sight by dressing as French is explicitly homaged by Shosanna Dreyfus dying her hair blonde and running a cinema in the centre of occupied Paris.

Going back to propaganda the central theme of Inglourious Basterds is the importance of propaganda; Hitler and Goebbels are producing a film about the exploits of a German soldier fort the German market and the allies want to disrupt it.

Obviously, the ending of Inglourious Basterds is fanciful – we know that Hitler was not involved in a shootout at a film premiere in Paris – let alone potentially killed. However, the other themes of the movie are plausible and well presented to the audience (if in a very violent way). It shows the vicious ruthlessness of the SS, shows how soldiers operated behind enemy lines. I could be seen as an accurate portrayal of occupied Paris and of how the war was fought. There the question has asked of some watched this movie with no idea of what happened during the Second World War what would they think or believe?

The Man with the Movie Camera(1929)

Director: Dziga Vertov

Summary: A man travels around a city with a camera slung over his shoulder, documenting urban life with dazzling invention.

Synopsis: This playful film is at once a documentary of a day in the life of the Soviet Union, a documentary of the filming of said documentary, and a depiction of an audience watching the film. Even the editing of the film is documented. We often see the cameraman who is purportedly making the film, but we rarely, if ever, see any of the footage he seems to be in the act of shooting! Written by George S. Davis (IMDb)

While researching analysis and reaction to “Battleship Potemkin” (1925) I came across this interview with famous B-movie director Roger Corman where he describes the action of “Odessa Steps” sequence far more eloquently than I can.

As Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein

Summary: A dramatised account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resulting street demonstration which brought on a police massacre (ImDb)

Synopsis:

Summary: Perhaps yje most famous example of Soviet propaganda cinema as it was ordered by the new Soviet government to commerate the 1905 Revolution, a movement that was instrumental indicting to Lenin that the military could be relied upon to support the proletariat in over throwing the Tsarsist regime.

The movie was the brain child of Eisenstein who was a student of the soviet montage theory argued that images within a film had the biggest impact not by mearly unfolding in front of the audience but by their juxtaposition. As esteemed film critic quotes “Sometimes the cutting is dialectical: point, counterpoint, fusion. Cutting between the fearful faces of the unarmed citizens and the faceless troops in uniform, he created an argument for the people against the czarist state. Many other cuts are as abrupt: After Potemkin’s captain threatens to hang mutineers from the yardarm, we see ghostly figures hanging there. As the people call out, “Down with the tyrants!” we see clenched fists. To emphasise that the shooting victims were powerless to flee, we see one revolutionary citizen without legs”(Ebert, 1998)

This Montage style is clearly shown in the often referenced/copied Odessa Steps section:

“As the troops march ahead, a military boot crushes a child’s hand. In a famous set of shots, a citizen is seen with eyeglasses; when we cut back, one of the glasses has been pierced by a bullet.Eisenstein felt that montage should proceed from rhythm, not story. Shots should be cut to lead up to a point, and should not linger because of personal interest in individual characters” (Ebert, 1998)

Eisenstein intercut shots of 3 lions to the sequence to give the impression that they are rising up in horror or disgust at what is happening on the steps and also as Roger Corman indicated in an interview that the shots from the Battleship symbolise that while the mutiny has failed there is sufficient strength in reserve to rise another day and win.

How these images are edit is landmark in how emotions and reaction are related to an audience and it significance is undoubted as the youtube clip below show its influence on other directors.