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JFK (film)
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JFK
JFK-poster.png
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Oliver Stone
Produced by
Oliver Stone
Arnon Milchan
A. Kitman Ho
Screenplay by
Oliver Stone
Zachary Sklar
Based on
On the Trail of the Assassins
by Jim Garrison
Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy
by Jim Marrs
Narrated by
Martin Sheen
Starring
Kevin Costner
Kevin Bacon
Tommy Lee Jones
Laurie Metcalf
Gary Oldman
Michael Rooker
Jay O. Sanders
Sissy Spacek
Music by
John Williams
Cinematography
Robert Richardson
Editing by
Joe Hutshing
Pietro Scalia
Studio
Le Studio Canal+
Regency Enterprises
Distributed by
Warner Bros.
Release dates
December 20, 1991
Running time
188 minutes[1]
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$40 million
Box office
$205,405,498
Part of the series on the
Jim Garrison
investigation of the
JFK assassination
People
Jim Garrison
John F. Kennedy
Clay Shaw
David Ferrie
Perry Russo
Guy Banister
George de Mohrenschildt
Dean Andrews Jr.
Organizations
Fair Play for Cuba Committee
Cuban Democratic
Revolutionary Front
Related articles
Clay Shaw trial (people)
JFK (film)
Single bullet theory
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JFK is a 1991 American political thriller film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner).
Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones) for his alleged participation in a conspiracy to assassinate the President, for which Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) was found responsible by two government investigations: the Warren Commission, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (which concluded that there could have been another assassin shooting with Oswald).
The film was adapted by Stone and Zachary Sklar from the books On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs. Stone described this account as a "counter-myth" to the Warren Commission's "fictional myth."
The film became embroiled in controversy. Upon JFK's theatrical release, many major American newspapers ran editorials accusing Stone of taking liberties with historical facts, including the film's implication that President Lyndon B. Johnson was part of a coup d'état to kill Kennedy. After a slow start at the box office, the film gradually picked up momentum, earning over $205 million in worldwide gross. JFK was nominated for eight Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and won two for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. It was the most successful of three films Stone made about the American Presidency, followed later by Nixon with Anthony Hopkins in the title role and W. with Josh Brolin as George W. Bush.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Screenplay
3.2 Principal photography
3.3 Editing
3.4 Music
4 Reception 4.1 Critical reaction
4.2 Box office
4.3 Awards and nominations
4.4 Cultural impact
5 Legislative impact
6 Home video
7 References
8 External links
Plot[edit]
This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (April 2013)
The film's opening encompasses newsreel footage (with narration by Martin Sheen), including President Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address, warning about the build-up of the "military–industrial complex." This is followed by a summary of John Kennedy's years as President. Events shown are the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis and the early days of the Vietnam War and Laotian Civil War. This builds to a reconstruction of the assassination on November 22, 1963. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison subsequently learns about potential links to the assassination in New Orleans. Garrison and his team investigate several possible conspirators, including private pilot David Ferrie, but are forced to let them go after the federal government publicly rebukes their investigation. Kennedy's alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald is killed by Jack Ruby, and Garrison closes the investigation.
The investigation is reopened in late 1966 after Garrison talks to Senator Russell B. Long of Louisiana. Garrison then reads the Warren Report and notices what he believes are numerous inaccuracies and conflicts. Garrison and his staff interrogate several witnesses to the assassination, and others who were involved with Oswald, Ruby and Ferrie. Upon Garrison's informal questioning, Ferrie denies any knowledge of meeting Oswald, but he's soon suspected of conspiring to murder the President. Another witness is Willie O'Keefe, a male prostitute serving five years in prison for soliciting. As well as briefly meeting Oswald, O'Keefe was romantically involved with a man he knew as "Clay Bertrand" – also known as Clay Shaw. O'Keefe reveals he witnessed Ferrie discussing the assassination with Shaw, Oswald and several Latin men. In Dallas, Texas, others come forward, including Jean Hill: she tells the investigators that she witnessed shots fired from the grassy knoll and she heard four to six shots total, but U.S. Secret Service agents threatened her into saying only three shots came from the Texas School Book Depository; the implication is that the Warren Commission made changes to her testimony. Garrison and a staff member also go to the sniper's location in the book depository and aim an empty rifle from the window through which Oswald allegedly shot Kennedy. They conclude that Oswald was too poor a marksman to make the shots, and two of the shots were much too close together, indicating the involvement of two additional assassins.
After discovering electronic surveillance microphones planted in his offices, Garrison meets a high-level figure in Washington, D.C. who identifies himself as "X." "X" suggests there was a conspiracy at the government's highest levels, implicating members of the military-industrial complex, the Mafia, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secret Service, and the Vice President during the Kennedy administration, Lyndon B. Johnson, as either direct co-conspirators, or, as having motives to cover up the truth after the assassination. "X" explains Kennedy was assassinated because his foreign policy would have meant diminished profit for the military-industrial complex, and enraged high-ranking military officials who viewed such diplomacy as weakness. Kennedy ordered control of covert para-military operations to be removed from the CIA and handed over to the U.S. Defense Department's Joint Chiefs of Staff. This would have diminished the CIA's power. Further, the Mafia had helped Kennedy win the U.S. presidential election in 1960 as a favor to his father, Joseph, who had done business with mafiosi dating back to the 1920s, and felt betrayed that he had let his brother, Robert, continue his crusade against them. Furthermore, they wanted revenge for the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco, which they had helped fund and support in order to get their Cuban casinos – their biggest moneymakers – back from the Castro regime.
"X" reveals how his superior, Brigadier General "Y," had "X" sent to Antarctica just before the assassination. One of "X"'s duties was to supplement presidential security. He points out all the security lapses during Kennedy's trip to Dallas: the open windows along the route, the hairpin turn from Houston Street to Elm Street which slowed the limousine, and bystander activities which wouldn't have been allowed. "X" suggests he was ordered out of the country in order to strip away the normal security measures he would have had in place during the trip.
On his way back from Antarctica, "X" touches down in New Zealand. He reads a local newspaper which mysteriously presents a full dossier on Oswald and his guilt in Kennedy's death. This was hours before Oswald would be charged with the crime and anyone investigating the case knew much about him. "X" views this as clear proof of a cover story of the type used by CIA black ops. In other words, CIA assets in the media were being used to persuade the public of Oswald's guilt.
"X" further states that Kennedy was intent on pulling U.S. troops from Vietnam by the end of 1965 as evidenced by National Security Action Memorandum 263. This was countermanded immediately by Lyndon Johnson with National Security Order 273. Therein, concludes "X," lay the Vietnam War's foundation. "X" encourages Garrison to keep digging and make further arrests.
Two of Garrison's staff quit the investigation, doubting his motives and methods, the latter warned by an FBI agent, who claims that Fidel Castro is Kennedy's sole assassin, and tells the latter that if the truth comes out, there would be a war and it would be more important than Garrison. Garrison's marriage is strained when his wife Liz complains that he is spending more time on the case than with his own family. After a sinister phone call is made to their daughter, Liz accuses Garrison of being selfish and attacking Shaw because of Shaw's homosexuality. Additionally, the media launches attacks on television and in newspapers attacking Garrison's character and criticizing the way his office is spending taxpayers' money. Some key witnesses become scared and refuse to testify while others, such as Ferrie, die under suspicious circumstances. Before his death, Ferrie tells Garrison that he believes people are after him, and reveals there was a conspiracy around Kennedy's death that involved co-conspirators that were involved in a CIA operation, Operation Mongoose.
Bill Broussard meets Garrison at the airport where Garrison is boarding for Phoenix, Arizona and tells him the Canadian mob will attempt to assassinate him and is about to get Garrison some serious protection when Garrison confronts Broussard about his orders not to pass rumors about someone going to be killed. Broussard tries in vain to get Garrison to listen, but Garrison refuses, dismissing it as "paranoid garbage." He accuses Broussard of disobeying orders and decides to take him back to New Orleans as punishment. Broussard tries to apologize, but Garrison is too busy to accept it. After a few minutes, he has to flee from a public restroom when he hears strange noises in the adjacent stall and is approached by an unknown man who pretends to be a friend of Garrison's. After Garrison returns to New Orleans, he and his staff discovered that Broussard has joined the FBI and disappeared from his apartment. They argue about the real reason why Shaw has been brought to trial. After Liz retires, he sees Robert Kennedy on TV and witnesses Kennedy's assassination. Garrison, who predicted it, and Liz, whose faith in her husband is renewed as a result, reconcile.
Shaw's trial takes place in 1969. Garrison presents the court with further evidence of multiple killers while attempting to debunk the single bullet theory, proposes a scenario involving three assassins who fired six total shots, but the jury acquits Shaw on all charges. However, the DA's office wins a conviction of perjury against New Orleans attorney Dean Andrews, who repeatedly claims that an alleged phone call made by Shaw to Andrews in which Andrews was asked to represent Oswald in the assassination case was false. The film reflects that the jury's members publicly stated that they believed there was a conspiracy behind the assassination, but not enough evidence to link Shaw to that conspiracy. The film ends with Shaw acquitted of those charges, while Garrison states he'll continue to find out what else may be there in the cover up.
In the end credits, it's mentioned that Shaw died of lung cancer in 1974 and in 1979 Richard Helms testified under oath that Shaw had, in fact, been a part-time contract agent of the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division. The end credits also state that secret records related to the assassination will be publicly released in 2029 (see Legislative impact below).
Cast[edit]
Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison. For the role, Stone sent copies of the script to Costner, Mel Gibson, and Harrison Ford. Initially, Costner turned Stone down. However, the actor's agent, Michael Ovitz, was a big fan of the project and helped Stone convince the actor to take the role.[2] Before accepting the role, Costner conducted extensive research on Garrison, including meeting the man and his enemies. Two months after finally signing on to play Garrison in January 1991, his film Dances with Wolves won seven Academy Awards and so his presence greatly enhanced JFK's bankability in the studio's eyes.[3]
Kevin Bacon as Willie O'Keefe, a composite character who testifies that Bertrand and Shaw are the same person and that he knew Ferrie, and had met Oswald.
Tommy Lee Jones as Clay Shaw / Clay Bertrand. Jones was originally considered for another role that was ultimately cut from the film and it was Stone who decided to cast him as Shaw.[4] In preparation for the film, Jones interviewed Garrison on three different occasions and talked to others who had worked with Shaw and knew him.[5]
Joe Pesci as David Ferrie. Stone originally wanted James Woods to play Ferrie, but Woods wanted to play Garrison. Stone also approached Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich, who both turned down the role.[6]
Laurie Metcalf as New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Susie Cox
Gary Oldman as Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine who defected to the Soviet Union and later returned. He was arrested on suspicion of killing Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. According to Oldman, very little was written about Oswald in the script. Stone gave him several plane tickets, a list of contacts and told him to do his own research.[7] Oldman met with Oswald's wife, Marina, and her two daughters to prepare for the role.[8]
Michael Rooker as New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Bill Broussard
Jay O. Sanders as Lou Ivon
Sissy Spacek as Liz Garrison, Jim Garrison's wife.
