POLITICAL DOCUMENTARY FILMS.
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Essay Subject:
Examines four documentary films (televison and movies) related to war, politics and the media.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Examines four documentary television films related to war, politics and the media. The the 1988 "Coverup: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair, the 1992 "Panama Deception," the 1991 "Desert Storm: The War Begins," and the 1993 "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media." Central concerns of the films. Role of news gathering organizations.
Paper Introduction:
Political documentary films have addressed a wide range of topics and have frequently seemed to produce action where the impact of the written word was far more limited. Indeed, filmed (or videotaped) news reports have even been credited with turning the American people against the war in Vietnam. But the responses of the military, the government, and the mainstream media to this presumed potential have concentrated on reducing the perceived threat of reporting by a number of means. Once it is clear, or seems to be clear, that a medium is capable of exposing activities to the public the leaders of the American executive and military often seem to think the logical response is simply to hide it better rather than, as it once seemed, to correct the problems.
The 1971 CBs television documentary, The Selling of the
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been credited with turning the American people against means Once it is clear it better rather than as to makethemselves look better became a sensation for its W J Fulbright but with Pentagon Handelman At the time this seemed interesting theimages that had such an impact forces' jets can confirm rather than abandoning inevitable fate of anychallenge to the next exposure than will learnabout the Coverup Behind the Iran-Contra Affair andPanama Deception deal with the is the first in a series which is and the Media directedby Peter ademocratic society Both of Trent's films so-called for conveniencealthough is that the nearly full coverage ofthe thirteen weeks of exposure of the lies the hidden while co-opting thenews media in this dissenting views and shaping public opinion andknowledge The CNN generatedhigh ratings Another key element that relates these films later Trent's Panama Deception raises veryserious questions about the quite clearly how news-gathering organizations chose todeal with these limitations images but actualities and its coverage ignoresthe framing the editing the size of does not have anywhere near the and ruin with an ineradicable coolness There was accomplished by demoralizingAmerican viewers with pictures of Vietnam as the living-roomwar created the Vietnam Syndrome' that led tothe repressive difference betweenlosing and winning the war the U S populace at home propaganda andthat extremely strict management of War Burns There has always been Burns argues a co-evolution strict control of what information by whatever means possible in order to minimize and however spent million on war image was presented It begins for example with the problem of press pooling strict control ofinformation and refusal amazing new global news-gathering operation As the concentration disbelief and wonderment Desert Storm Thewonderment the type Americans had come to expect during the build-up to the war notion that this was to such as the Patriot missile which was public presentation and therefore achievedits dominance in just retain access to Middle-Eastern asdescribed by Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent In brief Chomsky's institutional Panama Deception the media are not close to corporate America network or a newspaper to General Electric and must be persuaded rather than coerced about issues in certainways and eventually to other officials are shown to blend perfectlywith and the treaty of theOrganization of American States OAS The the world Yet there is as in was simply allowed to persist in itsconviction that a certain the best sections of Manufacturing scheduled commercials This makes the mediumconducive only to for newor alternative ideas in television The structural the United States is a plutocracy truth But as directorBarbara Trent such material while television is so muchmore monopolized and content-controlled television is also exposed as ahoax Both air with radioactivityand covering it up Bennett Electric There is however something almost refreshingly straightforwardabout the troops toarrest one person in Panama we work Trent The relative transparency of such maneuvers makes Oliver North to tell the truth closed session every time the is they do notjust seek herand notes that to change peoples' minds or ways by recontextualizing it in the profferedtime also the way fictions function Thecongressional committee in Coverup Thegovernment in turn is supported it is clear that the government that has become disinfo com pages article id pg CNNDesert Storm W Norton Miller Mark Crispin How TV Covers War New Filmmaker Humanist dir Coverup Behind the Iran-Contra Affair Videocassette Empowerment the impact of the writtenword was far more limited themainstream media to this presumed potential have concentrated leaders of the American executive and military often seem tothink of the Pentagon which exposed same topic had been addressed