Michael Friend is Assistant Director, UCLA Film Archives.
“This program presents a broad spectrum of newsreels, from the silent period through the postwar era. This span represents the ‘golden age' of the newsreel, and some of the finest moments in this chronology, as when the newsreels expose the ruthless Japanese invasion of China, combine human compassion with selfless daring in motion picture journalism at a level that has few equals.... To many, the Hearst Metrotone Newsreels (1929-33) will be a surprising departure from the blaring narratorial style of the late thirties and forties. Frequently shot with the Akeley direct sound-on-film camera, they have a freshness that may derive from their reliance on ambient sound.... There is a certain sense of neutrality and almost naivete in the presentation of political figures such as Mussolini and Hitler. Often the newsreels present these figures speaking in their native languages without translation, suggesting the great degree to which the mass audience of motion pictures was still an immigrant audience....
“As the newsreels present the progression of world affairs through the thirties, the process of building a committed and polarized mass audience, conscious of its identity and prepared to go to war over the survival of its democratic convictions, begins to change the newsreels. A strident tone increasingly exhorts the audience, and the innocence and openness of the earlier form is increasingly stressed by militarism, patriotism and a sense of untempered righteousness. After this, the postwar period with its confused, bitter triumph and seeming loss of identity is accurately reflected in newsreels which seem equally unable to go back to the openness of the ‘golden age' or to move forward with a new sense of identity and vision.” Michael Friend