Beata Poźniak as Marina Oswald. Pozniak studied 26 volumes of the Warren Report and spent time living with Marina Oswald. Since the script contained few lines for the Oswalds, Poźniak interviewed acquaintances of the Oswalds in order to improvise her scenes with Gary Oldman.
Jack Lemmon as Jack Martin, an American private investigator living in New Orleans. He worked with Guy Banister at Banister's private investigation office. He was the one who implicated Ferrie to Garrison about Kennedy's assassination.
Walter Matthau as Russell B. Long, an American politician who served in the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Louisiana from 1948 until 1987.
Donald Sutherland as X, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, author, banker, and critic of U.S. foreign policy, especially the Central Intelligence Agency's activities.
Edward Asner as Guy Banister, a career member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a private investigator. He was an avid anti-communist, member of the Minutemen, the John Birch Society, Louisiana Committee on Un-American Activities, and publisher of the Louisiana Intelligence Digest.
Brian Doyle-Murray as Jack Ruby, an American nightclub operator from Dallas, Texas. He was convicted on March 14, 1964 for Oswald's murder on November 24, 1963, two days after Oswald was arrested for Kennedy's assassination.
John Candy as Dean Andrews Jr., an eccentric lawyer who was allegedly called by Shaw to represent Oswald in the assassination case.
Sally Kirkland as Rose Cheramie, a Dallas prostitute who was allegedly beaten up by Jack Ruby's bodyguards. She's taken to a clinic where she pleads to the doctors that the Mafia is planning on killing President Kennedy.
Wayne Knight as Numa Bertel
Vincent D'Onofrio as Bill Newman, an eyewitness
Many actors were willing to waive their normal fees because of the nature of the project and to lend their support.[6] Martin Sheen provided the opening narration. The real Jim Garrison, a severe critic of the Warren Commission, played Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren himself, during the scene in which he questions Jack Ruby in a Dallas jail. Alleged assassination witness Beverly Oliver, who claims to be the "Babushka Lady" seen in the Zapruder film, also appeared in a cameo role inside Ruby's club. Sean Stone, Oliver Stone's son, plays a secondary role as Garrison's oldest son Jasper. Perry R. Russo, one of the sources for the fictional character "Willie O'Keefe," appeared in a cameo role as "angry bar patron." Dutch investigative journalist Willem Oltmans, who worked as a reporter for Dutch TV broadcaster NOS in the 1960s, had established ties to Kennedy's closest circle of advisers. After Kennedy's assassination, Oltmans interviewed Lee Harvey Oswald's mother, Marguerite. Further investigation led him to Oswald's babysitter George de Mohrenschildt. According to Oltmans, de Mohrenschildt, who had ties to the CIA, was the assassination's architect. In 1977, de Mohrenschildt agreed to disclose information to Oltmans, but disappeared from their meeting place and was found dead in Florida a few weeks later.[9][10] Intent on irony, Oltmans played de Mohrenschildt in the film.[11]
Production[edit]
Zachary Sklar, a journalist and a professor of journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism, met Garrison in 1987 and helped him rewrite a manuscript that he was working on about Kennedy's assassination. He changed it from a scholarly book in the third person to "a detective story – a whydunit" in the first person.[12] Sklar edited the book and it was published in 1988. While attending the Latin American Film Festival in Havana, Cuba, Stone met Sheridan Square Press publisher Ellen Ray on an elevator. She had published Jim Garrison's book On the Trail of the Assassins.[13] Ray had gone to New Orleans and worked with Garrison in 1967. She gave Stone a copy of Garrison's book and told him to read it.[14] He did and quickly bought the film rights with $250,000 of his own money to prevent talk going around the studios about projects he might be developing.[15]
Kennedy's assassination had always had a profound effect on Stone: "The Kennedy murder was one of the signal events of the postwar generation, my generation."[14] Stone met Garrison and grilled him with a variety of questions for three hours. Garrison stood up to Stone's questioning and then got up and left. His pride and dignity impressed the director.[16] Stone's impressions from their meeting were that Garrison "made many mistakes. He trusted a lot of weirdos and followed a lot of fake leads. But he went out on a limb, way out. And he kept going, even when he knew he was facing long odds."[17]
Stone was not interested in making a film about Garrison's life, but rather the story behind the conspiracy to kill Kennedy. He also bought the film rights to Jim Marrs’ book Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. One of the filmmaker's primary goals with JFK was to provide a rebuttal to the Warren Commission's report that he believed was "a great myth. And in order to fight a myth, maybe you have to create another one, a counter-myth."[18] Even though Marrs’ book collected many theories, Stone was hungry for more and hired Jane Rusconi, a recent Yale University graduate, to lead a team of researchers and assemble as much information about the assassination as possible while the director completed post-production on Born on the Fourth of July. Stone read two dozen books on the assassination while Rusconi read between 100 to 200 books on the subject.[19]
By December 1989, Stone began approaching studios to back his film. While in pre-production on The Doors, he met with three executives at Warner Bros. who wanted him to make a film about Howard Hughes.[20] However, Warren Beatty owned the rights and so Stone pitched JFK. Studio president and Chief Operating Officer Terry Semel liked the idea. He had a reputation for making political and controversial films, including All the President's Men, The Parallax View and The Killing Fields.[21] Stone made a handshake deal with Warner Bros. whereby the studio would get all the rights to the film and put up $20 million for the budget. The director did this so that the screenplay wouldn't be widely read and bid on, and he also knew that the material was potentially dangerous and wanted only one studio to finance it. Finally, Stone liked Semel's track record of producing political films.[21]
Screenplay[edit]
When Stone set out to write the screenplay, he asked Sklar (who also edited Marrs’ book) to co-write it with him and distill the Garrison and Marrs’ books and Rusconi's research into a script that would resemble what he called "a great detective movie."[22] Stone told Sklar his vision of the film:
I see the models as Z and Rashomon, I see the event in Dealey Plaza taking place in the first reel, and again in the eighth reel, and again later, and each time we're going to see it differently and with more illumination.[12]
Although he did employ ideas from Rashomon, his principal model for JFK was Z:
Somehow I had the impression that in Z you had the showing of the crime and then the re-showing of the crime throughout the picture until it was seen another way. That was the idea of JFK – that was the essence of it: basically, that's why I called it JFK. Not J dot F dot K dot. JFK. It was a code, like Z was a code, for he lives, American-style. As it was written it became more fascinating: it evolved into four DNA threads.[23]
Stone broke the film's structure down into four stories: Garrison investigating the New Orleans connection to the assassination; the research that revealed what Stone calls, "Oswald legend: who he was and how to try to inculcate that"; the recreation of the assassination at Dealey Plaza; and the information that the character of "X" imparts on Garrison, which Stone saw as the "means by which we were able to move between New Orleans, local, into the wider story of Dealey Plaza."[24] Sklar worked on the Garrison side of the story while Stone added the Oswald story, the events at Dealey Plaza and the "Mr. X" character.[22] Sklar spent a year researching and writing a 550 triple-spaced page screenplay and then Stone rewrote it and condensed it closer to normal screenplay length. Stone and Sklar used composite characters, most notably the "Mr. X" character played by Donald Sutherland. This was a technique that would be criticized in the press.[25] He was a mix of Richard Case Nagell and retired Air Force colonel Fletcher Prouty, another adviser for the film and who was a military liaison between the CIA and the Pentagon. Meeting Prouty was, for Stone, "one of the most extraordinary afternoons I've ever spent. Pretty much like in the movie, he just started to talk."[26] According to Stone,
I feel this was in the spirit of the truth because Garrison also met a deep throat type named Richard Case Nagell, who claimed to be a CIA agent and made Jim aware of a much larger scenario than the microcosm of New Orleans.[27]
The screenplay's early drafts suggested a four and a half-hour film with a potential budget of $40 million – double what Stone had agreed to with Warner Bros.[28] The director knew film mogul Arnon Milchan and met with him to help finance the film. Milchan was eager to work on the project and launch his new company, Regency Films, with a high profile film like JFK.[29] Milchan made a deal with Warner Bros. to put up the money for the film. Stone managed to pare down his initial revision, a 190-page draft, to a 156-page shooting script.[30]
There were many advisers for the film, including Gerald Hemming, a former Marine who claimed involvement in various CIA activities, and Robert Groden, a photographic expert and longtime JFK assassination researcher and author.[31]
Principal photography[edit]
The story revolves around Costner's Jim Garrison, with a large cast of well-known actors in supporting roles. Stone was inspired by the casting model of the documentary epic The Longest Day, which he had admired as a child: "It was realistic, but it had a lot of stars...the supporting cast provides a map of the American psyche: familiar, comfortable faces that walk you through a winding path in the dark woods."[3]
Cinematographer Robert Richardson was a week and a half into shooting City of Hope for John Sayles when he got word that Stone was thinking about making JFK. By the time principal photography wrapped on City of Hope, Richardson was ready to make Stone's film. To prepare, Richardson read up on various JFK assassination books starting with On the Trail of the Assassins and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy.[32]
The original idea was to film the opening sequence in 1.33:1 aspect ratio in order to simulate the TV screens that were available at the time of the assassination, then transition to 1.85:1 when Garrison began his investigation, and finally switch to 2.35:1 for scenes occurring in 1968 and later. However, because of time constraints and logistics, Richardson was forced to abandon this approach.[32]
Stone wanted to recreate the Kennedy assassination in Dealey Plaza. His producers had to pay the Dallas City Council a substantial amount of money to hire police to reroute traffic and close streets for three weeks.[33] He only had ten days to shoot all of the footage he needed and so he used seven cameras (two 35 mm and five 16 mm) and 14 film stocks.[32] Getting permission to shoot in the Texas School Book Depository was more difficult. They had to pay $50,000 to put someone in the window from which Oswald was supposed to have shot Kennedy.[33] They were allowed to film in that location only between certain hours with only five people on the floor at one time: the camera crew, an actor and Stone. Co-producer Clayton Townsend has said that the hardest part was getting the permission to restore the building to the way it looked back in 1963. It took five months of negotiation.[33]
The production spent $4 million to restore Dealey Plaza to 1963 conditions.[34] Stone utilized a variety of film stocks. Richardson said, "It depends whether you want to shoot in 35 or 16 or Super 8. In many cases the lighting has to be different."[35] For certain shots in the film, Stone employed multiple camera crews shooting at once, using five cameras at the same time in different formats. Richardson said of Stone's style of direction, "Oliver disdains convention, he tries to force you into things that are not classic. There's this constant need to stretch."[32] This forced the cinematographer to use lighting in diverse positions and rely very little on classic lighting modes. The shoot lasted 79 days with filming finished five months before the release date.[36]
Editing[edit]
JFK marked a fundamental change in the way that Stone constructed his films: a subjective lateral presentation of the plot, with the editing's rhythm carrying the story.[37] Stone brought in Hank Corwin, an editor of commercials, to help edit the film. Stone chose him because his "chaotic mind" was "totally alien to the film form."[37] Stone remembers that Corwin irritated the more traditional editors working on the film because his "concepts are very commercial sixty-seconds-get-your-attention-fragment-your-mind-make-you-rethink-it. But he had not developed the long form yet. And so a lot of his cuts were very chaotic."[37] Stone employed extensive use of flashbacks within flashbacks for a specific effect. He said in an interview,
