The Story of British Propaganda Film

by Scott Anthony, Mark Duguid (Editor), Patrick Russell (Editor)

Overview

'All art is propaganda,' wrote George Orwell, 'but not all propaganda is art.' Moving from World War I to the 'War on Terror' and beyond, The Story of British Propaganda Film shows how the emergence of film as a global media phenomenon reshaped practices of propaganda, while new practices of propaganda in turn reshaped the use of the moving image. It explores classic examples of cinematic propaganda such as The Battle of the Somme (1916), Listen to Britain (1942) and Animal Farm (1954) alongside little-known newsreels, 'telemagazines' and digital media initiatives, in the process challenging our understanding of propaganda itself, and its many diverse manifestations.

Richly illustrated with unique material from the BFI National Archive, the book shows how central propaganda is to the development of British film, and how it has filtered our understanding of modern British history, from narratives of decolonisation to the celebration of pop culture and the meanings of the postwar consensus. In a contemporary moment so preoccupied with misinformation, malinformation and disinformation, Scott Anthony explains why the response to the ubiquity of the propaganda film has often turned out to be the production of ever more propaganda.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781839021350
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/03/2024
Series:	British Screen Stories
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	7.05(w) x 8.75(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Scott Anthony is Deputy Head of Research at the UK Science Museum Group. His books include Night Mail (BFI Film Classics, 2007), Public Relations and the Making of Modern Britain (Manchester University Press, 2012) and the co-edited volume The Projection of Britain: A History of the GPO Film Unit (BFI, 2012). His book in the BFI Screen Stories series, The Story of British Propaganda Film, was published in 2024. His novel Changi was published by Penguin in 2022 and he has written for the BBC, The Guardian, The Times, The Critic, Tribune, and the LRB Blog among many others.

MARK DUGUID is a senior curator at the BFI National Archive, with overall responsibility for the online representation of archival film and television. He is the author of the BFI TV Classic on Cracker (2009), and co-editor of Ealing Revisited (BFI, 2012). He has written features and reviews for Sight & Sound magazine and is a contributor to the International Encyclopedia of Television.

Patrick Russell is Senior Curator (Non-Fiction Film and Television), BFI National Archive, UK. He is the author of 100 British Documentaries (2007) and co-editor of The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon (BFI 2004) and Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain (2010) and has been a regular contributor to BFI Screenonline.

Table of Contents

Editors' Introduction
Introduction: The Three Ages of the Propaganda Film
1: Propaganda Film and the Interwar Avant-Garde
- Close-up: So This is Britain
2: Propaganda Film and the Second World War
3: Propaganda Film and Colonial Development
- Close-up: British Council Films
4: Propaganda Film and Postwar Propaganda
- Close-up: The Information Research Department
- Montage: Biographies of a New Britain
- Close-up: London Line
5: Propaganda Film at the World Exhibitions
- Close-up: Propaganda for the Audiovisual World
6: Propaganda Film and the Monarchy
- Close-up: Education and the Propaganda Film
7: Propaganda Film and the Contemporary State
- Montage: Economic Propaganda
8: British Cinema in the Era of Total Propaganda
- Close-up: James Bond and the Secret Intelligence Film
9: The Propaganda Film and Humanitarian War
Conclusion
Recommended Reading
A Propaganda Playlist

Editorial Reviews

Deeply researched, smartly written, and admirably capacious, this engaging book spans a century without losing site of the fascinating people, films, and ideas that have shaped Britain's view of itself and its place on the world stage. Scott Anthony brings both deep knowledge and a keen storyteller's eye to this vital story of film's enduring power to persuade. Let yourself be convinced that the history of British propaganda film is also an important history of Britain itself.” —Brian R. Jacobson, California Institute of Technology, USA, and author of The Cinema of Extractions and Studios Before the System: Architecture, Technology, and the Emergence of Cinematic Space

“Scott Anthony deftly weaves together the deep and pressing histories of the British state's use of media as a tool of governance shaping reality and conduct and affect against the backdrop of the political and economic transformation of that state and its place in the world. It is a brilliant expansive and readable and beautifully produced history of the deployment of mediated propaganda across time and space and amid too the radical transformations of the digital era. The Story of British Propaganda Film will be a very useful book.” —Lee Grieveson, Professor of Media History, University College London, UK

From the Publisher