Movies in 2026 46

 

Prelude to War (Why We Fight), (Frank Capra, 1942)

And since we're talking about World War II propaganda films that I'm using in my Images of Fascism class, last night we watched Prelude to War, the first installment in Frank Capra's Why We Fight series. In World War I the US government discovered that a series of dry lectures given after an exhausting day of training was not a good system to explain to the soldiers the point of their sacrifice. Two decades later they turned to Frank Capra - yes, that Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It Happened One Night, You Can't Take It with You, etc.) - to provide a more entertaining cinematic explanation. Walt Disney provided the animation. Janet, who had never seen the series, kept turning to me in amazement. It's more than a bit jarring to watch a previous US government laying out the beliefs and actions that define Fascism and how they match the beliefs and actions of a present US government.

Movies in 2026 45

 

The Eternal Jew, (Fritz Hippler, 1940)

Not every film I'll watch this year is a happy experience, obviously, not simply because it may be a film that I'm excited to watch and in the end I didn't like it - or it might be a film that I know in advance is not going to provide any joy but I need to watch it anyway. Fritz Hippler's 1940 Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew definitely fits into the latter category. It's a film that I'm, not surprisingly, showing in my Images of Fascism class, and it's also a movie that I had not watched in its entirety in decades. Before the advent of Youtube it was a film that was hard to find, and I remember plaguing graduate school connections to track down a copy back when I taught my old World War II & Film class. For my class purposes, I want my students to see how authoritarian regimes define and describe the minority group that they demonize and use to justify their grossly unconstitutional and inhumane actions.