I wanted to do the film on two or three levels – sound and picture would take us back, and we'd go from one flashback to another, and then that flashback would go inside another flashback...I wanted multiple layers because reading the Warren Commission Report is like drowning.[19]
This film was Stone's last one to use editing on film before he switched to digital editing. A setback occurred during editing that saw all the time codes disappear.[37]
Music[edit]
Because of his enormous commitment to Steven Spielberg's Hook, which opened the same month as JFK, composer John Williams didn't have time to compose a conventional score for the entire film. Instead he composed and conducted six musical sequences in full for JFK before he saw the entire film.[38] Soon after recording this music, he traveled to New Orleans where Stone was still shooting the film and saw approximately an hour's worth of edited footage and some dailies. Williams remembers, "I thought his handling of Lee Harvey Oswald was particularly strong, and I understood some of the atmosphere of the film – the sordid elements, the underside of New Orleans."[38] Stone and his team then actually cut the film to fit Williams' music after the composer had scored and recorded musical cues in addition to the six he had done prior to seeing the film. For the motorcade sequence, Williams described the score he composed as "strongly kinetic music, music of interlocking rhythmic disciplines."[38] The composer remembered the moment he learned of Kennedy's assassination and it stuck with him for years. This was a significant factor in his deciding to work on the film. Williams said, "This is a very resonant subject for people of my generation, and that's why I welcomed the opportunity to participate in this film."[38]
Reception[edit]
Critical reaction[edit]
Based on 55 reviews collected from notable publications by popular review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 84% "fresh" approval rating, with the consensus, "As history, Oliver Stone's JFK is dubious, but as filmmaking it's electric, cramming a ton of information and excitement into its three-hour runtime and making great use of its outstanding cast."[39] However, the film's production and release was subject to intense scrutiny and criticism. A few weeks after shooting had begun, on May 14, 1991, Jon Margolis wrote in the Chicago Tribune that JFK was "an insult to the intelligence."[40] Five days later, the Washington Post ran a scathing article by national security correspondent George Lardner titled, "On the Set: Dallas in Wonderland" that used the first draft of the JFK screenplay to blast it for "the absurdities and palpable untruths in Garrison's book and Stone's rendition of it."[41] The article pointed out that Garrison lost his case against Clay Shaw and that he inflated his case by trying to use Shaw's homosexual relationships to prove guilt by association.[41] Stone responded to Lardner's article by hiring a public relations firm that specialized in political issues. Other critical articles soon followed. Anthony Lewis in the New York Times stated that the film "tells us that our government cannot be trusted to give an honest account of a Presidential assassination."[40] Washington Post columnist George Will called Stone "a man of technical skill, scant education and negligible conscience."[40]
Time magazine ran its own critique of the film-in-progress on June 10, 1991 and alleged that Stone was trying to suppress a rival JFK assassination film based on Don DeLillo's 1988 novel Libra. Stone rebutted these claims in a letter to the magazine.[42] The filmmaker ended up splitting his time between making his film, responding to criticism, and conducting a publicity campaign of his own that saw him "omnipresent, from CBS Evening News, to Oprah."[37] However, the Lardner Post piece stung the most because Lardner had stolen a copy of the script. Stone recalls, "He had the first draft, and I went through probably six or seven drafts."[42]
Upon theatrical release, it polarized critics. The New York Times ran an article by Bernard Weinraub entitled, "Hollywood Wonders If Warner Brothers let JFK Go Too Far." The article called for intervention by the studio, asking "At what point does a studio exercise its leverage and blunt the highly charged message of a film maker like Oliver Stone?"[40] The newspaper also ran a review of the film by Vincent Canby who wrote, "Mr. Stone's hyperbolic style of film making is familiar: lots of short, often hysterical scenes tumbling one after another, backed by a soundtrack that is layered, strudel-like, with noises, dialogue, music, more noises, more dialogue."[43] Pat Dowell, veteran film critic for The Washingtonian, had her 34-word capsule review for the January issue rejected by her editor John Limpert on the grounds that he didn't want a positive review for a film he felt was "preposterous" associated with the magazine.[40] Dowell resigned in protest.[40]
The Miami Herald said about the controversy in its review, "the focus on the trivialities of personality conveniently prevents us from having to confront the tough questions [Stone's] film raises."[44] However, Roger Ebert praised the film in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, saying,
The achievement of the film is not that it answers the mystery of the Kennedy assassination, because it does not, or even that it vindicates Garrison, who is seen here as a man often whistling in the dark. Its achievement is that it tries to marshal the anger which ever since 1963 has been gnawing away on some dark shelf of the national psyche.[45]
Rita Kempley in the Washington Post wrote,
Quoting everyone from Shakespeare to Hitler to bolster their arguments, Stone and Sklar present a gripping alternative to the Warren Commission's conclusion. A marvelously paranoid thriller featuring a closetful of spies, moles, pro-commies and Cuban freedom-fighters, the whole thing might have been thought up by Robert Ludlum.[46]
On Christmas Day, the Los Angeles Times ran a critical article entitled "Suppression of the Facts Grants Stone a Broad Brush."[47] New York Newsday followed suit the next day with two articles – "The Blurred Vision of JFK" and "The Many Theories of a Jolly Green Giant." A few days later, the Chicago Sun-Times followed suit with "Stone's Film Trashes Facts, Dishonors J.F.K." Jack Valenti, then president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, denounced Stone's film in a seven-page statement. He wrote, "In much the same way, young German boys and girls in 1941 were mesmerized by Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, in which Adolf Hitler was depicted as a newborn God. Both JFK and Triumph of the Will are equally a propaganda masterpiece and equally a hoax. Mr. Stone and Leni Riefenstahl have another genetic linkage: neither of them carried a disclaimer on their film that its contents were mostly pure fiction."[48]
Stone recalls in an interview, "I can't even remember all the threats, there were so many of them."[47] Time magazine ranked it the fourth best film of 1991.[49] Roger Ebert went on to name Stone's film as the best film of the year and one of the top ten films of the decade.[50] The Sydney Morning Herald named JFK as the best film of 1991.[51] Entertainment Weekly ranked it the 5th Most Controversial Movie Ever.[52]
Years after its release, Stone said of the film that it "was the beginning of a new era for me in terms of film making because it's not just about a conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. It's also about the way we look at our recent history...It shifts from black and white to color, and then back again, and views people from offbeat angles."[53]
In his book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a history of the assassination published 16 years after the film's release, Vincent Bugliosi devoted an entire chapter to Garrison's prosecution of Shaw and Stone's subsequent film.[54] Bugliosi lists thirty-two separate "lies and fabrications"[55] in Stone's film and describes the film as "one continuous lie in which Stone couldn't find any level of deception and invention beyond which he was unwilling to go."[56] David Wrone stated that "80 percent of the film is in factual error" and rejected the premise of a conspiracy involving the CIA and the so-called military-industrial complex as "irrational."[57]
Internet film reviewer Chris Lee Moore, alias "The Rowdy Reviewer", reviewed this movie on the fiftieth anniversary on the Kennedy Assassination in a double review comparing this movie to the Quantum Leap Episode "Lee Harvey Oswald" calling this movie "One of the biggest travesties on actual history,", "One of the most homophobic films (he had) ever seen" and "The worst piece of propaganda to come out in (his) lifetime!" in addition he called out all the factual inaccuracies about the movie and Jim Garrison's end argument.[58]
Box office[edit]
JFK was released in theaters on December 20, 1991. Box office started slow but picked up momentum and by the first week in January 1992, it had grossed over $50 million worldwide. Stone started to get support for his film. Warner Brothers executives pointed out that because of the film's long running time, it had fewer screenings.[47] The studio undertook a $15 million marketing campaign promoting Stone's film.[37]
On its first week of release, JFK tied with Beauty and the Beast for fifth place in the U.S. box office and its critics began to say it was a flop.[47] However, JFK eventually earned over $205 million worldwide, and $70 million in the United States during its initial run.[59] Garrison's estate subsequently sued Warner Bros. for a share of the film's profits, alleging a book-keeping practice known as "Hollywood accounting."[60] The lawsuit contends that JFK made in excess of $150 million worldwide but the studio claimed that the film didn't earn any money under its "net profits" accounting formula. The suit also claims that Garrison's estate didn't receive any of the net profits income. He should have been paid more than $1 million.[60]
Awards and nominations[edit]
JFK was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Tommy Lee Jones), Best Director (Oliver Stone), Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Sound (Michael Minkler, Gregg Landaker and Tod A. Maitland), Best Cinematography (Robert Richardson), Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Stone and Zachary Sklar).[61][62] It won two awards, for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing.[63]
Stone was nominated for an award for Outstanding Directing by the Directors Guild of America but didn't win.[64] He also won a Golden Globe for Best Director and in his acceptance speech, he said, "A terrible lie was told to us 28 years ago. I hope that this film can be the first step in righting that wrong."[65]
Entertainment Weekly ranked JFK as one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers."[66]
Cultural impact[edit]
The television show Seinfeld would later pastiche the "Magic Bullet Theory" featured in JFK in an episode ("The Boyfriend") where Kramer and Newman believe that they had been spat at by New York Met Keith Hernandez, who later reveals that there had been a second spitter, Roger McDowell. Wayne Knight, who plays Newman, is also in JFK as a member of Garrison's team. He would be one of the two men to model the shooting in court to prove the implausibility of the "magic bullet," not unlike how Jerry disproves Newman and Kramer's theory of the "magic loogie."[67] In each case, Knight played the second victim in the sequence, John Connally and Newman, respectively.
Legislative impact[edit]
Main article: Assassination Records Review Board
The film's popularity led to the passage of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 (also known as the JFK Act) and the formation of the U.S. Assassination Records Review Board. The Act was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush in late October 1992.[68] The ARRB worked until 1998. Witnesses were interviewed (some for the first time), including many medical witnesses, the U.S. government purchased the Zapruder film, and previously-classified documents relating to the assassination were finally made public. By ARRB law, all existing assassination-related documents will be made public by 2017.[69]
Home video[edit]
JFK has been released on VHS, LaserDisc, and several times on DVD. The film's only version ever released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the United States is the longer "Director's Cut." The theatrical cut has been released on DVD in only a few foreign territories, including the UK. In 2001, the "Director's Cut" was released as part of the Oliver Stone Collection box set with the film on one disc and supplemental material on the second. Stone contributed several extras to this edition, including an audio commentary, two multi-media essays, and 54 minutes' worth of deleted or expanded scenes with optional commentary by Stone.[70] In 2003, a two-DVD "Special Edition" was released with all of the extras on the 2001 edition in addition to a 90-minute documentary entitled, Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy.[71]
The film was released on Blu-ray Disc on November 11, 2008. The disc features many of the extras included on the previous DVD releases, including the Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy documentary.[72][73]
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "JFK (15)". Warner Bros. British Board of Film Classification. January 9, 1992. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
2.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 363.
