Ideal Enemies of Cinema: Fascism and Nazis. According to J.L. Lebel, cinema is an effective tool for ideological transfer, as soon as films reach the audience, they begin to transfer the elements and values within their ideology to the audience. Cinema is based on drama, and drama aims to make sense of life and / or delight as well as approaching reality.
In this respect, while cinema was first seen as an entertainment, leisure-filling tool in the early 20th century, it has the characteristics of having massive attraction, reaching ‘buyers’ in bulk and using the striking effect of visual on people. Power or, more generally, ideologies and / or ideological devices that envision the ‘consent’ of the masses began to use the power of cinema.
For example, in propaganda techniques used as a powerful weapon in Nazi Germany, cinema held an important place besides the public calls, speeches, rallies, radio, architecture and print media. Progress of anti-semitism, militarism and anti-communism, produced by the State Film Chamber founded by the German cinema, People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda Minister J. Goebbels, which entered the period of decline due to the economic collapse after the First World War and the mass migration to the USA. It was used for the construction of the imagined nation by being revived by the films that made it.
The cinema industry, led by France both technically and in terms of the amount of films produced until World War I, gained strength in the U.S., which used the advantage of being free from destructive effects in the post-war period. The first studios, which will soon take over the world cinema industry, are also the mainstream U.S.A. It was founded in Hollywood, which would characterize its cinema. As an effective propaganda tool, cinema, which swelled the appetite of political powers, was actively used by the production companies in Hollywood in the post-war era to defend many thoughts, from heroism to militarism, from the glorification of masculinity to nationalist idealism.
As the only country whose economy developed after the Second World War, the U.S. did not see it as a weapon to adopt the post-war ideology as a weapon for the worldwide domination of the world by opening war against socialism. For example, from 1948 to 1953, the use of broad distribution networks and legal sanctions for the screening of films promoting the Marshall Plan in Europe resulted in Hollywood cinema gaining power against national cinemas. [6] Besides, European countries such as Germany, France, Italy, which dealt with the economic collapse in the post-war period, did not have the power to fight with this ideological device, which had such a strong power and had both economic and political trumps.
Starting in the 1960s, the opposing attitude of anti-capitalist anti-capitalist opposition movements that became widespread around the world began to show itself in cinema. New Realists in Italy, New Wave in France, Free Filmmakers in Britain have developed a new language of language that makes us think, question, and think about cinema made with commercial concerns and seen as a soap bubble entertainment.
Even though New Hollywood, which emerged in the U.S., opposed this commercialization and the use of cinema as an ideological device by the state, it could not have as much influence as the massive budget Hollywood productions that received government support and held its advertising power. In this respect, we can say that the films with opposing content emerged as a sales area for production companies with commercial concerns. Nevzat Tandogan’s more famous sassy “similar to his mentality was valid for Hollywood production companies; If the opposition was to be made, it should have been made to the company in a controlled way.
Over the years, Hollywood cinema has been more successful than its many examples in creating its own opposition, making / looking like system opposition in the system. Especially in war films that appeared in the late 1960s, the U.S. produced under the guise of anti-war. heroism of soldiers, liberation of democracy; it was the discourse that the struggle for freedom against evil communists and / or the Nazis was led by the American.
In this respect, the cursed / desired to be cursed was actually the enemies and / or current political decisions against the U.S. in war rather than war. For example, in films such as Apocalypse Now (1979) or Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), the “innocent” injuries, indigenous people, unnecessary violence, murders were questioned, rather than the war itself. In this respect, U.S.A. Although his army was deemed to have made some mistakes, the audience was still asked to identify with them. For example, in Saving Private Ryan (1998), which was released with the claim that it presented a section from World War II, Spielberg reduces the war to the good / bad war between the two countries by abstracting the Normandy Landing from the allies like Britain and France, and not even the name of the French Resistance.
In other words, the war between the anti-fascist front and fascism is reduced to the innocence / goodwill of the kindhearted American soldiers who fought against the German army in the film. In the film, the ideological and economic reasons that gave rise to German fascism, and even the legitimate ground for the future wars of the U.S., with the emphasis on “question war but fairly fight where it is needed”, is ignored. Motivated soldiers, who serve goodness, become catharsis on the audience, becoming a means of taking a mandatory side and superficially imposing the good and bad distinction of black and white.
