October 4 Class Minutes

Sean McAnallen

To begin class, 2 questions were answered about the review sheet.

1. What is an insert shot?  After the establishing shot, insert shots are shots put in within the establishing shot.  For example it could be a close-up within a long shot.
2. What is a Match Cut?  Something German film makers were particularly fond of in the twenties.  An example would be cutting from a man to a monster or one figure to another so that the viewer won’t be disturbed by the cut.  In other words, one shot is matched in form with another shot. Can be used for symbolic meaning between cuts.

End of 1943 to 1944:  It was Obvious Germany was losing the war.  Geobbels called film makers together and asked them how they would like to be depicted in a movie 1,000 years from then.  Would they like to be depicted as cowards or quitters or would they rather play leading roles in an historic epic.  This was intended not just to boost the moral of the German film industry, but was meant to encourage the film industry to boost the moral of the German people.

-         It was decided to make a film about a losing battle in which the people did not give up.  This film was Kolberg; it was set in the early 19^th century during the Napoleonic Wars.  It dealt with a battle that Germany lost.  In this film the commandant of the town wants to give in to the French, but the citizens decide to fight to the end despite the outcome.

-         To make this film Goebbels brought in supplies and troops from the front.  Too much was spent on the making of this film.  It was to be the German “Gone with the Wind”.

-         When the film premiered, there was really no where to show it since the Allies were closing in, so it was flown to a secure location to be shown.

-         Scene we watched contained the famous Nazi actors, Heinrich George, and Christina Soderbaum.

-         Kolberg was the last of the “perseverance films”, a “don’t give up film”.  However shortly after, both Hitler and Geobbels both “gave-up” and killed themselves.

-         Directed by the director of Jud Süß.

The second film we watched was a compilation of Nazi films called, Germany Awake!  Made in 1960 by a German of Jewish decent.  It wanted to show both the overtly Nazi propaganda films and the subtle ideology of the Nazi entertainment films.  The compilation looks at 25 films.  The film contains commentary on all the films it examines. 

-         The compilation looks at the early Nazi films and their portrayal of Nazi’s struggling to overcome the evils of communism.  To highlight this it showed scenes from Hitler Youth Quex.

-         It noted that after the signing of the Russian-German non aggression pact, Russians were portrayed quite differently.  However, by 1941 the anti-communist rhetoric was back in Nazi films.

-         Democracy was also constantly ridiculed in Nazi films.  Examples of this were shown in Refugees and Merit, both criticizing the democratic Weimar Republic for ruining Germany.

-         It also showed examples of film that portrayed war as an inevitable German action.  This was seen in clips from, Bismark and Victory in the West.

-         A clip was also shown from Stukas, a musical attack on England.

-         Jud Süß clip was played to show the anti-Semitic films produced under the Nazi’s.  The film was so convincingly anti-Semitic that actors had to prove they weren’t Jewish.