Encyclopedia > Why We Fight

  Article Content

Why We Fight

Why We Fight is the name of a propaganda series of seven newsreels commissioned by the United States government during World War II to convince the U.S. public about the need for American intervention.

Most of the newsreels were directed by Frank Capra, who was daunted and terrified by Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Triumph of the Will, and working in direct response to it. The series faced a tough challenge: convincing an isolationist nation of the need to become involved in the war, desegregate the troops, and ally with the Russians, among other things. In many of the newsreels, Capra and other directors spliced in Axis powers propaganda footage--recontextualizing it so it promoted the cause of the Allies instead.

The seven newsreels are:

  1. Prelude to War[?] (1942)
  2. The Nazis Strike[?] (1942)
  3. Divide and Conquer[?] (1943)
  4. The Battle of Britain[?] (1943)
  5. The Battle of Russia[?] (1943)
  6. The Battle of China[?] (1944)
  7. War Comes to America[?] (1945)

In 2000 the United States Library of Congress deemed the newsreels "culturally significant" and selected them for preservation in the National Film Registry.

see also: War film



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Reformed churches

... and Ireland The churches with presbyterian traditions in the United Kingdom have the Westminster Confession of Faith[?] as one of their important confessional ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 52.4 ms