Projections Of War: Hollywood, American Culture, And World War II (Film And Culture)

Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II (Film and Culture)

From Library JournalSuperlatives apply to this analysis of how World War II affected the American movie industry and how Hollywood's ensuing films influenced both wartime and postwar audiences. Doherty (American Studies, Brandeis Univ.), who is associate editor of Cineaste , evaluates commercial features about war and the homefront, documentaries, Nazi propaganda films, battle footage, and the presentation of black and Japanese American soldiers. A final chapter discusses how succeeding generations viewed war and war films, surveying movies about Korea and Vietnam. Also included are notes and an appendix of the most popular Hollywood films from 1941 to 1945. This engrossing and superbly written book is difficult to put down. Recommended for most libraries.- Kim Holston, American Inst. for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters, Malvern, Pa.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.Looks at motion pictures, documentaries, newsreels, cartoons, and Army training films made during World War II, and describes the portrayal of women and minoritiesFrom Publishers WeeklyDoherty ( Teenagers and Teenpics ) analyzes the WW II alliance between Hollywood and Washington, an unprecedented partnership that generated new kinds of films. He explains why General George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, gave movies a high priority in maintaining troop morale, and how directors such as John Ford, Frank Capra and John Huston employed their artistry in orientation/training films and combat documentaries. Doherty traces Hollywood's transition from a producer of peacetime entertainment to a supplier of homefront melodramas, wartime comedies and martial musicals that were "information-heavy and value-laden." Characterizing the motion-picture industry as "the foremost purveyor and chief custodian of the images and mythos of 1941-45," he describes the changing perceptions reflected in Hollywood movies with regard to the war effort, the enemy, death in battle and other subject of wartime concern. Doherty's penetrating study conveys the extraordinary impact and cultural power of American movies during World War II and, to a lesser degree, during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Photos.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.From Kirkus ReviewsMore than any other event, WW II transformed the relationship between Hollywood and American culture, Doherty (American Studies/Brandeis) announces at the outset of this uncommonly wide-ranging social history--and proceeds to support his argument with surprising success. Before the war, argues Doherty (Teenagers and Teenpics, 1988--not reviewed), the contract between Hollywood and its audience stipulated a myth of ``pure entertainment'' in which formulaic genres and happy endings reigned supreme. But the contradictory imperatives posed by the war--Hollywood features for the audience back home had to be upliftingly escapist yet honest in their acknowledgment of wartime stresses; film coverage of combat had to be unflinching yet supportive; presentations of women had to emphasize their success in adapting their femininity to heretofore masculine tasks--rewrote that contract in a profoundly equivocal way. With the help of extensive research in studio archives and dozens of illustrative anecdotes, Doherty is especially incisive in showing the transition from the pacifism universally prescribed for WW I movies to the gung-ho partisanship for WW II. He also excels in using Hollywood movies as cloudy mirrors for such social problems as racial injustice, Japanese internship, and the ``properly directed hatred'' that called for fine calculations in distinguishing shifting degrees of hostility toward Germans, Italians, and Japanese as the prewar Hollywood ``tradition of quality''--exemplified by David Selznick's literary adaptations--inched toward the postwar ``issue-oriented stance of Walter Wanger, Stanley Kramer, and Dore Schary.'' Despite the occasional minor blemish (Herblock