This week we got our feedback for assignment 2, and I received several documentary recommendations that have made me very happy (thank you Kim!:)) I didn’t have time to watch the feature length ‘Sans Soleil’ and ‘Letter From Siberia’ yet, but I am definitely going to. I read the descriptions and it sounds like something I would deeply enjoy. Plus, with ‘Sans Soleil’ it’s a great chance for me to practice mu rusty French :))

However, I did watch the segment from ‘Letter From Siberia’ and it was amazing. The topic of manipulating perception and altering the truth is something that interests me very much, and this video is a perfect example of how a minor change in a video can radically change the message.

The fact that the whole outlook of a 30 second clip can be transformed completely by simply changing the voice over text is quite terrifying. It’s twice as disturbing considering that in this case it’s only the audio track that is manipulated- and we are aware of that manipulation- imagine what drastic changes can be forced onto reality when filmmakers are not exposing their biased colleagues but are trying to deceive the audience? When I think about it, god knows how many videos I have seen and believed in my life that have been edited to serve a certain purpose. People call journalism the fourth estate, but a camera is a much more dangerous weapon than a pen. It’s visual and it invokes deeper feelings.

This video had me thinking about propaganda and how a camera can be used as a powerful weapon. After all, information is everything and whoever controls information controls the world. So, I have done some research, have drawn connections from my personal experiences to  this new insight and have come to a shocking conclusion. I think I might have a massive example of how a camera has won the Cold War (at least partly).

If you watch pretty much any hollywood thriller or action movie, you can bet all your money that the bad guys will be Russian. Before I go any further it’s important to quickly revisit the historical background, bare with me! After the WW2 two allied powers- Soviet Union and the US- became enemies. One part of this confrontation was propaganda, which, in Soviet Union took form of documentary films. They were incriminating the capitalism and the western way of life by exposing it as wrong, nonsensical and just plain evil. Those films were full on propaganda, there was nothing subtle about it. They were presented as THE truth and THE reality, the end. I even managed to find a couple of those documentaries to illustrate my argument. These films are called “Spiderweb” and “Your brain is on the target” and they were seriously designed to rile people up. The second one starts with narrator saying: “This film is about a conspiracy. It’s a conspiracy against you. Against your family. Against us”. So yeah. Like hello, George Orwell called, he wants his book 1986 back?

The US propaganda, on the other, was way smarter. They didn’t stop at documentaries and used hollywood commercial movies to serve the purpose as well. These films were constantly communicating the message “we are in danger of a Soviet attack” and, apparently, commercial films do a much better job at convincing people than documentaries do. All these movies were showcasing the Soviets as evil barbarians who only wanted to attack the US, destroy all that is holy and dance on the ashes. It was all rather understandable when the cold war was still going on, but even after it ended the propaganda didn’t stop. On the contrary, the filthy soviets got even worse- they didn’t even care who to attack anymore or why. I mean they are evil, so they are gonna kill and torture because they are evil. Makes sense (not). A distinctive characteristic of these films is complete dehumanisation of the soviets- for example in Rambo 3 there was a scene where the soviets disguised grenades as toys to lure in children and kill them (what the hell?). Some of the films I am talking about are  ‘Invasion U.S.A. 1985′, ‘Octopussy 1983’,  ‘Rambo 3 1988’, ‘Born American 1986’, ‘Coordinates of Death 1985′,  ‘The Red Nightmare 1962‘,‘Red Dawn 1984’, ‘Red Scorpion 1988’, ‘Red Monarch 1983’ , ‘The Red Danube 1949′, ‘Red Heat 1988’, ‘Red Hot 1993′, and many more. They love the word ‘red’ don’t they? My point is, generations of people grew up on these films. And as we all know, the US is the main cinema industry export in the world, practically any movie made in Hollywood finds its way to every country’s cinema in the world.

Now, I am not claiming that this is THE reason the Soviet Union lost the Cold War, but it sure did play a huge role. USSR and the US had more or less equal weapons and technology, but this massive perception control was something that no other country could possibly match. It’s like a  PA system in any public place- you can scream on top of your lungs all you want, but people are gonna pay attention to and trust the person on the PA system, and it doesn’t matter how right or wrong you are.

To conclude, a camera is indeed a deadly weapon. It can change the truth and bend the reality, and people will listen to it. There are so many ways of altering people’s perception, and even though it’s not possible to remain completely objective we must try our best to come as close to it as possible. For out project, we discussed the threat of shifting away from reality and decided to give up the voice over narrative, letting out characters tell their story with their own words. Thankfully, none of us are radical communists or else and we have no interest in aggressive propaganda. We’ll try our best to stay true to objective reality and showcase people’s stories the most realistic way possible.

Watching this short video has let me to this huge realisation. It got me thinking, it sparked my curiosity, and one thing let to another. I have to thank Kim again- even though I hated writing blogposts in the beginning, it led me to really expand my understanding of documentary and I learned a lot. A LOT. So, thank you <3