It will be debated for generations to come on whether or not these forbidden films should be released to the public. Propaganda films are dangerous, but ill-informed, uneducated people who take false facts as truth are even more dangerous. Especially, what we are seeing in terms of ideological strife going on in the world today. Felix Moeller’s documentary, “Forbidden Films” is recommended!
© 2014 Blueprint Film. All rights reserved.
DVD TITLE: Forbidden Films
DATE OF FILM RELEASE: 2014
DURATION: 94 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Color, German 5.1 Surround with English Subtitles, Closed Captions
COMPANY: Kino Lorber
RATED: NOT RATED
RELEASE DATE: May 15, 2018
Written and Directed by Felix Moeller
Produced by Amelie Latscha, Felix Moeller
Cinematography: Isabelle Casez, Aline Laszlo, Ludolph Weyer
Edited by Annette Muff
Starring:
Frank Roth (Narrator)
Gotz Aly
Jorg Jannings
Johanna Liebeneiner
Oskar Roehler
Rainer Rother
Ernst Szebedits
Margarethe von Trotta
Christine Von Wahlert
Moshe Zimmerman
Egbert Koppe
Johanna Liebeneiner
Sylvia Lindeperg
1,200 feature films were made in Germany’s Third Reich. According to experts, some 100 of these were blatant Nazi propaganda. Nearly seventy years after the end of the Nazi regime, more than 40 of these films remain under lock and key. Director Felix Moeller (Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss) interviews German film historians, archivists and filmgoers in an investigation of the power, and potential danger, of cinema when used for ideological purposes. Utilizing clips from the films and recorded discussions from public screenings (permitted in Germany in educational contexts) in Munich, Berlin, Paris and Jerusalem, Moeller shows how contentious these 70-year-old films remain, and how propaganda can retain its punch when presented to audiences susceptible to manipulation.
Between 1933 and 1945, 1200 feature films were made in Germany.
After World War II, the allies banned over 300 films as propaganda.
There are still restrictions on over 40 of these films today.
For the documentary “Forbidden Films” by Felix Moeller, the filmmaker looks into the the cinematic debates if films listed among the 40 that have restrictions, should be shown to the public.
From film historians/critics, to adults and student s who give their thoughts of watching these films today and discuss whether or not the restrictions should stay.
During 1933 and 1945, Germany had one of the largest number of movie viewers even surpassing the viewers of those who watched blockbuster films such as “Titanic” and “Avatar”, Joseph Goebbels, a German Nazi politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany knew that by utilizing cinema, they were able to twist reality and make Germans feel that Jews, the British and the Allied Forces were the aggressors towards the German people.
Goebbels used his position to advocate harsher discrimination and the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust. And he used cinema as a way to make German people believe that the Jews, the British, the allied forces were the ones who were the aggressors hurting their people.
“Forbidden Films” takes a look at several films to show viewers how people reacted to the film of watching them, how the propaganda was effective to perpetuate the lies from Nazi Germany and telling Germans lies of what was happening to their fellow Germans, that they were being oppressed and swindled and corrupted by the Poles, the Jews, the British, the French, the Russians and others.
While the films may be outdated, the danger of the propaganda still exists. But the debate if these films should be show to the public still remains. One side feels its important for people to know the context of how propaganda films were used, others feel it’s too much of a danger and can raise sympathy to Nazi ideology or anti-Semitic beliefs.
Controversial propaganda films such as “Jud Süß” (Jew Suss) from 1940 is considered one of the most antisemitic films of all time. Directed by Veit Harlan, the film was seen by 20 million people and was a financial success. It was also recommended by Heinrich Himmler, leading member of the Nazi Party (and one of the people directly responsible for the Holocaust), for the SS and police to the police.
“Forbidden Films” show us glimpse from the film “Jud Süß” which was based on Joseph Oppeheimer, an 18th century Court Jew. While loosely based on true events, it was how the film was created to portray Jews as rapist and corrupted, to perpetuate anti-semitism.
Despite many attempts to destroy all films, prints were made and distributed in the Middle East to arouse anti-semitism and now, the film is screened accompanied by an introduction explaining the historical context and the intended impact. Distribution and sale of the film is forbidden in German and Austria and prohibited in France and Italy. While it was sold in the US on VHS since 1983.
The documentary also gives us a glimpse of the 1941 propaganda film “The Stukas”directed by Karl Ritter about Nazi pilots promoting Nazi comradeship and self-sacrifice. Teaching young pilots to deal with their comrade’s deaths for the greater good.
The documentary also shows a glimpse of “Heimkehr” (Homecoming), a 1941 Nazi German Anti-Polish propaganda film directed by Gustav Ucicky and was a box office success in Germany. The film tries to justify the extermination of Poles by showing how Poles persecuted ethnic Germans. Showing how the Polish, adults and children violently hurt Germans and in one scene, stealing her swastika necklace and children pelting her with rocks until she dies. The Germans are imprisoned and are abused. And hope they can return to their homeland. The film was called “the worst propaganda feature of the Nazis ever”.
