May 6, 2007
Mixing Real and Unreal Footage
Battle of San Pietro is a 1945 propagandist movie that incorporates the use of real footage and recreated scenes. The question here is how can an audience trust a film that manipulates its image? The answer is that the audience, when viewing it at that time, was not aware of the manipulation. Today we know and understand this exploitation of the image and now can answer that we cannot trust the image we see before us and thereby the film loses its effect on the viewer audience. But what about the actual footage that shows the actual battle, destruction, and death? Does this still hold the same power over today’s viewing public that held its audience in the late 1940’s? If we know that some of the footage is fake, how can we trust the true footage when we are expected to believe the entire film?
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1 comment:
I agree that the filmmakers are trying to influence and manipulate the viewer by way of editing together actual and re-created footage. The only thing in your post I might disagree with, although you didn't state it explicitly one way or the other, is that I don't think the makers were trying to pass the recreated footage as actual footage. It says in a title slide that most of the film was created before and after the battle. I agree that the makers were trying to manipulate the viewer through editing, but not through the integrity of their footage.
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