Читать книгу A Companion to Documentary Film History - Группа авторов - Страница 29

In an October 1950 report by the Reorientation Branch for its stateside operations supporting the occupation of Japan, the United States government boasted of its production of “original documentaries” for use overseas. The chart depicts an explosive growth in film production, from just one movie in fiscal year 1947, to 5 the following year, 12 in 1949, and 38 in 1950.³¹ Not surprisingly, the report repeats some of the same language that first appeared in McClure’s 1947 plans for documentary production, suggesting that films discussed in this essay were in keeping with the mission of the CAD. The report also underscores the importance of the cinema to military objectives in Japan, praising the medium for “its power to attract and hold attention, stimulate thinking and discussion and to leave lasting impressions.”³² Although a number of scholars have commented on the value movies had in this occupation period, the “original documentaries,” including those described here, were particularly indicative of what the Army expected the cinema to accomplish – to show people in occupied countries how they could transform their civil society by adopting American democratic traditions.

While other scholars have noted that presenting the “small town” as the face of American democracy was a strategic choice designed to benefit the US government in the post‐war period, the films discussed in this essay suggest the challenges a small town faces when it is asked to perform as an emblem of democracy in action.³³ While it is unclear how involved the CAD was in the selection of the communities that were to be filmed for their productions, the people in the towns themselves were aware of the important roles they were to play in promoting American democracy, and, presumably, small‐town values, overseas. For this reason, these community‐based films are best understood not as documentaries that just happened to be produced in a particular place, but also local films, of interest to audiences because they could see people and places they recognized on screen. Unlike other local films, however, these films also had global reach, making them a rare instance in which political questions that were presented as of merely local interest were seen as indications of how small communities and nations around the world would engage with the United States and its allies.

Although these films had a relatively short (but very wide) run in occupied countries, the prints that were given to these communities for their own use endured as moving image documents of their past. In almost all cases, these films continue to be screened, debated, and written about by local historians. Some films, such as The Cummington Story, ask communities to reflect on their own responsibilities to welcome immigrants, support democratic solutions to critical problems, or build resilient institutions.³⁴ At the same time, the fact that these films were produced for use in a fairly limited context and, until recently, were very difficult to see, means that they are much less well‐known than the government films produced in the 1930s or during World War II.³⁵ But they are worth revisiting, not just as a forgotten set of films produced for a particular purpose, but also as one of many instances in which the US government used documentary as both a propaganda tool and as a way to articulate, analyze, and critique its own belief system.