| Wednesday,
October 15 at 7pm
An
Evening with Jack Stevenson - Know Your Enemy: An American War-Propaganda
Retrospective and Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages
Jack
Stevenson is an American living in Denmark since 1993. In
late seventies Boston, he availed himself of the city’s then
flourishing art-house and repertory cinema scene and obtained
a 'found' education in film history, organizing film shows in
bars and the backrooms of bookstores. He programmed the Kosmorama
Nights film series at the Danish National Film Museum and contributed
to film magazines Film Quarterly and Film Threat
and leading European film journals as an author specializing
American cult, underground and exploitation cinema. Stevenson’s
texts are translated into nine languages.
Know
Your Enemy: An American War-Propaganda Retrospective
Seen with modern eyes, these films are by turns hilarious, frightening
and in some cases still extremely effective. In light of the
current war in Iraq, they
are also chillingly relevant.
Der
Fuhrer’s Face
dir.
Jack Kinney, US, 1942, 16mm, 8 mins, color
 Produced
by Walt Disney Studios and starring Donald Duck as an average
citizen suffering the brutal deprivation and endless indoctrination
of Hitler’s Germany. Donald is forced to slave overtime in a
weapons factory, collapsing from exhaustion and falling into
a surrealistic dreamland of Nazi symbolism. He awakens to discover
it was all just a bad dream.
Education
for Death: The Making of the Nazi
dir.
Clyde Geronimi, US, 1943, 16mm, 10 mins, color, German w/ English
narration
Also
produced by Walt Disney Studios, Education for Death
is considered one of the most brutal propaganda cartoons of
the era. Young Hans is
educated to become a merciless soldier. As he is exposed to
Hitler youth and the Nazi culture, Hans’ value of human life
decreases. Hitler’s actual voice is used in a torchlight rally
scene.
Your
Job in Germany
dir.
Frank Capra, US, 1945, 16mm, 15 mins, b/w
One
of the most angry and bitter films of the war was co-written
by Theodore Geisel (Dr Seuss) and shown to American soldiers
occupying a just-defeated Germany. 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... some day the Germans might be cured
of ‘the super race disease’, but until that day, we stand guard!"
A masterpiece of emotional manipulation.
Our Job in Japan
dir.
Frank Capra, US, 1946, 16mm, 18 mins, b/w
This
companion piece to Your Job in Germany was aimed to
educate US occupying forces about the true nature of their just-defeated
Japanese enemy. Describing 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. They must be
made to understand the morally superior ways of American culture."
Survival Under Atomic Attack
US,
1951, 16mm, 10 mins, b/w
An
attempt to convince us that nuclear war is "survivable",
this American Civil Defense film demonstrates how easy it is
to survive an atomic attack (turn off stove, close curtains
and hide in the basement). "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.
Red Nightmare
dir.
George Waggner, US, 1962, 16mm, 25 mins, b/w
Typical
American Jerry Donavon awakens to find his small town turned
Communist overnight. His wife is frigid, the kids threaten to
report him to the authorities and the church is now a museum
of Soviet scientific inventions. Thrown in prison, Jerry is
given a mock trial and sentenced to death! An amazing artifact
of anti-Communist paranoia.
followed
at 9pm by
Haxan:
Witchcraft Through the Ages
dir.
Benjamin Christensen, Sweden/Denmark, 1922/1968, video, 77 mins,
b/w, silent w/ English narration
 This
macabre masterpiece stands as the most extreme and controversial
work of silent cinema – and one of the most visionary. A perennially
revived cult favorite that still manages to enchant modern viewers.
The work of obsession created in mysterious circumstances, its
Danish director Benjamin Christensen led a life that was almost
equally as mysterious.
|
