From Wartime Instruction to Superpower Cinema

This chapter, by Noah Tsika, considers the U.S. military’s cultivation of documentary as a form of “useful cinema,” arguing that the institution’s emphasis on formal hybridity and pedagogic adaptability, far from being a neutral reflection of the contingencies of wartime, was, in fact, strategic—part of a broader attempt to naturalize the large-scale military and ensure its permanence. Even when the military identified them as timely documents designed to catalyze an Allied victory, many World War II training films were meant to last—to remain useful tools of the American military-industrial state, whether screened in conjunction with the public-education initiatives of local newspapers or excerpted for use in private manufacturing plants.

Art history · China · Cultural institution · Institution · Media studies · Movie theater · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Superpower · Victory · Cinema and Media Studies · Computer Science · Engineering · European history and politics · History · Law · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact