War-Era Films Were Response to Crisis

A couple of years ago, the Kremlin launched a strange contest, seeking entries for "the Russian idea," some sort of pithy summing-up of the new national consciousness in the post-Soviet era. The contest was a characteristically crass and inept affair, but it did at least attempt to address a vital question faced by every nation-state: Who are we, anyway?


This question of self-definition is even more important in times of crisis, when the state must call upon its citizens to make great sacrifices; the people need to know what they are sacrificing for.


When the "national idea" becomes degraded by corruption or oppression and seems unworthy of the hardships necessary to preserve it, the result is usually collapse, chaos, defeat. That is why states, historically, have paid so much attention to propaganda, to burnishing their images in the media, particularly cinema.


World War II was a moment of supreme crisis for many nations, of course, and it produced the requisite number of patriotic films, all seeking, ultimately, to justify the conflict's terrible cost. The majority of these films -- usually filled with cardboard characters mouthing well-worn homilies in stock situations -- seem risible or boring now. But a few handled the matter of definition and justification with great artistry, using indirection and complexity to create a stronger, more effective national image than dozens of trumpet-blowers and flag-wavers.


The finest example of this is probably "Casablanca," a melodramatic love story centered on a morally dubious hero, which nonetheless embodied to a remarkable degree many of America's self-held ideals.


But English director Michael Powell, and his writing partner, Emeric Pressburger, also created a number of brilliant, offbeat wartime films that conveyed appealing aspects of "the British idea." Two of these movies can be seen this week -- for one showing only -- at the Cinema Museum.


"The Forty-Ninth Parallel" (1941) is perhaps the ultimate "indirect" propaganda film: It's told from the enemy's perspective. The movie depicts a German U-boat crew who have landed in Canada and are trying to reach the United States, which at that time was not in the war.


Pressburger won an Academy Award for the story, and Powell draws hugely entertaining performances from such stars as Laurence Olivier and Leslie Howard as natives encountering the Nazi invaders. Their characters embody one of Britain's most persistent self-images: stubborn, even defiant eccentricity coupled with a deep, basic decency.


"The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (1943) is an even more complex film, technically and artistically. Based on a popular cartoon character (here called Clive Candy) who lampooned the absurdities of the British military, in Powell's and Pressburger's hands the story becomes a tribute to dogged decency in an increasingly corrupt and horrible world.


Using flashbacks, flash-forwards and other skillful narrative techniques, it chronicles 40 years in the colonel's military and social career, from the Boer War to World War II. In fact, "Blimp" was so subtle in its propaganda that Winston Churchill wanted to block its release. But it did come out, and like "Casablanca," is now considered an enduring masterpiece.


Perhaps what Russia needs more than another IMF infusion is a Powell and Pressburger of its own.