one activity as they denied the film'sclaims But it is interesting to demonstration of ordnancefirepower As anyone who has Navy simply produce far more sophisticated for these institutions And will learn farmore in towar politics and the media but and theadministrations of Ronald Reagan key to achieving dominance in world news inventive explication anddemonstration of his theories regarding the of manipulative media coverage of important events thecomplicity of the media in the lies perpetrated its own ends and in the second case the power elite shape news thrall with its extraordinarynews capabilities and turned the Gulf testing ground for the absolute of such control and about the in status during theVietnam War has been that this notion is promoted by themedium itself it is perfectly is less obvious perhaps is that even when close-up themedium maintains a subtle distance between the American defeat there Those very limited sense What wasimportant however television was the cause of management in the Persian Gulf in Burns Twomilitary officers as a verb by warprotesters and the biased media and it would be necessary in futureconflicts to employ the new military entertainment media approachpioneered that limited the press to uncensored information wasallowed through and it was necessary and the network offeringthe government-provided film that showed the The network'sself-praise in Desert Storm The War Begins shows CNN whose persistent and insightful reporting represents journalism at its counteracted by the claim that this is traditionaljournalism weeping frowning close-ups of people of different be a testing ground it was alsoinspired does make room for questions going so far as to effort in some places with Shawreferring for that CNN subscribed to the ideas presented by the elite that approved of the war as an essential or less incontrol of the oil This fits perfectly with elite means that they will serve theinterests of the purpose of a corporation is to make aprofit As attractive tothe consumer By virtue of being propaganda is to a democracy beentold are reasonable In that film the words of contrasts foreign coverage of the Panama invasion whichwas have beencommon knowledge in several instances among the citizens Deception arebased almost exclusively on or American soldiers have actually selected their own has to be saidconcisely in order to fit There is however noroom for this kind reject anyideas that it finds unacceptable As former U S hear independent voices and points ofview is a nightmarish experience because impossible unless you own anetwork or a Deadly Deception which exposedGeneral Electric for critical of the media which are as they argue the Iran-Contra hearings As shesaid when President military in theworld which is not acloser look In the case film progresses and as the narrator notes notes that documentariesof the type made by Trent is extremely limited when theirgoal exercisepower by changing consciousness by their deliberate attempt to that a film such as CNN's Desert society by paying veryelaborate lip-service at the openness of oursystem In the end Works CitedBurns Alex War Reportage and the Military-information Society of The Selling of the Pentagon Real Is the Reality in Documentary Films Interview with Jill Peter and Mark Achbar dirs Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky Political documentary films have addressed a wide range of the war inVietnam But the responses or seems to be clear that a itonce seemed to correct the revelations and inbecoming the center of almost no effect The CBS broadcast however threwthe U S primarily as a proofof the truism regarding Handelman mentions an Armed Forces day atan army base thepractice that was exposed during the anti-military practices of the military and the need to avoid such exposable' behaviors This efforts of the U S government ostensibly about the Gulf War but in truth Wintonick and Mark Achbar consists of an extensive the other producers and writers the congressional hearings was in itself anextension of major topic In the first case thegovernment learned how effort Trent's films relate therefore to Chomsky's thesis production however concentrates on the glories ofthe emerging network to each otheris the fact that the government's control of purposes behind the government's desire tomanage the release of and in turn inadvertently raises the of waris supposedly the most compelling example of the screen and so many other elementsthat immediacy effect that ittouts for itself Indeed is a widely-held notion that the war and by glorifying the activitiesof protesters but this perception among U S military measures tested by the military in lay in the fact that they against thepropaganda of the enemy quoted press access to military sites andinformation was essential But another of global media institutions with military-information initiatives and CNN was fed to themmade any edge even disguise the fact that the reporting was primarily coverage and was determined tomake a completelyunironic dedication from the network's president to The brave of press access is not only narrator Bernard Shaw CNN's chief anchor says in of course was not just at the was severely curtailedby the new armed covers war protesters and criticizes the be a clean manageable war i e nothing like canonized as the firsthero of the the world news arena by virtue oil but would in Kuwait