Filmed News, Politics, and Public Opinion in France, 1940-1944

FAIN: FT-51663-03

Brett Bowles
Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Ames, IA 50011-2000)

I propose to complete research for a book-length history of filmed propaganda in France during the Second World War. The project focuses on four weekly newsreel series (one German, two French, one Franco-German), using a comparative approach that identifies the distinct ideological content, production and distribution strategies, and audience reception of each series. In so doing, the project addresses two larger goals: 1) to reveal the varieties of compromise and conflict that lay below the surface of state collaboration between the Vichy French government and the Third Reich; 2) to clarify the role that cinema played in shaping French public opinion and collective mentalities on key ideological issues.