Likewise, Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993), which he shot 5 years before Saving Private Ryan, was also skilled at reducing the subject to the good and evil of actors by making a superficial assessment of German fascism. However, there was also an indirect / (or as claimed by many) direct beautification of capitalism in this equation, in which the humane goodness of a capitalist businessman was put before fascists.
In the film, the good German pictured enters a life-saving struggle against organized fascism; employing Jews to be sent to death in the factory. Like kind-hearted fabricators in Turkish melodramas, Schindler is portrayed as a kind-hearted capitalist, but how ironically is production continues, workers work, earn capital! The interrogation should focus only on the liberation of the Jews sent to death. Adapted from a real life story, Oscar Schindler is so romanticized that he cannot believe that he survived with the financial support of the Jews he saved after World War II!
How can a destructive ideology targeting society, such as fascism, be reduced to individuals in a society with great trauma? To what extent is it possible for 1100 Jews rescued by Schindler to eventually create a catharsis by comforting the audience? According to W. Benjamin, in the age when art was reproduced with the possibilities of technique, cinema specialized in creating its own heroes; He mentions that the design on the scenes is designed to identify the viewers with the actor and / or actors [7], so that the lines desired to be conveyed through the movie can be presented to the audience as if they were their own choice. In this example, the concept of good and evil is individualized and made meaningless through Schindler, and the political meaning of the concept of evil is removed and rendered invisible; Good and bad Germans play a role in systematic evil dominated by a dominant ideology.
Another film that predicted the popularity of the good / evil dichotomy and compelled the viewer to identify with the hero was The Pianist, which was released in 2002 and adapted from a real life story. Against the German invasion of Poland, Jewish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman is heroized for the audience, and the struggle for survival is presented to the audience by blending lots of agitation.
According to J. Monaco, the phenomenon of stardom in the USA is highly valued by the producers: Star cinema is based on the creation of a strong identification between the hero and the audience. We see things from the protagonist’s point of view, the effect is hidden but profound. Szpilman’s eye becomes the viewer’s eye; Thus, the audience is relieved when the hero is saved at the end of the movie.
The unplayable piano element in the movie is a source of hope at the same time; It represents both hope and aesthetics among all the evil. Should the Jewish Genocide, or more generally, show such an aesthetics in fascism? Should the German officer, who is hiding his life by hiding a Jew among all the evil, get out of the role he has made – should he give us a glimmer of hope by not fulfilling his order in a sense? Or let’s ask more directly: Are the Germans who commit genocide / support genocide and / or not stand up against the genocide are extreme ordinary people who suffer from jurisdiction as Arendt claims?
The Jewish Holocaust, Nazi Germany, II. The box office achievements of World War themed films, the awards they received at the festivals, and the criticisms that contain praise written on them clearly show how profitable enemies the Nazis are for Hollywood. The fact that cinema has an important place among the branches of industry in the capitalist system seems to be both an effective tool for the transference of the dominant ideology and that it can act without geographical and / or time constraints.
In this respect, it can be said that the mainstream American cinema is quite capable of making films blended with artificial sensuality through an enemy that glorifies militarism, transfers history through its own eyes. Ignoring micro-fascism most of the time; Let’s be bolder, it cannot go beyond glorifying American militarism, which was actually under the criticism of fascism in Hollywood, which was unable to make a bold self-criticism of fascist politics in its political history.
For Hollywood, the Nazis are considered ideal enemies as a cult of evil, while Nazi Germany is seen as an ideal movie plateau with personal and social drama. In this respect, mainstream American cinema both glorifies the American image and creates a passive revolt that has been threatened, by focusing on more personal issues rather than a political opposition, by emphasizing its own goodness in the face of Nazism’s evil.
Obviously, this revolt is not against a social system and / or a political ideology, but against an abstract evil shaped on people. Hollywood sees precisely this evil both as a means of transferring its ideology and / or maintaining social rules, and as an economic means of earning. In this respect, it would be purely innocent to assume that Hollywood, which visually demonized the “evil” Nazis, came to terms with the Nazis and criticized fascism years later. What did he say, Simon de Beauvoir: “Seeing your salvation in another is the safest way to collapse.”
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