3.^ Jump up to: a b Riordan 1996, p. 368.
4.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 370.
5.Jump up ^ Smith, Gavin (January/February 1994). "Somebody's gonna give you money, you do your best to make 'em a good hand". Film Comment. p. 33.
6.^ Jump up to: a b Riordan 1996, p. 369.
7.Jump up ^ Lawrence, Will (August 2007). "In Conversation with Gary Oldman". Empire. p. 130.
8.Jump up ^ Salewicz 1998, p. 83.
9.Jump up ^ Oltmans, Willem "Reportage over de Kennedy-moordenaars." (1977)
10.Jump up ^ CBS tv news report dd. 1977
11.Jump up ^ Article about Oltmans cameo in the movie on the JFK website.
12.^ Jump up to: a b Crowdus, Gary (May 1992). "Getting the Facts Straight: An Interview with Zachary Sklar". Cineaste.
13.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 351.
14.^ Jump up to: a b Riordan 1996, p. 352.
15.Jump up ^ Salewicz 1998, p. 80.
16.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 353.
17.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 354.
18.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 355.
19.^ Jump up to: a b Crowdus, Gary (May 1992). "Clarifying the Conspiracy: An Interview with Oliver Stone". Cineaste.
20.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 356.
21.^ Jump up to: a b Riordan 1996, p. 357.
22.^ Jump up to: a b Riordan 1996, p. 358.
23.Jump up ^ Salewicz 1998, p. 81.
24.Jump up ^ Salewicz 1998, pp. 82–83.
25.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 359.
26.Jump up ^ Salewicz 1998, pp. 80–81.
27.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 360.
28.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 361.
29.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 365.
30.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 374.
31.Jump up ^ Stone 2000, p. 590.
32.^ Jump up to: a b c d Fisher, Bob (February 1992). "The Whys and Hows of JFK". American Cinematographer.
33.^ Jump up to: a b c Riordan 1996, p. 371.
34.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 375.
35.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 377.
36.Jump up ^ Salewicz 1998, p. 84.
37.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Salewicz 1998, p. 85.
38.^ Jump up to: a b c d Dyer, Richard (1992-01-19). "Hook, JFK are latest hits with the John Williams touch". Boston Globe. pp. A5.
39.Jump up ^ JFK. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved June 5, 2012.
40.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Petras, James (May 1992). "The Discrediting of the Fifth Estate: The Press Attacks on JFK". Cineaste. p. 15.
41.^ Jump up to: a b Lardner, George (1991-05-19). "On the Set: Dallas in Wonderland". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2000-05-17. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
42.^ Jump up to: a b Riordan 1996, p. 386.
43.Jump up ^ Canby, Vincent (1991-12-20). "Review/Film: J.F.K.; When Everything Amounts to Nothing". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-28.
44.Jump up ^ Riordan 1996, p. 416.
45.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (1991-12-20). "JFK". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2007-03-28.
46.Jump up ^ Kempley, Rita (1991-12-20). "JFK". Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-03-28.
47.^ Jump up to: a b c d Riordan 1996, pp. 405–406.
48.Jump up ^ Weinraub, Bernard (1992-04-02). "Valenti Calls J.F.K. 'Hoax' and 'Smear'". The New York Times.
49.Jump up ^ "Best of 1991". Time. 1992-01-06. Retrieved 2008-09-17.
50.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (2004-12-15). "Ebert's 10 Best Lists: 1967–present". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
51.Jump up ^ "Top Ten". Sydney Morning Herald. 1992-03-05.
52.Jump up ^ "25 Most Controversial Movies Ever". Entertainment Weekly. 2008-08-27. Retrieved 2008-08-27.
53.Jump up ^ Carnes, Mark C (Vol. XXII. No. 4. 1997). "Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies". Cineaste. Retrieved 2008-09-09.
54.Jump up ^ Bugliosi, Vincent. Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 2007, W.W. Norton and Company, ISBN 978-0-393-04525-3, p. 1347-1446
55.Jump up ^ Bugliosi, pp. 1360–1431
56.Jump up ^ Bugliosi, p. 1431
57.Jump up ^ Lovell, Glenn (November 21, 2003). "Shedding light on movies about a dark day in Dallas". The Boston Globe (Boston). Knight Ridder. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
58.Jump up ^ http://blip.tv/RowdyReviewer/rowdy-reviewer-special-jfk-6692878
59.Jump up ^ "JFK". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-05-01.
60.^ Jump up to: a b "Judge Allows Lawsuit Against Film Studios". The New York Times. 1996-06-18. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
61.Jump up ^ "The 64th Academy Awards (1992) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
62.Jump up ^ "The Oscar Nominations". The Guardian. 1992-03-30.
63.Jump up ^ Reeves, Phil (1992-04-01). "The Oscars: Silence is golden". The Independent. p. 15.
64.Jump up ^ Spillman, Susan (January 29, 1992). "Directors Guild offers Oscar sneak preview". USA Today.
65.Jump up ^ Reeves, Phil (1992-01-20). "Top award for Kennedy film". The Independent. p. 12.
66.Jump up ^ "Democracy 'n' Action: 25 Powerful Political Thrillers". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2009-09-02.
67.Jump up ^ "JFK (1991)". IMDb. IMDb. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
68.Jump up ^ "Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board". The Assassination Records Review Board. September 1998. Retrieved 2007-04-18.
69.Jump up ^ "Chapter 5 The Standards for Review: Review Board "Common Law"". Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board. September 1998. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
70.Jump up ^ Nunziata, Nick (2001-01-22). "JFK (Oliver Stone Collection)". IGN. Retrieved 2007-11-02.
71.Jump up ^ Patrizio, Andy (2003-08-27). "New JFK DVD on 11/11". IGN. Retrieved 2007-11-02.
72.Jump up ^ "Warner Sets Date, Specs for 'JFK' Blu-ray". High-Def Digest. 2008-07-22. Retrieved 2008-10-17.
73.Jump up ^ McCutcheon, David (2008-10-18). "JFK Celebrates in Blu". IGN. Retrieved 2008-10-17.
Riordan, James (September 1996) Stone: A Biography of Oliver Stone. New York: Aurum Press. ISBN 1-85410-444-6
Salewicz, Chris (February 1998) Oliver Stone: Close Up: The Making of His Movies. Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 0-7528-1820-1
Stone, Oliver (February 2000) JFK: The Book of the Film. New York: Applause Books. ISBN 1-55783-127-0
Further readingMark C. Carnes (Fall 1996). "Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies". Cineaste.
Gary Crowdus (May 1992). "Clarifying the Conspiracy: An Interview with Oliver Stone". Cineaste.
Eric Hamburg (September 2002). JFK, Nixon, Oliver Stone and Me: An Idealist's Journey from Capitol Hill to Hollywood Hell. PublicAffairs. ISBN 1-58648-029-4.
Robert Brent Toplin (1996). History by Hollywood "JFK: Fact, Fiction, and Supposition," pp. 45–78. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06536-0
External links[edit]
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: JFK (film)
Portal icon Film in the United States portal
Portal icon Politics portal
Portal icon 1990s portal
JFK at the Internet Movie Database
JFK at the TCM Movie Database
JFK at Box Office Mojo
JFK at Rotten Tomatoes
JFK at Metacritic
JFK (motion picture): A Selective Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library
The JFK 100: One Hundred Errors of Fact and Judgment in Oliver Stone's JFK, by Dave Reitzes
The Assassination Goes Hollywood! (concise overview of frequent criticisms)
JFK: How the Media Assassinated the Real Story, by Robert Hennelly & Jerry Policoff
"Why they hate Oliver Stone", Sam Smith, Progressive Review, February 1992
JFK and the Unspeakable by Oliver Stone, The Huffington Post, July 23, 2009
[1] TV Trash: JFK vs Lee Harvey Oswald
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Triumph of the Will
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This article is about the German propaganda film. For the Canadian television series, see Kenny Hotz's Triumph of the Will.
Triumph of the Will
Triumph des Willens poster.jpg
German theatrical poster
Directed by
Leni Riefenstahl
Produced by
Leni Riefenstahl
Written by
Leni Riefenstahl
Walter Ruttmann
Starring
Adolf Hitler
Heinrich Himmler
Viktor Lutze
Other Nazi Leaders
30,000 extras
Music by
Herbert Windt
Richard Wagner
Cinematography
Sepp Allgeier
Franz Weihmayr
Editing by
Leni Riefenstahl
Studio
Reichsparteitag-Film
Distributed by
Universum Film AG
Release dates
28 March 1935
Running time
114 minutes
Country
Germany
Language
German
Triumph of the Will (German: Triumph des Willens) is a 1935 film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters.[1] The film contains excerpts from speeches given by Nazi leaders at the Congress, including portions of speeches by Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, and Julius Streicher, interspersed with footage of massed Sturmabteilung and Schutzstaffel troops, and public reaction. Hitler commissioned the film and served as an unofficial executive producer; his name appears in the opening titles. The film's overriding theme is the return of Germany as a great power, with Hitler as the leader who will bring glory to the nation. Because the film was made after the Night of the Long Knives many prominent SA members are absent, having been murdered in 1934.
Triumph of the Will was released in 1935 and became a prominent example of propaganda in film history. Riefenstahl's techniques, such as moving cameras, the use of long focus lenses to create a distorted perspective, aerial photography, and revolutionary approach to the use of music and cinematography, have earned Triumph of the Will recognition as one of the greatest films in history. Riefenstahl won several awards, not only in Germany but also in the United States, France, Sweden, and other countries. The film was popular in the Third Reich, and has continued to influence movies, documentaries, and commercials to this day.[2] However, it is banned for showing in Germany owing to its support for Nazism and numerous portrayals of the swastika.
An earlier film by Riefenstahl, Der Sieg des Glaubens, showed Hitler and SA leader Ernst Röhm together at the 1933 Nazi party congress. After Röhm's murder, the party attempted the destruction of all copies, leaving only one known to have survived in Britain. This can be viewed at the Internet Archive.
Frank Capra's seven-film series Why We Fight is said to have been directly inspired by, and the United States response to, Triumph of the Will.
Contents [hide]
1 Synopsis
2 Origins
3 Production
4 Themes 4.1 Religion
4.2 Power
4.3 Unity
5 Hitler's speeches
6 Response
7 Controversy 7.1 Wehrmacht objections
8 Influences and legacy
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
Synopsis[edit]
The film begins with a prologue, the only commentary in the film. It consists of the following text, shown sequentially, against a grey background:
Am 5. September 1934
[On 5 September 1934]
20 Jahre nach dem Ausbruch des Weltkrieges
[20 years after the outbreak of the World War]
16 Jahre nach dem Anfang deutschen Leidens
[16 years after the beginning of German suffering]
19 Monate nach dem Beginn der deutschen Wiedergeburt
[19 months after the beginning of the German rebirth]
flog Adolf Hitler wiederum nach Nürnberg, um Heerschau abzuhalten über seine Getreuen
[Adolf Hitler flew again to Nuremberg to review the columns of his faithful followers]
Day 1: The film opens with shots of the clouds above the city, and then moves through the clouds to float above the assembling masses below, with the intention of portraying beauty and majesty of the scene. The cruciform shadow of Hitler's plane is visible as it passes over the tiny figures marching below, accompanied by an orchestral arrangement of the Horst-Wessel-Lied. Upon arriving at the Nuremberg airport, Hitler and other Nazi leaders emerge from his plane to thunderous applause and a cheering crowd. He is then driven into Nuremberg, through equally enthusiastic people, to his hotel where a night rally is later held.
