Jo Fox,
Film Propaganda in Britain and Nazi Germany: World War II Cinema.
Oxford and New York: Berg, 2007.
ISBN: 9 7818 597389 62
£17.99 (pb)
368pp
(Review copy supplied by Berg publishers)

This book is at once extremely informative and extremely disappointing. For those desiring specific knowledge about the principal Nazi propaganda films produced between 1939 and 1945 and the debates within Britain at that time about the compatibility of propaganda and democracy, there is no lack of information. The research has been exhaustive, and no source has been left un-cited. Key films produced in Britain and in Germany are discussed, where possible in related pairs for more effective comparison. Only the most overtly propagandist films are considered, however; no attempt is made to come to grips with that much more difficult topic, the ideological orientation of the mass of films produced during that same period for the purposes of entertainment and of profit. Nevertheless, the reader will come away with a good idea of the initial problems facing the national film industry in both countries when war broke out, and the way in which these evolved as the fortunes of war themselves evolved.

There are nevertheless various disappointing aspects to the book. A principal worry is already apparent in the introduction. Having outlined (rather clumsily) a number of possible approaches to the task in hand, Fox acknowledges that no attempt will be made ‘to fuse historical and semiotic approaches to the study of film.’ Indeed, no attempt is made; and it is not only semiotics and textual analysis that is sidelined, but just about any theoretical work at all. ‘The historical approach’ trumps them all. There is not even any overview of the techniques of persuasion in film and related media, presumably because that might require too textual an approach. More surprisingly, there is not even any overview of national propaganda in wartime, except in the case of the direct precedent of British and German film in World War I, and not even a sidelong glance at the place of film in other contemporary wartime nations, such as Russia, the US, or occupied countries. Nor is there any pre-history of the various filmmakers discussed here as central to wartime film propaganda. Consequently the book never opens out onto areas that might have attracted the interest of a wider reading public. It remains blinkered by its narrow focus and its empirical approach.

There are other reasons for disappointment. Firstly, because of the absence of any general theoretical approach, the discussion of each film has to begin anew from zero, and the same points are made about it as have been made about each preceding film. The repetition that results is extremely annoying. There is too much description and too little analysis. Secondly, any discussion of techniques of persuasion in a visual medium would benefit from a selection of well-chosen illustrations. Yet there are remarkably few illustrations (17 small stills, of which five are posters), and most of those bear no apparent relationship to points made in the text. Thirdly – most irritating of all – Fox shows an excessive respect for all other commentators in her field, citing supportive statements for every assertion about every aspect of every film, however trivial. What results is a mosaic of quotations which is almost unreadable. Fox’s own argument about the films is rather unremarkable, and is swamped by the mass of other people’s assertions.

These weaknesses are not helped by an incautious use of language. Respected authorities are said ‘to know’ or ‘to understand’ what they assert, as if it were self-evidently correct if said by them; they ‘argue a case’ even when no argument is apparent, and a single letter to a magazine ‘confirms’ a general point rather than merely supporting it. Such incautious uses of language, which recur throughout the book, are irritating flaws in a scholarly work.

In sum, there is the substance of a useful book here, but it would have had to be shorter, denser, less respectful and more concisely expressed; or alternatively would have had to situate the material dealt with here within broader debates. In particular the whole enterprise would have been improved by abandoning that typically British pragmatism which it proudly professes, and embracing a little theory.

Colin Crisp,
Australia.

Created on: Saturday, 2 June 2007