News - Monday, July 21, 2008 18:03 - 0 Comments

Propaganda as Documentary

Documentary film has long been used as a method of distributing a propaganda message, and the United States government as well as political parties are perhaps the the most expert proponents of this method. They, of course, take their cues from Hitler’s Nazi Germany who used propaganda with expert precision. Leni Riefenstahl’s body of films, produced by the Third Reich, are both visually stunning and effective in the shaping of the party message.

One of the major issues in documentary film today, as I see it, is the idea perpetuated by many that the films are somehow “objective” and free from any lens or judgmental point of view. I don’t mean to insinuate that filmmakers make films under this paradigm, merely that they are received as such, and often used as “proof” of fact – when in fact it’s entirely possible a film may be used effectively to distort the fact and the medium itself then becomes a powerful weapon of persuasion.
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