Editing Propaganda film (section)

==Tools used in propaganda film==
Film is a unique medium that reproduces images, movement, and sound in a lifelike manner as it fuses meaning with evolvement as time passes in the story depicted. Unlike many other art forms, film produces a sense of immediacy.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction|author= Benjamin, Walter|url= http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm|access-date=7 November 2011}}</ref> Film's ability to create the illusion of life and reality, allows for it be used as a medium to present alternative ideas or realities making it easy for the viewer to perceive this as an accurate depiction of life.

Some film academics have noted film's great illusory abilities. [[Dziga Vertov]] claimed in his 1924 manifesto, "The Birth of Kino-Eye" that "the cinema-eye is cinema-truth".<ref>{{cite journal|journal=New Literary History|location=Baltimore|volume=29|issue=1|date=Winter 1998|pages=67–84 |title= Historical discourse and the propaganda film: Reporting in Barcelona |author= Resina, Joan|doi=10.1353/nlh.1998.0010 |id= {{ProQuest|221441317}}}}</ref> To paraphrase [[Hilmar Hoffmann]], this means that in film, only what the camera 'sees' exists, and the viewer, lacking alternative perspectives, conventionally takes the image for reality.

=== Rhetoric ===
Making the viewer sympathize with the characters that align with the agenda or message the filmmaker portray is a common rhetorical tool used in propaganda film. Propaganda films exhibit this by having reoccurring themes good vs. evil. The viewer is meant to feel sympathy towards the "good side" while loathing in the "evil side". Prominent Nazi film maker [[Joseph Goebbels]] used this tactic to invoke deep emotions into the audience. Goebbels stressed that while making films full of nationalistic symbols can energize a population, nothing will work better to mobilize a population towards the Nazi cause like "intensifying life".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hake|first=Sabine|date=1998|title=Review of The Triumph of Propaganda: Film and National Socialism 1933-1945; The Ministry of Illusion: Nazi Cinema and Its Afterlife; Cinema in Democratizing Germany: Reconstructing National Identity after Hitler; German Cinema: Texts in Contexts; Perspectives on German Cinema|journal=Monatshefte|volume=90|issue=1|pages=89–96|jstor=30159611|issn=0026-9271}}</ref>

==== The Kuleshov Effect ====
After the [[October Revolution|1917 October Revolution]] the newly formed [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] government and its leader [[Vladimir Lenin]] placed an emphasis on the need for film as a propaganda tool. Lenin viewed propaganda merely as a way to educate the masses as opposed to a way to evoke emotion and rally the masses towards a political cause.<ref>{{Cite book|last=HOFFMANN|first=DAVID L.|title=Cultivating the Masses: Modern State Practices and Soviet Socialism, 1914–1939|date=2011|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=978-0-8014-4629-0|edition=1|jstor=10.7591/j.ctt7zfp9}}</ref> Film became the preferred medium of propaganda in the newly formed [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian Soviet Republic]] due to a large portion of the peasant population being illiterate.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Education, literacy, and the Russian Revolution {{!}} International Socialist Review|url=https://isreview.org/issue/82/education-literacy-and-russian-revolution|last=Behrent|first=Megan|website=isreview.org|language=en|access-date=2020-05-06}}</ref>
The [[Kuleshov effect|Kuleshov Effect]] was first used in 1919 in the film ''The Exposure of the Relics of [[Sergius of Radonezh]]'' by juxtaposing images of the exhumed coffin and body of Sergius of Radonezh, a prominent Russian saint, and the reaction from the watching audience. The images of the crowd are made up of mostly female faces, whose expressions can be interpreted ambiguously. The idea behind juxtaposing these images was to subvert the audience's assumption that the crowd would show emotions of being sad or upset. Instead the crowd could be interpreted to be expressing emotions of boredom, fear, dismay, and a myriad amount of other emotions.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Built on a Lie|url=https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199764419.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199764419-e-021|last=MacKay|first=John|editor2-first=Russ|editor2-last=Castronovo|editor1-first=Jonathan|editor1-last=Auerbach|date=2013-12-13|website=The Oxford Handbook of Propaganda Studies|language=en|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199764419.001.0001|isbn=9780199764419|access-date=2020-05-07}}</ref> There is nothing to prove to the audience that the images of the audience and the exhumed body were captured in the same moment or place (it is now believed the images of the crowd were filmed outdoors while the images showing the skeletal remains were captured indoors). This is what blurs the line of truth making the Kuleshov Effect an effective tool of propaganda.<ref name=":1" />

=== Republican conspiracy theories ===
Republican political commentator and filmmaker [[Dinesh D'Souza]] is notoriously known of promoting [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] against [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] for his films. He uses his own films as a propaganda tool to manipulate younger audiences, most notably the [[Generation Z]], to influence their alleged [[corruption]].<ref name="auto5">{{Cite magazine |last=Jenkins |first=Nash |date=31 May 2018 |title=President Trump Says He's Pardoning Dinesh D'Souza. Who's That, and What Did He Do? |url=https://time.com/5297000/who-is-dinesh-dsouza/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301141929/https://time.com/5297000/who-is-dinesh-dsouza/ |archive-date=March 1, 2021 |access-date=March 13, 2021 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]}}</ref><ref name="auto4">{{Cite news |last1=Breuninger |first1=Kevin |last2=Higgins |first2=Tucker |date=31 May 2018 |title=Trump will pardon conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza, who was convicted of campaign finance violation |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/trump-will-pardon-conservative-pundit-dinesh-dsouza-who-was-convicted-for.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210127180225/https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/trump-will-pardon-conservative-pundit-dinesh-dsouza-who-was-convicted-for.html |archive-date=January 27, 2021 |access-date=March 13, 2021 |work=[[CNBC]]}}</ref><ref name="auto2">{{Cite news |last=Shugerman |first=Emily |date=31 May 2018 |title=Dinesh D'Souza: Trump 'will give full pardon' to right-wing theorist for campaign finance violations |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-dinesh-dsouza-pardon-campaign-election-finance-violation-a8377546.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109033525/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-dinesh-dsouza-pardon-campaign-election-finance-violation-a8377546.html |archive-date=November 9, 2020 |access-date=March 13, 2021 |work=[[The Independent]]}}</ref>