February 10, 2004
TWO DAYS OF SCREENING WITH JACK STEVENSON
Saturday 28th February / Sunday 29th February
Doors 7.30pm
Curated and presented by the legendary Jack Stevenson, American film historian resident in Denmark.
Saturday 28th February SHOW # 1
HEARTS, MINDS & BODY PARTS:
THE SECRET CINEMA OF U.S. MILITARY PROPAGANDA
Sunday 29th February SHOW # 2
WHIPPED & ABUSED:
A STORY OF SEX, DRUGS & SADISM FROM B-MOVIE AMERICA
The following films show how the U.S. government tried to "sell" various policies and ideas to the American public – and to U.S. soldiers - in time of war. Although the styles of propaganda have changed, this collection of films, from the start of (America’s involvement in) WW2 through to the Vietnam War, reveal the techniques and attitudes of a country trying to understand, explain and/or vilify the enemy to the American public and in the process serve its own political ends. While some of these films have uncanny parallels to the current situation in Iraq, in a broader sense they show how the American government viewed and dealt with foreign populations and political systems considered a threat.
SHOW # 1
HEARTS, MINDS & BODY PARTS:
THE SECRET CINEMA OF U.S. MILITARY PROPAGANDA
PART ONE: WW2
JAPANESE RELOCATION: 1942, 10 min., Considered potential security risks in the event that Japan should invade the Pacific coast, all American citizens of Japanese ancestry were ordered by the Government to move to bleak desert internment camps as far away as Idaho. Suddenly prisoners in their own country, they (over 100,000 people)lost homes and business and lives were shattered. This film is a chilling attempt by the government to put positive spin on what would remain one of the darkest episodes of America’s wartime past. Can the internment of American citizens of a specific race, for the greater good of "national security," ever happen again?
YOUR JOB IN GERMANY: 1945, 15 min., Produced by Frank Capra and co-written by Theodore Geisel (better known as "Dr. Seuss"), this hard-hitting piece of hate propaganda was shown to American soldiers occupying a just-defeated Germany and constitutes one of the most angry and bitter films of the war. Capra condemns the German people as a whole, not just the Nazi leadership, and acidly warns that "The German lust for conquest is not dead – it’s just gone underground…trust none of them! … someday the Germans might be cured of their disease – the ‘super race disease’ – but until that day, we stand guard!" A masterpiece of emotional manipulation.
OUR JOB IN JAPAN: 1946, 18 min., Also produced by the Capra film unit, this was a companion piece to YOUR JOB IN GERMANY and aimed to educated U.S. occupying forces about the true nature of their just-defeated Japanese enemy. Describes the Japanese as unwitting dupes manipulated by the power-mad warlord class who used the Shinto religion to "stir up ancient nightmares, ancient hatred … and up from Japan’s murky past, bring back the mumbo-jumbo." The Japanese, instructs the film, must be made to understand the morally superior ways of American culture. (Note: In that Bush constantly refers to the occupations of Germany and Japan as successful models for the occupation of Iraq, these last two films are of special relevance. One wonders what a "Your Job in Iraq" will look like.)
PART TWO: THE COLD WAR
SURVIVAL UNDER ATOMIC ATTACK, 1951, 10 min. This American Civil Defense film demonstrates how easy it really is to survive an atomic attack (turn off stove, close curtains and hide in the basement) and states – against the backdrop of a massive nuclear explosion – that if the Japanese had known what we know now, thousands of lives would have been saved. A disturbing artifact of the times, absurd and campy but ominous. An attempt to convince the American populace that nuclear wars were "survivable".
SHELTER ON A QUIET STREET, 1962, 10 min. Produced by the Dept. Of Defense. Ten years later people were still preparing to survive a nuclear war, but now you were encouraged to build your own bomb shelter instead of squatting under the tool table in the basement. Bomb shelters are here promoted as a "family values" thing as paranoia ruled and the communist menace grew.
RED NIGHTMARE: 1962, 25 min., This legendary anti-Communist melodrama – co-produced for TV by Warners Brothers Studio and the Department of Defense – presents the story of "typical American" Jerry Donavon who goes to sleep and awakens the next morning to find his small town has become Communist overnight: his wife is frigid, his kids threaten to report him to the authorities and the church as been turned into a museum of Soviet scientific inventions. Jerry is thrown in prison, given a mock trial and sentenced to be shot! Jack Webb, star of DRAGNET, provides bizarre on-screen narration in what would have doubled perfectly as an anti-Communist episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. An amazing artifact of anti-Communist paranoia and a certified cult film favorite today.
PART THREE: VIETNAM: KNOW YOUR ENEMY: THE VIETCONG, 1968, 18 min. A U.S. Army troop training film uses much captured Viet Cong footage to try and give soldiers an introduction to the thinking and tactics of their enemy in the field, a resourceful, determined and committed foe who refuses to fight the kind of war we wanted to fight, combatants who "melted back into the populace" (More echoes from Iraq).
Sunday 29th February
Doors 7.30pm
SHOW # 2
WHIPPED & ABUSED:
A STORY OF SEX, DRUGS & SADISM FROM B-MOVIE AMERICA
This is an extremely entertaining yet informative not to say sordid introduction to the history of American exploitation cinema told via a well-paced mix of trailers, clips, out-takes, short subjects, pitch-films, pseudo-documentary newsreels and home-movie erotica.. It proceeds in chronological order from the silent era up to the mid-70s, surveying a range of exploitation sub-genres that dominated during certain periods. The show begins with a sampling of illicit nudist and "stag" films from the teens and Twenties, followed by a focus on the exotic travelogues that were popular during the Thirties and played on the popular assumption that strange foreign peoples indulged in cold-blooded barbarities and bizarre erotic rituals. Next up: A sampling of mildly erotic items from commercial mail-order suppliers of the 40s and 50s that were for "home use only". That segues into several examples of sexy late 60’s amateur filmmaking and some glimpses from same period of what was being done in a more B-movie commercial vein. Show closes with a rapid-fire attack of late 70s women-in-prison film trailers. The diverse range of styles that constituted Exploitation are illustrated, from the barking mad scare tactics of the sensation-mongers of the Thirties to the more charming and humorous amateur erotica that spanned virtually the entire period but was pushing the limits of censorship just as aggressively. This is an unrepentant tribute to sleaze cinema and all its earthly delights and horrors, a wallow in the mud, but it never felt so good! For Adults only (Some startling imagery included and some hard-core sex scenes, however brief, unfortunately)
The Horse Hospital
Colonnade
Bloomsbury
London
WC1N 1HX
020 7833 3644
www.thehorsehospital.com
posted by James on February 10, 2004 11:27 AM