Another propaganda film featured was the 1941 German biographical film “Ohm Krüger” (Uncle Kruger) directed by Hans Steihnhoff and starred Emil Jannings. The film is based on the Second Boer War which the British Empire fought against two Boer states (the South African Republic and Orange Free State) over the Empire’s influence in South Africa. The film shows the British massacring women and children and advocating the destruction of Britain by major world powers, would make the world a better place to live in.
“Forbidden Films” also shows how the Nazi’s targeted the youth with films such as the 1939 film, “Der Stammbaum Des Dr. Pistorius”.
To propaganda films of showing concentration camps in film and showing how the British were healthy, sitting around and singing songs and even pro-euthanasia propaganda films such as the 1941 film “Ich klage an” (I accuse) directed by Wolfgang Libeneiner featuring a young wife suffering from multiple sclerosis and pleads with doctors to kill her. Her husband, a doctor, gives her a fatal overdose and is put on trial. And showing that death is a right as well as a duty.
Goebbels had the film commissioned at the suggestion of Karl Brandt (Adolf Hitler’s escort doctor) for support of the Reich’s T4 program which advocated euthanasia on the weakest people, invalids and incurable people to society.   Nazi Germany had a policy of racial hygiene and they had to be cleansed of people with disabilities and anyone confined to a mental health facility and would culminate into the extermination of Jews of Europe during the Nazi genocides.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
It’s important for people to remember that his is a documentary that tries to showcase a lot of footage from a variety of film sources.
Presented in 1:78:1 color and film portions are standard format, the documentary looks great.
The German audio is presented in 5.1 surround and for the most part, audio is clear and understandable and the film’s subtitles are also easy to read.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Forbidden Films” comes with a trailer.
I’ve watched “Forbidden Films”, a documentary by Felix Moeller, numerous times.
Absorbing the debates from those who watched banned Nazi propaganda films of whether or not they should be made public and I came to the conclusion, especially looking about how, in the United States, people believe in “fake news” and people are not educating themselves enough to know the context of propaganda, that I find disturbing and also dangerous.
While many of the films featured in “Forbidden Films” are outdated, the dangerous message is still inherent in those films.
And while I can understand the fight against censorship, can you imagine back in the ’30s and early ’40s of millions of people watching these films. Nazi propaganda films were well-created, well-acted but twisting reality and the facts in order to use entertainment as a way to educate millions and making it look as if they were historically factual.
The story of “Jud Süß” based on a corrupt court jew from the 18th century. The thing is, you can have bad people anywhere, but the justification of one bad person generalizes an entire race of being equally corrupted is wrong. But yet, while those who are educated and informed will know the film is propaganda, there are many people who refuse to educate themselves and take cinema as 100% historically factual.
For myself, being Asian America, I grew up with many people who have preconceived judgments that all Asians eat cats and dogs. If I purchase food from a restaurant, there will always be a joke of “there’s no cat or dog in it?”. Society unfortunately has people who take in propaganda as fact.
In the case of “Heimkehr” (Homecoming), could you imagine how German society felt watching this film? Seeing ethnic Germans in Poland beaten, abused, tortured and their only sense of hope is hearing Hitler in the radio and hoping that their countrymen would free them from oppression and bring them back to their homeland.
The scene of a crazed looking Polish man yanking an older woman’s swastika necklace, as she tries to run and survive and all the young kids pelting her with rocks until she dies.
These films were created to bring out an emotion, to rally Nazi Germany, their soldiers and drive hatred towards an ethnicity through cinema.
But films such as “Ich klage an” (I accuse) is disturbing and is still relatable today as it deals with doctor assisting in a patient’s suicide. In “Forbidden Films”, the director Wolfgang Liebeneiner’s daughter, talked about why her father directed the film, when he was younger and coerced to directing the film because of how he felt of multiple sclerosis.
But as millions of people watched the film to support the Reich’s T4 program, not many people were aware that invalids and incurable people to society were being murdered without consent. And as part of the Nazi Germany policy of racial hygiene, it would lead to genocide.
While I am in support of these films shown in the context of an introduction and encourage discussion, and most people who tend to attend these, are being educated on the spot, I surely don’t support these films being released on Blu-ray, DVD or streaming on a popular movie platform.
It will be debated for generations to come on whether or not these forbidden films should be released to the public. Propaganda films are dangerous, but ill-informed, uneducated people who take false facts as truth are even more dangerous. Especially, what we are seeing in terms of ideological strife going on in the world today.
Felix Moeller’s documentary, “Forbidden Films” is recommended!