As most readers of this blog know, I am a big fan of filmmaker Frank Capra. Not only was he an excellent writer and director, but he was a good man.
I have recently been watching his famed Why We Fight films. He made these with the Signal Corps in WWII; they were considered so good that instead of being shown only to the troops as originally intended, Roosevelt insisted that they be shown in American theaters, as well.
The films are good. They are propagandistic, but they do intend to unite proper emotion to proper action, and are very well done (heck, I was tearing up over France at the end of one film).
Ironically, when I got the films through Netflix, the movie advertised on the inside of the envelope was "No End in Sight; The American Occupation of Iraq." In theatres this fall.
Who will stand up now and remind us why we are fighting? Who will remind us what is worth dying for? Who will remind us of the price of freedom?
Frank Capra, we miss you.
1 comment:
There's an Episcopal church down the street from where I work that's showing some free movie soon that's supposed to be about how the media has caused death by encouraging war, back with Vietnam and now in Iraq... something like that... (which is especially ridiculous, given that Fox news is about the only media I can think of that's remotely pro-war right now). Anyway, one of my co-workers said something about wanting to go because it'd be "for a good cause." The more I thought about that, the weirder it seemed. Right, because helping a nation to build a democracy is such a bad cause... pull out, pull out! Quick, hurry, before the situation becomes stable! If we don't hurry, we might not even cause a hellish situation that prompts even more people to hate America!
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