Day 2: The second day begins with images of Nuremberg at dawn, accompanied by an extract from the Act III Prelude (Wach Auf!) of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Following this is a montage of the attendees preparing for the opening of the Reich Party Congress, and footage of the top Nazi officials arriving at the Luitpold Arena. The film then cuts to the opening ceremony, where Rudolf Hess announces the start of the Congress. The camera then introduces much of the Nazi hierarchy and covers their opening speeches, including Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Fritz Todt, Robert Ley, and Julius Streicher. Then the film cuts to an outdoor rally for the Reichsarbeitsdienst (Labor Service), which is primarily a series of pseudo-military drills by men carrying spades. This is also where Hitler gives his first speech on the merits of the Labor Service and praising them for their work in rebuilding Germany. The day then ends with a torchlight SA parade in which Viktor Lutze speaks to the crowds.
Day 3: The third day starts with a Hitler Youth rally on the parade ground. Again the camera covers the Nazi dignitaries arriving and the introduction of Hitler by Baldur von Schirach. Hitler then addresses the Youth, describing in militaristic terms how they must harden themselves and prepare for sacrifice. Everyone present, including General Werner von Blomberg, then assemble for a military pass and review, featuring Wehrmacht cavalry and various armored vehicles. That night Hitler delivers another speech to low-ranking party officials by torchlight, commemorating the first year since the Nazis took power and declaring that the party and state are one entity.
Day 4: The fourth day is the climax of the film, where the most memorable of the imagery is presented. Hitler, flanked by Heinrich Himmler and Viktor Lutze, walks through a long wide expanse with over 150,000 SA and SS troops standing at attention, to lay a wreath at a World War I Memorial. Hitler then reviews the parading SA and SS men, following which Hitler and Lutze deliver a speech where they discuss the Night of the Long Knives purge of the SA several months prior. Lutze reaffirms the SA's loyalty to the regime, and Hitler absolves the SA of any crimes committed by Ernst Röhm. New party flags are consecrated by letting them touch the Blutfahne (the same cloth flag said to have been carried by the fallen Nazis during the Beer Hall Putsch) and, following a final parade in front of the Nuremberg Frauenkirche, Hitler delivers his closing speech. In it he reaffirms the primacy of the Nazi Party in Germany, declaring, "All loyal Germans will become National Socialists. Only the best National Socialists are party comrades!" Hess then leads the assembled crowd in a final Sieg Heil salute for Hitler, marking the close of the party congress. The entire crowd sings the Horst-Wessel-Lied as the camera focuses on the giant Swastika banner, which fades into a line of silhouetted men in Nazi party uniforms, marching in formation as the lyrics "Comrades shot by the Red Front and the Reactionaries march in spirit together in our columns" are sung.
Origins[edit]
Shortly after he came to power Hitler called me to see him and explained that he wanted a film about a Party Congress, and wanted me to make it. My first reaction was to say that I did not know anything about the way such a thing worked or the organization of the Party, so that I would obviously photograph all the wrong things and please nobody - even supposing that I could make a documentary, which I had never yet done. Hitler said that this was exactly why he wanted me to do it: because anyone who knew all about the relative importance of the various people and groups and so on might make a film that would be pedantically accurate, but this was not what he wanted. He wanted a film showing the Congress through a non-expert eye, selecting just what was most artistically satisfying - in terms of spectacle, I suppose you might say. He wanted a film which would move, appeal to, impress an audience which was not necessarily interested in politics.
— Leni Riefenstahl
Riefenstahl, a popular German actress, had directed her first movie called Das Blaue Licht (The Blue Light) in 1932. Around the same time she first heard Hitler speak at a Nazi rally and, by her own admission, was impressed. She later began a correspondence with him that would last for years. Hitler, by turn, was equally impressed with Das Blaue Licht, and in 1933 asked her to direct a film about the Nazis' annual Nuremberg Rally. The Nazis had only recently taken power amid a period of political instability (Hitler was the fourth Chancellor of Germany in less than a year) and were considered an unknown quantity by many Germans, to say nothing of the world.
In Mein Kampf[3] Hitler talks of the success of British propaganda in World War I believing people’s ignorance meant simple repetition and an appeal to feelings over reason would suffice.[4] Hitler chose Riefenstahl as he wanted the film as “artistically satisfying"[5] as possible to appeal to a non-political audience, but he also believed that propaganda must admit no element of doubt.[3] As such, Triumph of the Will may be seen as a continuation of the unambiguous World War I-style propaganda, though heightened by the film’s artistic or poetic nature.
Riefenstahl was initially reluctant, not because of any moral qualms, but because she wanted to continue making feature films.[citation needed] Hitler persisted and Riefenstahl eventually agreed to make a film at the 1933 Nuremberg Rally called Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith). However the film had numerous technical problems, including a lack of preparation (Riefenstahl reported having just a few days) and Hitler's apparent unease at being filmed. To make matters worse, Riefenstahl had to deal with infighting by party officials, in particular Joseph Goebbels who tried to have the film released by the Propaganda Ministry. Though Der Sieg des Glaubens apparently did well at the box office, it later became a serious embarrassment to the Nazis after SA Leader Ernst Röhm, who had a prominent role in the film, was executed during the Night of the Long Knives. All references to Röhm were ordered to be erased from German history, which included the destruction of all known copies of Der Sieg des Glaubens.
In 1934, Riefenstahl had no wish to repeat the fiasco of Der Sieg des Glaubens and initially recommended fellow director Walter Ruttmann. Ruttmann's film, which would have covered the rise of the Nazi Party from 1923 to 1934 and been more overtly propagandistic (the opening text of Triumph of the Will was his), did not appeal to Hitler. He again asked Riefenstahl, who finally relented (there is still debate over how willing she was) after Hitler guaranteed his personal support and promised to keep other Nazi organizations, specifically the Propaganda Ministry, from meddling with her film.
Production[edit]
The film follows a script similar to Der Sieg des Glaubens, which is evident when one sees both films side by side. For example, the city of Nuremberg scenes - even to the shot of a cat included in the city driving sequence in both films. Furthermore, Herbert Windt reused much of his musical score for that film in Triumph des Willens, which he also scored. But unlike Der Sieg des Glaubens, Riefenstahl shot Triumph of the Will with a large budget, extensive preparations, and vital help from high-ranking Nazis like Goebbels. As Susan Sontag observed, "The Rally was planned not only as a spectacular mass meeting, but as a spectacular propaganda film."[6] Albert Speer, Hitler's personal architect, designed the set in Nuremberg and did most of the coordination for the event. Pits were dug in front of the speakers' platform so Riefenstahl could get the camera angles she wanted, and tracks were laid so that her cameramen could get traveling shots of the crowd. When rough cuts weren't up to par, major party leaders and high-ranking public officials reenacted their speeches in a studio for her.[7] Riefenstahl also used a film crew that was extravagant by the standards of the day. Her crew consisted of 172 people, including 10 technical staff, 36 cameramen and assistants (operating in 16 teams with 30 cameras), nine aerial photographers, 17 newsreel men, 12 newsreel crew, 17 lighting men, two photographers, 26 drivers, 37 security personnel, four labor service workers, and two office assistants. Many of her cameramen also dressed in SA uniforms so they could blend into the crowds.
Riefenstahl had the difficult task of condensing an estimated 61 hours of film into two hours.[6] She labored to complete the film as fast as she could, going so far as to sleep in the editing room filled with hundreds of thousands of feet of film footage.[8]
Hitler congratulates Riefenstahl in 1934
Soldiers march past a saluting Hitler in Riefenstahl’s film of the 1934 Nazi party rally in Nuremberg
Themes[edit]
Religion[edit]
This morning's opening meeting... was more than a gorgeous show, it also had something of the mysticism and religious fervor of an Easter or Christmas Mass in a great Gothic cathedral.
— Reporter William Shirer
Triumph of the Will is sometimes seen as an example of Nazi political religion. The primary religion in Germany before the Second World War was Christianity. With the primary sects being Roman Catholic and Protestant, the Christian views in this movie are clearly meant to allow the movie to better connect with the intended audience.
Religion is a major theme in Triumph of the Will. The film opens with Hitler descending god-like out of the skies past twin cathedral spires. It contains many scenes of church bells ringing, and individuals in a state of near-religious fervor, as well as a prominent shot of Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller standing in his vestments among high-ranking Nazis. It is probably not a coincidence that the final parade of the film was held in front of the Nuremberg Frauenkirche. In his final speech in the film, Hitler also directly compares the Nazi party to a holy order, and the consecration of new party flags by having Hitler touch them to the "blood banner" has obvious religious overtones. Hitler himself is portrayed in a messianic manner, from the opening where he descends from the clouds in a plane, to his drive through Nuremberg where even a cat stops what it is doing to watch him, to the many scenes where the camera films from below and looks up at him: Hitler, standing on his podium, will issue a command to hundreds of thousands of followers. The audience happily complies in unison.[8] As Frank P. Tomasulo comments, "Hitler is cast as a veritable German Messiah who will save the nation, if only the citizenry will put its destiny in his hands."[9]
Power[edit]
It is our will that this state and this Reich shall endure through the coming millennia.
— Hitler
Germany had not seen images of military power and strength since the end of World War I, and the huge formations of men would remind the audience that Germany was becoming a great power once again. Though the Labor Service men carried spades, they handled them as if they were rifles. The Eagles and Swastikas could be seen as a reference to the Roman Legions of antiquity. The large mass of well-drilled party members could be seen in a more ominous light, as a warning to dissidents thinking of challenging the regime.
Hitler's arrival in an airplane should also be viewed in this context. According to Kenneth Poferl, "Flying in an airplane was a luxury known only to a select few in the 1930s, but Hitler had made himself widely associated with the practice, having been the first politician to campaign via air travel. Victory reinforced this image and defined him as the top man in the movement, by showing him as the only one to arrive in a plane and receive an individual welcome from the crowd. Hitler's speech to the SA also contained an implied threat: if he could have Röhm, the commander of the hundreds of thousands of troops on the screen, shot, it was only logical to assume that Hitler could get away with having anyone executed."
Unity[edit]
As soon as our own propaganda admits so much as a glimmer of right on the other side, the foundation for doubt in our own right has been laid.
— Hitler
It was very important to Adolf Hitler that his propaganda messages carry a unified theme. If a country isn't unified in saying the enemy is bad, the audience starts to have doubts. Unity is seen throughout this film, even in the camps where soldiers live. The camp outside of Nuremberg is very uniform and clean; the tents are aligned in perfect rows, each one the same as the next. The men there also make a point not to wear their shirts, because their shirts display their rankings and status. Shirtless they are all equals, unified. When they march, it is in unison and they all carry their weapons identically, one to another.
