From 1935 to 1951, Time Magazine bridged the gap between print & radio news reporting and the new visual medium of film, with
March of Time: award-winning newsreel reports that were a combination of objective documentary, dramatized fiction and pro-American, anti-totalitarian propaganda. They “often
tackled subjects and themes that audiences weren’t used to seeing —
foreign affairs,
social trends, public-health issues — and did so with a combination of panache and subterfuge that today seems either absurd or visionary.”
(Previous two links have autoplaying video.) By 1937, the short films were being seen by as many as 26 million people every month and
may have helped steer public opinion on numerous issues,
including (
eventually) America’s
entry to WWII. Video samples are available at
Time.com, the
March of Time Facebook page and the entire collection is available online,
(free registration required) at
HBO Archives. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Aug 22, 2011 -
8 comments
If you can make it through the glacially paced intro and can put up with the typically clunky, often laughable and jingoistic fifties-style narration, this 1958 film from Chevrolet,
The American Look is worth viewing. Chock full of futuristic telephones, toasters, blenders, office machines, architecture and more, it's a mid-century design lover's dream. The film is visually striking and elegant, and presented in widescreen format. Here's part
2 and part
3. Or see it here in its
entirety.
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on May 12, 2008 -
15 comments
British public information films. A couple of months back, there was a
post about an online exhibition of British propaganda films from WWII. Now, the UK National Archives, who appear to be slowly working their way through the decades, have posted some public information films from the 40s and 50s. BBC News
discusses the history of public information films, particularly the famous "Coughs and sneezes spread diseases" (available in Windows Media (sigh)
here).
My favourite is
this optimistic look at how the new towns developed after the war were going to be just *great*. I grew up in a new town -
Hemel Hempstead. Let's just say it
didn't quite work out that way.
posted by athenian
on Oct 24, 2005 -
2 comments
