When Herbert Kline, Hans Burger, and Alexander Hammid’s Crisis: A Film of the Nazi Way premiered in New York City on March 11, 1939, agitprop was largely affiliated with European styles of theater, literature, and film that confronted viewers and readers with political messages. The Soviets in particular helped to define this mode of art in conjunction with the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. Crisis, though, introduced a new form of agitprop that combined the style of an expository documentary with the exigency of a newsreel.
The film documents the circumstances that led to the occupation of Czechoslovakia, beginning with images of maps and narration by American actor Leif Erickson before portraying daily life in Prague. Crisis abounds in luminous shots of Prague’s many cathedrals and castles, presenting the city as a thriving, peaceful place that will shortly be uprooted by Nazi infiltration.
Redolent of Dziga Vertov’s The Man with the Movie Camera,...
The film documents the circumstances that led to the occupation of Czechoslovakia, beginning with images of maps and narration by American actor Leif Erickson before portraying daily life in Prague. Crisis abounds in luminous shots of Prague’s many cathedrals and castles, presenting the city as a thriving, peaceful place that will shortly be uprooted by Nazi infiltration.
Redolent of Dziga Vertov’s The Man with the Movie Camera,...
- 5/18/2024
- by Clayton Dillard
- Slant Magazine
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