Hitler's message to the workers also includes the notion of unity:
The concept of labor will no longer be a dividing one but a uniting one, and no longer will there be anybody in Germany who will regard manual labor any less highly than any other form of labor.
— Hitler
Children were also used to convey unity:
We want to be a united nation, and you, my youth, are to become this nation. In the future, we do not wish to see classes and cliques, and you must not allow them to develop among you. One day, we want to see one nation.
— Hitler
Triumph of the Will has many scenes that blur the distinction between the Nazi Party, the German state, and the German people. Germans in peasant farmers' costumes and other traditional clothing greet Hitler in some scenes. The torchlight processions, though now associated by many with the Nazis, would remind the viewer of the medieval Karneval celebration. The old flag of Imperial Germany is also shown several times flying alongside the Swastika, and there is a ceremony where Hitler pays his respects to soldiers who died in World War I (as well as to President Paul von Hindenburg who had died a month before the convention). There is also a scene where the Labor Servicemen individually call out which town or area in Germany they are from, reminding the viewers that the Nazi Party had expanded from its stronghold in Bavaria to become a pan-German movement.
The Party is Hitler - and Hitler is Germany just as Germany is Hitler!
— Rudolf Hess
Hitler's speeches[edit]
The Totenehrung (honouring of dead) at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally. SS leader Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler, and SA leader Viktor Lutze (from L to R) on the stone terrace in front of the Ehrenhalle (Hall of Honour) in the Luitpoldarena. In the background is the crescent-shaped Ehrentribüne (literally: tribune of honour).
Among the themes presented, the desire for pride in Germany and the purification of the German people is well exemplified through the speeches and ideals of the Third Reich in Triumph of the Will.
In every speech given and shown in Triumph of the Will, pride is one of the major focuses. Hitler advocates to the people that they should not be satisfied with their current state and they should not be satisfied with the descent from power and greatness Germany has endured since World War I. The German people should believe in themselves and the movement that is occurring in Germany. Hitler promotes pride in Germany through the unification of it. Unifying Germany would force the elimination of what does not amount to the standards of the Nazi regime.
To unify Germany, Hitler believes purification would have to take place. This meant not only eliminating the citizens of Germany who are not of the Aryan race, but the sick, weak, handicapped, or any other citizens deemed unhealthy or impure. In Triumph of the Will, Hitler preaches to the people that Germany must take a look at itself and seek out that which does not belong: "[T]he elements that have become bad, and therefore do not belong with us!" Though within the context, he seems to be referring to the corrupt elements of the power structure, it later could seem in hindsight to imply that the elimination of the 'inferior' people of Germany would, in theory, return Germany to its once prideful and powerful former self. Julius Streicher stresses the importance of purification in his speech, a direct reference to his own virulent anti-semitism. Hundreds of thousands mentally sick and disabled would be murdered in the Action T4, a programme run directly from Hitler's offices in the Chancellory.
Hitler preaches to the people in his speeches that they should believe in their country and themselves. The German people are better than what they have become because of the impurities in society. Hitler wants them to believe in him and believe what he wants to do for his people, and what he is doing is for the country's and people's benefit. Hess says in the last scene of Triumph of the Will, "Heil Hitler, hail victory, hail victory!" Everyone in attendance yells in support. This verbal sign represents their faith to their leader and his most trusted advisors that they believe in the Nazi cause. This is directly following Hitler's yell, "Long live the National Socialist Movement! Long live Germany!" and the crowd erupts with cheering and the fulfillment of pride for themselves and their political party.
In the closing speech of Triumph of the Will, Hitler enters the room from the back, appearing to emerge from the people. After a one sentence introduction, he tells his faithful Nazis how the German nation has subordinated itself to the Nazi Party because its leaders are mostly of Germans. He promises that the new state that the Nazis have created will endure for thousands of years. Hitler says that the youth will carry on after the old have weakened. They close with a chant, "Hitler is the Party, Hitler." The camera focuses on the large Swastika above Hitler and the film ends with the images of this Swastika imposed on Nazis marching in a few columns. His speech brought attention to the rally and created a huge turnout in the following years. He attracted many people in the way that he addressed the issues and his people. He spoke to them as if it were a sermon and engaged the people. In 1934, over a million Germans participated in the Nuremberg Rally.
Response[edit]
Triumph of the Will premiered on 28 March 1935 at the Berlin Ufa Palace Theater and was an instant success. Within two months the film had earned 815,000 Reichsmark, and Ufa considered it one of the three most profitable films of that year. Hitler praised the film as being an "incomparable glorification of the power and beauty of our Movement." For her efforts, Riefenstahl was rewarded with the German Film Prize (Deutscher Filmpreis), a gold medal at the 1935 Venice Biennale, and the Grand Prix at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris. However, there were few claims that the film would result in a mass influx of 'converts' to fascism and the Nazis apparently did not make a serious effort to promote the film outside of Germany. Film historian Richard Taylor also said that Triumph of the Will was not generally used for propaganda purposes inside the Third Reich. The Independent wrote in 2003: "Triumph of the Will seduced many wise men and women, persuaded them to admire rather than to despise, and undoubtedly won the Nazis friends and allies all over the world."[10]
The reception in other countries was not always as enthusiastic. British documentarian Paul Rotha called it tedious, while others were repelled by its pro-Nazi sentiments. During World War II, Frank Capra helped to create a direct response, through the film series called Why We Fight, a series of newsreels commissioned by the United States government that spliced in footage from Triumph of the Will, but recontextualized it so that it promoted the cause of the Allies instead. Capra later remarked that Triumph of the Will "fired no gun, dropped no bombs. But as a psychological weapon aimed at destroying the will to resist, it was just as lethal."[11] Clips from Triumph of the Will were also used in an Allied propaganda short called General Adolph Takes Over,[12] set to the British dance tune "The Lambeth Walk". The legions of marching soldiers, as well as Hitler giving his Nazi salute, were made to look like wind-up dolls, dancing to the music. The Danish resistance used to take over cinemas and force the projectionist to show Swinging the Lambeth Walk (as it was also known), and, says Erik Barrow, "The extraordinary risks were apparently felt justified by a moment of savage anti-Hitler ridicule."[13] Also during World War II, the poet Dylan Thomas wrote a screenplay for and narrated These Are The Men, a propaganda piece using Triumph of the Will footage to discredit Nazi leadership.
One of the best ways to gauge the response to Triumph of the Will was the instant and lasting international fame it gave Riefenstahl. The Economist said it "sealed her reputation as the greatest female filmmaker of the 20th century."[14] For a director who made eight films, only two of which received significant coverage outside of Germany, Riefenstahl had unusually high name recognition for the remainder of her life, most of it stemming from Triumph of the Will. However, her career was also permanently damaged by this association. After the war, Riefenstahl was imprisoned by the Allies for four years for allegedly being a Nazi sympathizer and was permanently blacklisted by the film industry. When she died in 2003, 68 years after its premiere, her obituary received significant coverage in many major publications, including the Associated Press,[15] Wall Street Journal,[16] New York Times,[17] and The Guardian,[18] most of which reaffirmed the importance of Triumph of the Will. Though the actual effectiveness of Triumph of the Will is hard to measure, in terms of numbers or statistics that actually state its effectiveness, its response from the people is well documented with the amount of views and the popularity of the movie during the time period.
Controversy[edit]
Julius Streicher in custody in 1945
Like American filmmaker D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, Triumph of the Will has been criticized as a use of spectacular filmmaking to promote a profoundly unethical system. In Germany, this movie is classified as Nazi propaganda and its showing is restricted under post-war denazification laws, but it may be shown in an educational context. In her defense, Riefenstahl claimed that she was naïve about the Nazis when she made it and had no knowledge of Hitler's genocidal or anti-semitic policies. She also pointed out that Triumph of the Will contains "not one single antisemitic word", although it does contain a veiled comment by Julius Streicher, the notorious Jew-baiter (who was hanged after the Nuremberg trials), that "a people that does not protect its racial purity will perish."
However, Roger Ebert has observed that for some, "the very absence of anti-semitism in Triumph of the Will looks like a calculation; excluding the central motif of almost all of Hitler's public speeches must have been a deliberate decision to make the film more efficient as propaganda."[19]
Riefenstahl also repeatedly defended herself against the charge that she was a Nazi propagandist, saying that Triumph of the Will focuses on images over ideas, and should therefore be viewed as a Gesamtkunstwerk (holistic work of art).[citation needed] In 1964, she returned to this topic, saying:
"If you see this film again today you ascertain that it doesn't contain a single reconstructed scene. Everything in it is true. And it contains no tendentious commentary at all. It is history. A pure historical film... it is film-vérité. It reflects the truth that was then in 1934, history. It is therefore a documentary. Not a propaganda film. Oh! I know very well what propaganda is. That consists of recreating events in order to illustrate a thesis, or, in the face of certain events, to let one thing go in order to accentuate another. I found myself, me, at the heart of an event which was the reality of a certain time and a certain place. My film is composed of what stemmed from that."[20]
However, Riefenstahl was an active participant in the rally, though in later years she downplayed her influence significantly, claiming, "I just observed and tried to film it well. The idea that I helped to plan it is downright absurd." Ebert states that Triumph of the Will is "by general consent [one] of the best documentaries ever made", but added that because it reflects the ideology of a movement regarded by many as evil, it poses "a classic question of the contest between art and morality: Is there such a thing as pure art, or does all art make a political statement?"[19] When reviewing the film for his "Great Movies" collection, Ebert reversed his opinion, characterizing his earlier conclusion as "the received opinion that the film is great but evil" and calling it "a terrible film, paralyzingly dull, simpleminded, overlong and not even 'manipulative,' because it is too clumsy to manipulate anyone but a true believer."[21]
Susan Sontag considers Triumph of the Will the "most successful, most purely propagandistic film ever made, whose very conception negates the possibility of the filmmaker's having an aesthetic or visual conception independent of propaganda." Sontag points to Riefenstahl's involvement in the planning and design of the Nuremberg ceremonies as evidence that Riefenstahl was working, not as an artist in any sense of the word, but as propagandist. With some 30 cameras and a crew of 150, the marches, parades, speeches and processions were orchestrated like a movie set for Riefenstahl's film. Further, this was not the first political film made by Riefenstahl for the Third Reich (there was Victory of Faith, 1933), nor was it the last (Day of Freedom, 1935, Olympia, 1938). "Anyone who defends Riefenstahl's films as documentary", Sontag states, "if documentary is to be distinguished from propaganda, is being disingenuous. In Triumph of Will, the document (the image) is no longer simply the record of reality; 'reality' has been constructed to serve the image."[6]
Brian Winston's essay on the film in The Movies as History is largely a critique of Sontag's analysis. Winston argues that any filmmaker could have made the film look impressive because the Nazi's mise en scène was impressive, particularly when they were offering it for camera re-stagings. In form, the film alternates repetitively between marches and speeches. Winston asks the viewers to consider if such a film should be seen as anything more than a pedestrian effort. Like Rotha, he finds the film tedious, and believes anyone who takes the time to analyze its structure will quickly agree.