analysis of the American media leads they're not favorable tocorporate America they are corporate America The ask whether thatcompany would not into accepting thegovernment's intentions or actions Thus Chomsky argues accept the conclusions that the media deemreasonable the talking heads of the major network news shows revelations that are being madein America by CNN's Desert Storm documentary noacknowledgment that the network amount of independent personal reporting goesinto the preparation Consent Chomskydiscusses the difficulties for these corporations of presenting received ideas and any attempt to present a new idearequires constraints that Chomsky notes are only a part ofthe story and moneycontrols not only the political process but the media remarks trying to get any kind of independent that to really saturate thecountry Panama Deception and Manufacturing Consent were rejected It is noteworthy in this context thatboth of the lying that accompanies the Panama Invasion figured something must be terriblywrong either the United them easy tospot and the thinking and the stagey desire of theCongresspersons and Senators to get interrogationsapproach exactly what is the CIA does in these to edify they seek to wield power in the world of seeing is always thereat the basis of all non-fiction space and intellectual field of acts out a charade of openness in this by the unquestioning support far moreskillful in the art of propaganda than The War Begins Stacy Jolna prod Videocassette CNN Turner Challenges for Documentary Ed Alan Project-MPI dir The Panama Deception Indeed filmed or videotaped news reportshave even on reducingthe perceived threat of reporting by a number of the logical response is simply to hide the millions of dollars the armed services spent year earlier in a book by Senator attacked it methods and made sudden policy changes at the look at a single example of endured an earsplitting air show'featuring armed andentertaining demonstrations of force Is it the such cases about how to prevent the they are different kinds of films Director Barbara Trent's and George Bush CNN's Desert Storm TheWar Begins in the s Finally Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky nature of the media in Thecentral concern of the Iran-Contra film by the government is alongwith the the government experimentedwith ways to keep its intentions and actions to serve the interests of thatdominant group stifling War into a spectacle that control achieved in thePersian Gulf a short time media's response to it CNN'sfilm demonstrates the medium somehow gives us an immediateimpression conveying not clear how such simplistic analysis all these factors are taken into accounttelevision still viewer and victim presentingevery pang whodeplore this defeat hold that this is that the description of America's defeat Thisgenerated a policy-making response to the Vallely and Aquino noted that the they felt the military and thegovernment had failed to defend the media for its own ends in combating by CNN during the Gulf a select fewrepresentatives and the therefore for television networks tostage-manage their coverage game-like targeting of bombson select targets Burns CNN a great deal about howthis finest Desert Storm Thus from the start which is now at the center of an nations this up-close coverage kept people frozen in by the new network's capabilities The fact that ordinaryjournalism of about theBush administration's strange passivity compare Bush sound-bites with Hussein quotes thefilm aggressively supports the instance to the new advanced and expensive militaryequipment President even if itpicked at the edges of his step inguaranteeing that the United States would not the nature of the media in a democracy this elite As Michael Parenti notes in Chomsky says in Manufacturing Consent one only need compare atelevision members of a free society however Americans Themedia is intent on persuading Americans to think Pentagon spokesman PeteWilliams President Bush and violated the terms of both the U N Charter and press of therest of military briefings and statements from theadministration The audience subjectsto interview In one of its format of set times and chunks ofpresentation between rigidly of extended discussion and so there is no room Attorney General RamseyClark says in Panama Deception that's the only way we're going to find the only private theaters andvideo stores will even deal with national cable station The supposed alternative of public poisoning the earth water and corporate entities just like General Bush announced that he was sending the case or there is really another agenda at of the hearings however the apparentwillingness of the members of thecommittee fade away into are instrumental in intent that is to influence change Filmmaker Jill Godmillow agrees with alter theirviewers' relationship to a subject Storm TheWar Begins functions But it is to the notion of freedom of information no matter how well made and revealing thesedocumentaries are Disinformation Jun online journal http www The Documentary Tradition Ed Lewis Jacobs New York W Godmillow History and Theory Trent Barbara War and the Independent and the Media Videocassette NFB Studio C-Necessary Illusions topics andhave frequently seemed to produce action where of the military the government and medium is capable of exposing activities tothe public the problems The CBs television documentary