Hitler's Hollywood is a detailed and highly informative retrospective on German cinema under Nazi occupation from 1933 to 1945. I saw the version that was narrated by Udo Kier, who did an impassioned job detailing the seductive, the corrosive and the abominable of third reich German cinema.
Hitler's Hollywood meditates upon how the Nazis sought to use cinema as a means of mass indoctrination. The films were escapist and light hearted. They were a romanticisation of the reality occurring within Nazi Germany. Euthanasia was shown as mercy killings. Those of the Jewish faith were shown as either unwashed masses or deceptive sex criminals who always bought their way into power. The most repulsive examples were propaganda in favour of mass slaughter and the most intriguing examples raise the pressing question which is, what does cinema know that we don't?
German cinema under the third reich might well possibly harbour a thorough explanation as to how fascism (or something like it) could be appealing to 'civilised' people. Not to forget though that the German people really didn't have much say in where the country was going, even though the anti-semitism definitely was there before the late 30's. The political makeup of the time, the war economy that Smedley Butler had laid out bare in his book, war is a racket, the economic uncertainty. The Nazis, like all leaders of nations, were merely standing upon the shoulders of giants. However, like i said, these films do play on a lot of sentiment that the German people shared before the late 30's, and that some countries share to this very day.
But what the fascist cinema shows is how they tried to bridge the gap of what was considered normal in the Weimar republic and what was acceptable under the Third Reich. The ministry of propaganda took on many cheap masks to cover the regime's shallow ideas of a collective European history and a worker lead state under totalitarian rule. They proclaimed to know their history, know their philosophy, know their women. Though like most works by frustrated (mostly failed) conservative creatives then and now, the films only use their research to make their own reductive ideas sound credible. It's all in aid for what they feel is true, not for what could be seen as objectively or universally true or at the very least, sticking to the facts as they were. It is for this reason, many of the clips displayed in this documentary had almost a kitschy appeal to me. Charmingly faux intellectual. That and the constant fetishisation of death and suffrage. That's cute as well.
The real go home for me though was how this retrospective highlighted how Goebbels considered escapist cinema as the perfect vessel for his propaganda. How the ideas of Fascism merged so well with the Hollywood aesthetic, albeit with a few obvious atonal examples. It is a cautionary tale (especially looking at China's influence over Hollywood today) that the most seemingly harmless fluff could be selling more than just a means of escape.
In conclusion, Hitler's Hollywood is an essential article for anyone researching or even having a passing interest in this bizarre twelve year period of German cinema. It's informative, fascinating, chilling, and forewarning.
Hitler's Hollywood meditates upon how the Nazis sought to use cinema as a means of mass indoctrination. The films were escapist and light hearted. They were a romanticisation of the reality occurring within Nazi Germany. Euthanasia was shown as mercy killings. Those of the Jewish faith were shown as either unwashed masses or deceptive sex criminals who always bought their way into power. The most repulsive examples were propaganda in favour of mass slaughter and the most intriguing examples raise the pressing question which is, what does cinema know that we don't?
German cinema under the third reich might well possibly harbour a thorough explanation as to how fascism (or something like it) could be appealing to 'civilised' people. Not to forget though that the German people really didn't have much say in where the country was going, even though the anti-semitism definitely was there before the late 30's. The political makeup of the time, the war economy that Smedley Butler had laid out bare in his book, war is a racket, the economic uncertainty. The Nazis, like all leaders of nations, were merely standing upon the shoulders of giants. However, like i said, these films do play on a lot of sentiment that the German people shared before the late 30's, and that some countries share to this very day.
But what the fascist cinema shows is how they tried to bridge the gap of what was considered normal in the Weimar republic and what was acceptable under the Third Reich. The ministry of propaganda took on many cheap masks to cover the regime's shallow ideas of a collective European history and a worker lead state under totalitarian rule. They proclaimed to know their history, know their philosophy, know their women. Though like most works by frustrated (mostly failed) conservative creatives then and now, the films only use their research to make their own reductive ideas sound credible. It's all in aid for what they feel is true, not for what could be seen as objectively or universally true or at the very least, sticking to the facts as they were. It is for this reason, many of the clips displayed in this documentary had almost a kitschy appeal to me. Charmingly faux intellectual. That and the constant fetishisation of death and suffrage. That's cute as well.
The real go home for me though was how this retrospective highlighted how Goebbels considered escapist cinema as the perfect vessel for his propaganda. How the ideas of Fascism merged so well with the Hollywood aesthetic, albeit with a few obvious atonal examples. It is a cautionary tale (especially looking at China's influence over Hollywood today) that the most seemingly harmless fluff could be selling more than just a means of escape.
In conclusion, Hitler's Hollywood is an essential article for anyone researching or even having a passing interest in this bizarre twelve year period of German cinema. It's informative, fascinating, chilling, and forewarning.