Wehrmacht objections[edit]
The first controversy over Triumph of the Will occurred even before its release, when several generals in the Wehrmacht protested over the minimal army presence in the film. Only one scene, the review of the German cavalry, actually involved the German military. The other formations were party organizations that were not part of the military. Hitler proposed his own "artistic" compromise where Triumph of the Will would open with a camera slowly tracking down a row of all the "overlooked" generals (and placate each general's ego). According to her own testimony, Riefenstahl refused his suggestion and insisted on keeping artistic control over Triumph of the Will. She did agree to return to the 1935 rally to make a film exclusively about the Wehrmacht, which became Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces).
Influences and legacy[edit]
Triumph of the Will remains well known for its striking visuals. As one historian notes, "many of the most enduring images of the [Nazi] regime and its leader derive from Riefenstahl's film."[22]
Extensive excerpts of the film were used in Erwin Leiser's documentary Mein Kampf, produced in Sweden in 1960. Riefenstahl unsuccessfully sued the Swedish production company Minerva-Film for copyright violation, although she did receive forty thousand marks in compensation from German and Austrian distributors of the film.[23]
In 1942, Charles A. Ridley of the British Ministry of Information made a short propaganda film, Lambeth Walk – Nazi Style, which edited footage of Hitler and German soldiers from the film to make it appear they were marching and dancing to the song "The Lambeth Walk". The film so enraged Joseph Goebbels that reportedly he ran out of the screening room kicking chairs and screaming profanities. The propaganda film was distributed uncredited to newsreel companies, who would supply their own narration.
Charlie Chaplin's classic satire The Great Dictator (1940) was inspired in large part by Triumph of the Will.[24] The film has been studied by many contemporary artists including film directors Peter Jackson, and Ridley Scott.
See also[edit]
List of German films 1933-1945
Nazism and cinema
Nazi propaganda
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Barsam, Richard M (1975). Filmguide to Triumph of the Will. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. p. 21.
2.Jump up ^ Hinton, David B. (1975). "Triumph of the Will: Document or Artifice?". Cinema Journal (University of Texas Press) 15 (1): 48–57.
3.^ Jump up to: a b Hitler, Adolph (2000). "War Propaganda". In Marwick, A; Simpson, W. Primary Sources 2: Interwar and World War II. Milton Keynes, The Open University. pp. 79–82. ISBN 0-7492-8559-1.
4.Jump up ^ Kula, S (1985). "Theatres of War:Propaganda 1918-45". Archivaria 20: 172.
5.Jump up ^ Starkman, R (1998). "Mother of All Spectacles: Ray Müller's "The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl"". Film Quarterly (University of California) 51 (2 Winter, 1997-1998): 23.(subscription required)
6.^ Jump up to: a b Sontag, Susan (February 6, 1975). "Fascinating Fascism". The New York Review of Books.
7.Jump up ^ Berenbaum, Michael (2007). The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Washington, D.C.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. pp. 24–25. ISBN 0-316-09134-0.
8.Jump up ^ Carl Rollyson (2007-03-07). "Leni Riefenstahl on Trial". The New York Sun. Retrieved 2008-11-02.
9.Jump up ^ Tomasulo, Frank P. "The Mass Psychology of Fascist Cinema: Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will". In Grant, Barry Keith; Sloniowski, Jeannette. Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video. Wayne State University Press. p. 104. ISBN 9780814326398.
10.Jump up ^ Williams, Val (2003-09-10). "Leni Riefenstahl". The Independent. pp. XX.
11.Jump up ^ Capra, Frank (1977). The Name above the Title: An Autobiography. Da Capo Press. p. 328. ISBN 0-306-80771-8. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
12.Jump up ^ London's New Version of the Lambeth Walk : Performed by the Nazi Ballet Without the Permission of A Hitler. YouTube. Retrieved 2012-05-06.
13.Jump up ^ Barrow, Erik (1993). Documentary: A History of Non-fiction Films. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 151. ISBN 0-19-507898-5.
14.Jump up ^ "Leni Riefenstahl: Hand-held history". The Economist. 11 September 2003.
15.Jump up ^ Rising, David (9 September 2003). "Hitler's filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, revered and reviled for her work, dies at 101". Associated Press.
16.Jump up ^ Petropolous, Jonathan (11 September 2003). "Leni Riefenstahl, Coy Propagandist of the Nazi Era". Wall Street Journal.
17.Jump up ^ Riding, Alan (9 September 2003). "Leni Riefenstahl, Filmmaker and Nazi Propagandist, Dies at 101". New York Times.
18.Jump up ^ Harding, Luke (10 September 2003). "Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favourite film propagandist, dies at 101". The Guardian.
19.^ Jump up to: a b Ebert, Roger (24 June 1994). "The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl". Chicago Sun-Times.
20.Jump up ^ Thomson, David (2010). The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, Fifth Edition. New York: Knopf. p. 822. ISBN 978-0-307-27174-7.
21.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (26 June 2008). "Triumph of the Will (1935)". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 2011-05-04. Retrieved 2011-05-04.
22.Jump up ^ Reeves, Nicholas (2003) [1999]. The Power of Film Propaganda: Myth or Reality?. London; New York: Continuum. p. 107. ISBN 0-82647-390-3.
23.Jump up ^ Trimborn, Jürgen (2007). Leni Riefenstahl: A Life. New York: Faber and Faber. p. 240. ISBN 9780374184933.
24.Jump up ^ Trimborn, pp. 123–124.
Further reading[edit]
Cheshire, Ellen (2000). "Leni Riefenstahl: Documentary Film-Maker Or Propagandist?". Kamera.
Kershaw, Ian (1987). The Hitler Myth. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 48–49. ISBN 0-19-821964-4.
Shirer, William. Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1941. Includes a contemporary account of the 1934 Nuremberg rally.
Smith, David Calvert (1990). Triumph of the Will: A Film by Leni Riefenstahl. Richardson, TX: Celluloid Chronicles Press. Archived from the original on 2002-02-20. (Complete Screenplay)
Welch, David (1993). The Third Reich Politics and Propaganda. New Fetter Lane, London: Routledge. pp. 65–72. ISBN 0-415-09033-4.
External links[edit]
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Triumph of the Will
Triumph of the Will at the Internet Movie Database
Das Blaue Licht: The Art of Leni Riefenstahl, an unofficial biographical website endorsed by the Riefenstahl Estate
Triumph of the Will Screenplay by Leni Riefenstahl at DasBlaueLicht.net
Hinter den Kulissen des Reichsparteitag-Films, Riefenstahl's 1935 book on the making of the film with many photographs (German)
Triumph of the Will, available for download at Internet Archive
"Lambeth Walk" - YouTube video of the Lambeth Walk British propaganda spoof
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Categories: 1935 films
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Why We Fight
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This article is about the World War II documentary film series. For other uses, see Why We Fight (disambiguation).
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Prelude to War depicts the Nazi propaganda machine.
Why We Fight is a series of seven documentary films commissioned by the United States government during World War II whose purpose was to show American soldiers the reason for U.S. involvement in the war. Later on they were also shown to the general U.S. public to persuade them to support American involvement in the war.
Most of the films were directed by Frank Capra, who was daunted yet also impressed and challenged by Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Triumph of the Will and worked in direct response to it. The series faced a tough challenge: convincing a recently non-interventionist nation of the need to become involved in the war and ally with the Soviets, among other things. In many of the films, Capra and other directors spliced in Axis powers propaganda footage going back twenty years, and re-contextualized it so it promoted the cause of the Allies.
Why We Fight was edited primarily by William Hornbeck, although some parts were re-enacted "under War Department supervision" if there was no relevant footage available. The animated portions of the films were produced by the Disney studios – with the animated maps following a convention of depicting Axis-occupied territory in black.
Contents [hide]
1 Purpose of films as war information 1.1 Countering enemy propaganda films
1.2 Creating a powerful film idea
2 Description of films
3 Production details
4 Film as medium of choice to present war information
5 Post war
6 Films
7 See also
8 References 8.1 Notes
8.2 Bibliography
9 External links
Purpose of films as war information[edit]
War Comes To America demonstrates America's hopeless position in the event of an Axis victory in Eurasia.
Director Frank Capra enlisted shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He was assigned to work directly under Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, the most senior officer in command of the Army, who would later create the Marshall Plan and be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Marshall felt that Signal Corps was incapable of producing "sensitive and objective troop information films." One colonel explained the importance of these future films to Capra:
You were the answer to the General's prayer. . . You see, Frank, this idea about films to explain "Why" the boys are in uniform is General Marshall's own baby, and he wants the nursery right next to his Chief of Staff's office.[1]
During his first meeting with General Marshall, Capra was given his mission:
Now, Capra, I want to nail down with you a plan to make a series of documented, factual-information films—the first in our history—that will explain to our boys in the Army why we are fighting, and the principles for which we are fighting... You have an opportunity to contribute enormously to your country and the cause of freedom. Are you aware of that, sir?[2]
Countering enemy propaganda films[edit]
Shortly after his meeting with General Marshall, Capra viewed Leni Riefenstahl's "terrifying motion picture," Triumph of the Will. Capra describes the film as "the ominous prelude of Hitler's holocaust of hate. Satan couldn't have devised a more blood-chilling super-spectacle. . . . Though panoplied with all the pomp and mystical trappings of a Wagnerian opera, its message was as blunt and brutal as a lead pipe: We, the Herrenvolk, are the new invincible gods!"[3]
According to Capra, Triumph of the Will "fired no gun, dropped no bombs. But as a psychological weapon aimed at destroying the will to resist, it was just as lethal." Capra at this point had no assistants or facilities, and he began to see his assignment as overwhelming:
I sat alone and pondered. How could I mount a counterattack against Triumph of the Will; keep alive our will to resist the master race? I was alone; no studio, no equipment, no personnel.[3]
Creating a powerful film idea[edit]
Capra made his primary focus the creation of "one basic, powerful idea" that would spread and evolve into other related ideas. Capra considered one important idea that had always been in his thoughts:
I thought of the Bible. There was one sentence in it that always gave me goose pimples: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."[3]
As a result, his goal became to "let the enemy prove to our soldiers the enormity of his cause—and the justness of ours." He would compile enemy speeches, films, newsreels, newspaper articles, with a list of the enemy's hostile actions. He presented his ideas to other officers now assigned to help him:
I told them of my hunch: Use the enemy's own films to expose their enslaving ends. Let our boys hear the Nazis and the Japs shout their own claims of master-race crud—and our fighting men will know why they are in uniform.[3]
Weeks later, after major efforts and disappointments, Capra located hard-to-reach archives within government facilities, and by avoiding normal channels was able to gain access:
Peterson and I walked away on air. We had found the great cache of enemy films—and it was ours![3]
Description of films[edit]
Frank Capra receiving the Distinguished Service Medal from U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, 19451.Prelude to War (1942) (51:35) (Academy award as Documentary Feature) – this examines the difference between democratic and fascist states, and covers the Japanese conquest of Manchuria and the Italian conquest of Ethiopia.[4] Capra describes it as "presenting a general picture of two worlds; the slave and the free, and the rise of totalitarian militarism from Japan's conquest of Manchuria to Mussolini's conquest of Ethiopia."[3]
2.The Nazis Strike (1943) (40:20) – covers Nazi geopolitics and the conquest of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.[5] Capra's description: "Hitler rises. Imposes Nazi dictatorship on Germany. Goose-steps into Rhineland and Austria. Threatens war unless given Czechoslovakia. Appeasers oblige. Hitler invades Poland. Curtain rises on the tragedy of the century—World War II."[3]
3.Divide and Conquer (1943) (56:00) [6] – about the campaign in Benelux and the Fall of France. Capra's description: "Hitler occupies Denmark and Norway, outflanks Maginot Line, drives British Army into North Sea, forces surrender of France."[3]
4.The Battle of Britain (1943) (51:30) [7] – depicts Britain's victory against the Luftwaffe. Capra's synopsis: "Showing the gallant and victorious defense of Britain by Royal Air Force, at a time when shattered but unbeaten British were only people fighting Nazis."[3]
5.The Battle of Russia (1943) (76:07) Part I [8] and Part II [9] – shows a history of Russian defense and Russia's battle against Germany. Capra's synopsis: "History of Russia; people, size, resources, wars. Death struggle against Nazi armies at gates of Moscow and Leningrad. At Stalingrad, Nazis are put through meat grinder."[3]
6.The Battle of China (1944) (62:16) [10] – shows Japanese aggression such as the Nanking Massacre and Chinese efforts such as the construction of the Burma Road and the Battle of Changsha. Capra's synopsis: "Japan's warlords commit total effort to conquest of China. Once conquered, Japan would use China's manpower for the conquest of all Asia."[3]
7.War Comes to America (1945) (64:20) [11] – shows how the pattern of Axis aggression turned the American people against isolationism. Capra's synopsis: "Dealt with who, what, where, why, and how we came to be the U.S.A.—the oldest major democratic republic still living under its original constitution. But the heart of the film dealt with the depth and variety of emotions with which Americans reacted to the traumatic events in Europe and Asia. How our convictions slowly changed from total non-involvement to total commitment as we realized that loss of freedom anywhere increased the danger to our own freedom. This last film of the series was, and still is, one of the most graphic visual histories of the United States ever made."[3]
Production details[edit]
The films were directed by Academy Award-winning director Frank Capra and narrated by Academy Award winning actor Walter Huston. This narration, though factual for the most part, is replete with rhetoric describing implacably warlike German and Japanese armed forces. Conversely, it lionizes the courage and sacrifice of the British, Soviets, and Chinese.
