Educational Media Reviews Online

In many instances, the Canadian experience during WWII can be easily transposed to the American one, particularly when it comes to the production of war-time propaganda. In fact, the National Film Board of Canada’s Churchill’s Island (1941), a riveting combination of narration and compelling imagery, won the American Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. The topics during the war were often similar: whether about victory gardens or women’s contributions to the war effort, both countries attempted to make their citizens understand to various extents why they were fighting and to broadly clarify the nature of the enemy. Shameless Propaganda, written, directed and edited by Robert Lower was released during the year of the NFB’s 75th anniversary. It is an NFB documentary about NFB documentaries and as such, it is a remarkable meta-documentary examining the first six years of the existence of the Film Board from its founding in 1939 and the installation of John Grierson as its head, to the end of World War II in 1945 and Grierson’s departure. Lower argues that the point of making the early NFB films was not convincing Canadians to essentially die for Canada but to convince them that they actually had a country worth dying for.

After viewing more than 500 available archival NFB films from this period, Lower was in a position to offer an informed opinion on how the Film Board was able to set up a formation of Canadian identity which did not exist before. He carefully examined how Canada was presented to Canadians as well as to others. Whether the films were mundane or inspired, they revealed the preoccupations with John Grierson’s desire to show the links between all Canadians and to unify them. In 1940, the term “Canadian” related to about 11 million people reached by 6,000km of railway with only CBC radio to connect them. The categories of “Canadian” depended on where the train stopped: some were attached to the British Empire, others to earlier francophone roots, still others came to Canada to break with the past hoping for a brighter future, and of course, there was the last group, mostly left out, who were Canadian by conquest and colonisation. The films emerging from this period included a sub-genre of rural place portraits seen through the eyes and work of their inhabitants. The intent was to introduce sections of Canadians to their neighbors in a time when only radio and newspapers offered that sort of information. The inhabitants viewers met were particular to the place yet universal in their depiction as being hard working people. The formula devised by the NFB to showcase Canadian values included portrayals that illustrated deep beliefs in democratic freedoms, fearlessness in the face of hard work, and a combination of self-reliance and mutual support. Occasionally the NFB would take on more controversial topics such as those dealing with labor relations in the mining industry, but they learned how to handle hot topics from their more leftist perspective and understood that a story could be told between the lines.

The 1940s were the golden age of movie attendance in theatres and the NFB’s news-based series “World in Action” did very well: at its peak, each month 40 million people worldwide watched the documentary series. On the other hand, the NFB’s educational films were much less popular and John Grierson brought the films to the people in rural communities with travelling theatres making the rounds each month. These were big social events that allowed people to congregate and enjoy motion pictures without having to travel to cities. They did not have much choice in what they saw but they had an opportunity to learn something.

The Canadian mosaic was not a melting pot and Lower acknowledges how “outsiders”, that is to say, non-Anglo-Saxon Canadians, were portrayed in NFB films during this period. Images of backward Slavs were shown ritualistically walking in religious processions; prevailing anti-Semitic attitudes (including Grierson’s own) were upheld at the Film Board; and Asian-Canadians were simply not portrayed at all except for Japanese-Canadians who were derided or shown smiling in internment camps that were named “relocation districts”. The film Mask of Nippon (1942), a documentary to show the evil Japanese at work to conquer the world is exceedingly racist. In fact, the translation of its French title is “Yellow Nazis”. Lorne Greene’s narration mercilessly spews hateful slurs over images that are essentially benign, thus creating a dichotomy between what we hear and what we see given that the image is used as simple background to the rhetoric. Unlike farming films or films dealing with urban issues, the condescending films about Native peoples were not intended to be seen by their subjects. They were instead shown to urban school children across Canada, forming their views. When Lower informs us that Fur Country (1942) is the only NFB film from this period to portray a Native individual in any detail, he is not quoting a secondary source; he has watched all the available films from this period to be able to make his assertion.

Toward the end of the war, Grierson got into some hot water over crossing the line with foreign policy statements which were not in line with the Canadian government, even in one film advocating a policy directly opposed to Britain’s in relation to post-war Greece. The film was subsequently killed and its prints destroyed. Soon thereafter, Grierson resigned and moved to New York.

Lower’s documentary is as much about John Grierson and his vision as it is about the beginnings of the National Film Board. But, it is also about himself, the filmmaker whose journey began as a child watching NFB films and reacting to their content, then continued as he became a filmmaker who made films for the NFB. In effect he has come full circle with Shameless Propaganda. The film meticulously distills what would have amounted to thousands of hours of research into an easily digestible time frame. The ideas are clearly outlined and methodically supported with clips specifically selected to illustrate his points. Lower’s sense of humor and his love of the film medium come though at all the right spots. This film is very highly recommended for collections dealing with media culture, the history of World War II, the history of propaganda, and Canadian Studies. It is an absolute treasure and a valuable treasure-trove of information.