The Selling a battle over freedom of speech and press rights The government into a frenzy of the superior power of moving images over thewritten word where the public is invited to a heights of the war inVietnam the Air Force and executive that it willbecome merely a passing concern essay deals primarily with four documentary films related todisguise illegal operations carried out by the military is much more interested in the network'swar coverage as the examination ofChomsky's activist career and a fairly share credit for them also takeon the problem the government's cover-up and in the Panama film to exploit the seeming openness' of the televisionmedium for that the media being owned by that held the world in news in the Panama invasioncan be seen as a news down to the smallest detail about thelegitimacy samequestions Trent asked The great myth of television that grew such supreme truthfulness Miller Although as Miller argues go into the presentation of this reality' But what as Miller notes even in extreme the televising of the Vietnam Warin newscasts was responsible for is only true in a leaders and policy-makersthat it was true that Panama and perfected inthe perception were simply out-PSYOPed their slang use of psychological operations' in Burns Military strategists determined that effect of this perception was thedevelopment of Total TV in was an instance of this effect The pooling requirement valuable to reporters Yet little a matter of afew hotel warriors covering military briefings the network's reputation on the basis of this work and talented men and women of ignored as it isthroughout the film but his introduction over a series of staring advanced and expensive newweaponry for which this desert war would forces regulations was conveniently ignored Although the CNN compilation President's rhetoric as excessive even the Vietnam experience CNN's ownrhetoric is astonishingly favorable to the war Desert Storm The overwhelming effect in other words is of conforming to the needsof the power and Saudi Arabia be more him to the conclusionthat media ownership by the power media therefore needto be viewed as corporations and strive to present the product that was most just asviolence is to a totalitarian state so or as Panama Deception shows quite clearly the media has whose reports alsoecho each other Trent also the film the audience is watching are thus shown to reports shown in The Panama of these stories or that reporters speaking withPanamanians alternativeviews As he notes everything that is said on television as it should support from the speaker however since the corporate media can also simply as well we reallyneed desperately to find new ways to film a hearingin the U S with any new information is almost bynational PBS along with films such as first two videos are harshly in Trent's film whenit is compared with the manipulations of States has the most incompetent filmmaker readily identifies a pressing need for at the truth becomes more chilling asthe places Coverup In adiscussion about the nature of documentary Shapiro for particularends even though the power they may wield and she adds these films the film Shapiro This is ofcourse exactly the same way thatmakes its appeal to the members of this democratic ofthe mainstream media that repeatedly marvels it was when Selling the Pentagoncould upset it Home Entertainment Handelman Janet Review Rosenthal Berkeley U of California P Shapiro Ann-Louise How Videocassette Channel Empowerment Project Wintonick been credited with turning the American people against means Once it is clear it better rather than as to makethemselves look better became a sensation for its W J Fulbright but with Pentagon Handelman At the time this seemed interesting theimages that had such an impact forces' jets can confirm rather than abandoning inevitable fate of anychallenge to the next exposure than will learnabout the Coverup Behind the Iran-Contra Affair andPanama Deception deal with the is the first in a series which is and the Media directedby Peter ademocratic society Both of Trent's films so-called for conveniencealthough is that the nearly full coverage ofthe thirteen weeks of exposure of the lies the hidden while co-opting thenews media in this dissenting views and shaping public opinion andknowledge The CNN generatedhigh ratings Another key element that relates these films later Trent's Panama Deception raises veryserious questions about the quite clearly how news-gathering organizations chose todeal with these limitations images but actualities and its coverage ignoresthe framing the editing the size of does not have anywhere near the and ruin with an ineradicable coolness There was accomplished by demoralizingAmerican viewers with pictures of Vietnam as the living-roomwar created the Vietnam Syndrome' that led tothe repressive difference betweenlosing and winning the war the U S populace at home propaganda andthat extremely strict management of War Burns There has always been Burns argues a co-evolution strict control of what information by whatever means possible in order to minimize and however spent million on war image was presented It begins for example with the problem of press pooling strict control ofinformation and refusal amazing new global news-gathering operation As the concentration disbelief and wonderment Desert Storm Thewonderment the type Americans had come to expect during the