At the end of each film, the quotation from Army Chief of Staff George Marshall that "...the victory of the democracies can only be complete with the utter defeat of the war machines of Germany and Japan," is shown on screen, followed by a ringing Liberty Bell over which is superimposed a large letter "V" zooming into the screen, accompanied by patriotic or military music on the soundtrack.
Why We Fight also contains many scenes from Triumph of the Will when talking about the Nazis.
Made from 1942 to 1945, the seven films range from 40 to 76 minutes in length, and all are available on DVD or online at no cost, since they have always been public domain films produced by the U.S. government.
Film as medium of choice to present war information[edit]
After World War I the methods used to gain support from troops and civilians needed to change. Giving speeches to both soldier recruits and the American public was no longer effective. Film became the medium of choice to inform American soldiers and recruits about why fighting was necessary.[12] As Kathleen German states, “this was the first massive attempt to influence opinion in the U.S. military” through film.[13] Film was also chosen because it combined the senses of sight and hearing, giving it an advantage over radio or print.[14] Capra, who had no experience in documentary films, was chosen because “of his commitment to American ideals” and because of the popularity of some of his earlier feature films. He was thought “to understand the heart and soul of American audiences.”[12] Once the documentary series was completed, it was said to contain the “Capra touch.”[15]
The series' appeal was furthered by how the film was edited. “Throughout his career Capra depended upon his skill as an editor to achieve the contrast of the individual and the group, critical in the success of his Hollywood movies.”[16] Capra thought it would be most effective to use the enemy’s original film and propaganda in the series in order to expose the enemies with their own images. By taking pieces of the enemy material to edit together and placing his own narration over the results, Capra gave meaning and purpose to the war with added narrative.[17] This “parallel editing”[18] created an “us vs. them” image by re-framing and showing clips out of their original order and context.
By such careful editing, the films compared and contrasted the forces of evil with America and its traditional values. Capra highlighted the differences between America and the enemy and showed how the enemy would attack these values if “we” did not fight.[19] This worked to create a battle not only between Allies and the Axis Powers but between good and evil. Capra treated it as a matter of showing the enormity of the Axis cause and the justness of the Allied.[20] In order to justify the Western Allies' alliance with the Soviet Union, the series omitted many facts, which could have cast doubts on the "good guy" status of the Soviets, such as the Nazi-Soviet alliance, Soviet invasion of Poland; Soviet occupation of the Baltic States, Winter War and others.[21] Virtually in line with Soviet propaganda, the series was not only screened but widely acclaimed in the Soviet Union.[22] To exonerate the Soviets, the series casts even less important Allies, like the Poles, in the bad light, even repeating Nazi propaganda claims such as the Tuchola Forest myth or false claims about the Polish Air Force being destroyed on the ground.[21][22]
The Why We Fight series became a heavily used means of presenting information about Axis powers for the American government during World War II. General Surles, the director of the Department of War’s Bureau of Public Relations, had hoped that the series would be effective enough to allow similar kinds of army films to be shown to the general public.[23] Surles saw this goal realized when Prelude to War, the most successful of the seven films, was shown to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt saw this film as so important that he ordered it to be distributed in civilian arenas for public viewing.[17] However, some objections were raised against the Why We Fight series because it was so persuasive. Lowell Mellett, the coordinator of government films and aide to Roosevelt, saw the films as dangerous. He was most concerned with the effect the series would have after the war was over and the “hysteria” the films would create in their wake.[23] At least 54 million Americans had seen the series by the end of the war, and studies were done to gauge the impact of the films. However, the results were inconclusive, and therefore the effectiveness of the series is still in question.[24]
Post war[edit]
Prelude to War and The Battle of China refer several times to the Tanaka Memorial, portraying it as "Japan's Mein Kampf" to raise American morale for a protracted war against Japan. The authenticity of this document remains a topic of historical debate. Even though its authenticity has been called into question by some today, the Tanaka Memorial was widely accepted as authentic in the 1930s and 40s because Japan's actions corresponded so closely to these plans.
In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the films "culturally significant" and selected them for preservation in the National Film Registry. Created by the U.S. Army Pictorial Services, the films are in the public domain; all of them are available for download at the Internet Archive.
Films[edit]
File:Why We Fight 1, Prelude to War.ogv
Prelude to War
File:Why We Fight 2, The Nazis Strike.ogv
The Nazis Strike
File:Why We Fight 3, Divide and Conquer.ogv
Divide and Conquer
File:Why We Fight 4, The Battle of Britain.ogv
The Battle of Britain
File:Why We Fight 5a, The Battle of Russia.ogv
The Battle of Russia, part 1
File:Why We Fight 5b, Battle of Russia.ogv
The Battle of Russia, part 2
File:Why We Fight 6, The Battle of China.ogv
The Battle of China
File:Why We Fight 7, War Comes to America.ogv
War Comes to America
See also[edit]
War film
List of films in the public domain in the United States
Frank Capra subsection "Why We Fight series" for additional details
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Capra 1971, p. 322.
2.Jump up ^ Capra 1971, p. 326.
3.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l Capra, Frank. The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. New York: The Macmillan Company, (1971) pp. 325–343 ISBN 0-306-80771-8
4.Jump up ^ www.archive.org/details/PreludeToWar
5.Jump up ^ www.archive.org/details/TheNazisStrike
6.Jump up ^ www.archive.org/details/DivideAndConquer
7.Jump up ^ www.archive.org/details/BattleOfBritain
8.Jump up ^ www.archive.org/details/BattleOfRussia I
9.Jump up ^ II www.archive.org/details/BattleOfRussiaII
10.Jump up ^ www.archive.org/details/BattleOfChina
11.Jump up ^ www.archive.org/details/WarComesToAmerica
12.^ Jump up to: a b Combs and Combs, 1994, p. 69.
13.Jump up ^ German, 1990, p. 237.
14.Jump up ^ German, 1990, p. 238.
15.Jump up ^ Koppes and Black, 1987, p. 76.
16.Jump up ^ German, 1990, p. 240.
17.^ Jump up to: a b Combs and Combs, 1994, p. 70.
18.Jump up ^ German, 1990, p. 241.
19.Jump up ^ German, 1990.
20.Jump up ^ Richard Overy, Why the Allies Won, p295 ISBN 0-393-03925-0
21.^ Jump up to: a b Mieczysław B. Biskupski (January 2010). Hollywood's war with Poland, 1939–1945. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 148–150. ISBN 978-0-8131-2559-6. Retrieved 4 March 2011.
22.^ Jump up to: a b Mieczysław B. Biskupski (January 2010). Hollywood's war with Poland, 1939–1945. University Press of Kentucky. pp. 151–152. ISBN 978-0-8131-2559-6. Retrieved 4 March 2011.
23.^ Jump up to: a b Koppes and Black, 1987, p. 122.
24.Jump up ^ Rollins, 1996, p. 81.
Battle of Russia Part II [1]
Bibliography[edit]
Combs, James, and Sara Combs. Film Propaganda and American Politics: An Analysis and Filmography. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1994.
German, Kathleen. “Frank Capra’s Why We Fight Series and the American Audience.” Western Journal of Speech Communication 54. (1990): 237–248.
Koppes, Clayton, and Gregory Black. Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies. New York: The Free Press, 1987.
Rollins, Peter. “Frank Copra’s Why We Fight Film Series and Our American Dream.” Journal of American Culture. 19. (4): 81, 6.
Shindler, Colin. Hollywood Goes to War: Films and American Society 1939–1952. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Why We Fight.
Why we fight: Prelude to War at the Internet Movie Database
Why we fight: Prelude to War is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Why we fight: The Nazis Strike at the Internet Movie Database
Why we fight: The Nazis Strike is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Why we fight: Divide and Conquer at the Internet Movie Database
Why we fight: Divide and Conquer is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Why we fight: The Battle of Britain at the Internet Movie Database
Why we fight: The Battle of Britain is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Why we fight: The Battle of Russia at the Internet Movie Database
Why we fight: The Battle of Russia (Part 1) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Why we fight: The Battle of Russia (Part 2) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Why we fight: The Battle of China at the Internet Movie Database
Why we fight: The Battle of China is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
Why we fight: War Comes to America at the Internet Movie Database
Why we fight: War Comes to America is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
USAAF First Motion Picture Unit at Magic Lantern
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Frank Capra's Why We Fight series
Categories: American World War II propaganda films
United States National Film Registry films
Documentary films about World War II
World War II films made in wartime
American documentary films
1940s war films
1940s documentary films
Film series
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Why We Fight
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