Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Why Was 1950s American Culture and Film So Perversely Believing in Right and Wrong?

I have been watching many US government made films from World War II.  Some are very impressive; others are a little embarrassing.  I am watching Nazi Concentration Camps on Netflix right now.  The names on the affidavits at the start of the film are signed by John Ford and George Stevens, both major directors and screenwriters before and after World War II.  If I ever teach modern world history, this is on the list.  This film is absolutely heartwrenching.

The sequence where the German citizens have to walk through a concentration camp are overpowering.  They walk to the camp all smiles, unaware of what they will see.  The smiles vanish pretty quickly as they what their government (which many had elected) had done.

Never again!

2 comments:

  1. FYI, the movie is available to watch for free on YouTube and other sights as all of those WW2 movies and government made films are in the public domain so no need to pay Netflix to watch it.

    Many of the famous prewar directors were drafted to make movies during the War.

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  2. Patton is shown in that movie. There are collections of his diary in print including "War As I knew It" and the Library of congress has his dairies so it may be on their website.

    Anyways, he talks about those experiences of going into the camps. Pretty brutally honest writing from old Blood & Guts including talking about many including himself becoming physically ill (vomiting) and worth a read.

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