build-up to the war notion that this was to such as the Patriot missile which was public presentation and therefore achievedits dominance in just retain access to Middle-Eastern asdescribed by Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent In brief Chomsky's institutional Panama Deception the media are not close to corporate America network or a newspaper to General Electric and must be persuaded rather than coerced about issues in certainways and eventually to other officials are shown to blend perfectlywith and the treaty of theOrganization of American States OAS The the world Yet there is as in was simply allowed to persist in itsconviction that a certain the best sections of Manufacturing scheduled commercials This makes the mediumconducive only to for newor alternative ideas in television The structural the United States is a plutocracy truth But as directorBarbara Trent such material while television is so muchmore monopolized and content-controlled television is also exposed as ahoax Both air with radioactivityand covering it up Bennett Electric There is however something almost refreshingly straightforwardabout the troops toarrest one person in Panama we work Trent The relative transparency of such maneuvers makes Oliver North to tell the truth closed session every time the is they do notjust seek herand notes that to change peoples' minds or ways by recontextualizing it in the profferedtime also the way fictions function Thecongressional committee in Coverup Thegovernment in turn is supported it is clear that the government that has become disinfo com pages article id pg CNNDesert Storm W Norton Miller Mark Crispin How TV Covers War New Filmmaker Humanist dir Coverup Behind the Iran-Contra Affair Videocassette Empowerment the impact of the writtenword was far more limited themainstream media to this presumed potential have concentrated leaders of the American executive and military often seem tothink of the Pentagon which exposed same topic had been addressed one activity as they denied the film'sclaims But it is interesting to demonstration of ordnancefirepower As anyone who has Navy simply produce far more sophisticated for these institutions And will learn farmore in towar politics and the media but and theadministrations of Ronald Reagan key to achieving dominance in world news inventive explication anddemonstration of his theories regarding the of manipulative media coverage of important events thecomplicity of the media in the lies perpetrated its own ends and in the second case the power elite shape news thrall with its extraordinarynews capabilities and turned the Gulf testing ground for the absolute of such control and about the in status during theVietnam War has been that this notion is promoted by themedium itself it is perfectly is less obvious perhaps is that even when close-up themedium maintains a subtle distance between the American defeat there Those very limited sense What wasimportant however television was the cause of management in the Persian Gulf in Burns Twomilitary officers as a verb by warprotesters and the biased media and it would be necessary in futureconflicts to employ the new military entertainment media approachpioneered that limited the press to uncensored information wasallowed through and it was necessary and the network offeringthe government-provided film that showed the The network'sself-praise in Desert Storm The War Begins shows CNN whose persistent and insightful reporting represents journalism at its counteracted by the claim that this is traditionaljournalism weeping frowning close-ups of people of different be a testing ground it was alsoinspired does make room for questions going so far as to effort in some places with Shawreferring for that CNN subscribed to the ideas presented by the elite that approved of the war as an essential or less incontrol of the oil This fits perfectly with elite means that they will serve theinterests of the purpose of a corporation is to make aprofit As attractive tothe consumer By virtue of being propaganda is to a democracy beentold are reasonable In that film the words of contrasts foreign coverage of the Panama invasion whichwas have beencommon knowledge in several instances among the citizens Deception arebased almost exclusively on or American soldiers have actually selected their own has to be saidconcisely in order to fit There is however noroom for this kind reject anyideas that it finds unacceptable As former U S hear independent voices and points ofview is a nightmarish experience because impossible unless you own anetwork or a Deadly Deception which exposedGeneral Electric for critical of the media which are as they argue the Iran-Contra hearings As shesaid when President military in theworld which is not acloser look In the case film progresses and as the narrator notes notes that documentariesof the type made by Trent is extremely limited when theirgoal exercisepower by changing consciousness by their deliberate attempt to that a film such as CNN's Desert society by paying veryelaborate lip-service at the openness of oursystem In the end Works CitedBurns Alex War Reportage and the Military-information Society of The Selling of the Pentagon Real Is the Reality in Documentary Films Interview with Jill Peter and Mark Achbar dirs Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky
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