Wartime Documentaries

I was inspired to share this info after watching the Netflix series Five Came Back focusing on 5 wartime era directors and their cinematic additions to the war. Pleased to say they have recently added, for Netflix subscribers, vintage wartime documentaries covered in the series. Last night I started watching Franks Capra's Why We Fight docs. Many more have been added as well. I know these can be found through Youtube for free, but the quality can leave much to be desired. Very engaging and raw, especially due to the scope of the time.

Figured I'd share.

 

Great idea for a thread. I watched a couple of the "Why We Fight" movies many years ago when I was in college. I couldn't get enough of Frank Capara's movies. Yesterday I watched the first five minutes or so of "Five Came Back" but shut it off because I was too tired to really apprecate it. I watched "Memphis Belle" three years ago and John Ford's "Midway" last year. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend "Shooting War" on the same subject as "Five Came Back".

While I'm not a connoisseur of war time documentaries, I am facinated. These guys were the second generation of war correspondands to document war with moving images. The first generation to do it were generally anonymous. In a commentary thread on You Tube someone wrote that they were sick and tired of movies about World War Two. The person asked, why such a fascination with ancient history? There have been many wars since.

These guys, plus Leni Riefenstal and a few others, may be a part of the answer.

 

I agree with you Andre. This was really the first conflict where cinema was placed at the forefront. Being alongside (kind of) a military unit and getting unparalleled imagery which shocked the masses, especially when images of the KL's began to surface. Although they censored many images, it is still profound by today's standards.

 

Sorry... KL"s?

Did they release the death camp footage at the end of the war? Was any of that shown in theaters? I know Alain Resnais' "Night And Fog" was made in 1956, ten years later and much of it skirted around the actual footage of the mounds of corpses. It favored a more poetic approach for at least the first two thirds.

 

I wonder if watching the newsreels heightened civilian population's investment into the war and in war production, buying war bonds, etc.. It had an opposite effect in the late 1960s, early 1970s with Vietnam. Watching the six O'Clock news seems to have turned people off the war. Maybe I'm misreading that part - I just remember as a kid finding the very name of that country scary. I think I was making associations with what I was seing on tv.

 

I believe Ford, Fuller and Stevens filmed the KL's (concentration camps) in '45.

 

Wasn't Hitchcock involved in putting together a film on the concentration camps either late war or early post war?

 

He was. Apparently it was shut down by the British government prior to its completion. The documentary Night Will Fall is dedicated to its archival footage and explains the history of Hitchcock's piece.

Having watched it myself it takes quite a bit to get through. Horrific scenes.

 

Finally got around to watching all three episodes. Very well done. While I knew much about the other four from my time at film schooI, I learned a lot more about George Stevens. Netflix has made many of their documentaries available for viewing. I've marked several of them in my viewing cue.