True Glory, The (1945)
Director: Garson Kanin, Carol Reed-(uncredited)
Starring: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Honors:
The dominate subject of the early 1940s was the
warfront. One of the predominate forms of sharing the current events of the war
was through newsreels at the local movie houses that peppered cities and
communities throughout the nation and the world. After four years of struggle
it would not be difficult to think that a documentary about the European
conflict, mapping out the process of the Allied Forces victory, would go on to
be honored as the Best Documentary feature at the 1946 Academy Awards. The
variety of shared prospective and a cornucopia of front line footage package
the long and hard-fought conflict in a manageable feature for general audiences
to watch, ringing out a bell for freedom’s victory after a great strife.
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| Illustrations aided in visualizing the movement of Allied Forces. |
The True
Glory is a World War II documentary that chronicles the Allied Forces
efforts to liberate Europe of Nazi Germany rule from the days leading to the
invasion of Normandy, through the capturing of Berlin, and the surrender of
Germany. Utilizing first person accounts
of service men and women during World War II the picture assembles actual front
line footage from throughout the struggle to bring the story of the Allied
attack on the Nazi forces that once had a stranglehold over the continent. Vocal
dramatization of actual words of men and women from both American and British
efforts along with genuine recordings from the events being described brings
the action the population had only heard about to the silver screen. Introduced
by General Dwight D. Eisenhower we experience the planning and execution that went
into the invasion of the French coastline and continues to follow the shared
American, British, and Canadian led front which ultimately charged into Berlin
and saw to the end of Nazi Germany.
What stands out in this documentary is the collage
of images utilized through the feature. None of it directly coincides with the
individuals who are speaking narratives throughout the picture. Rather it does
its best to manifest as much visual information as it can to give a wide, but
concise understanding of the struggles and ultimate price paid for victory in
Europe. The editing is hard and fast, very different from the much slower and
methodical style of motion pictures of the day. It keeps the action moving,
carrying the energy that is exhausting as the strife depicted, with brief yet
poignant moments of slow reflection and rest for the audience.
The film is in a way a memorial for all the men
and women that had served in the conflict. It allowed audiences too to reflect
on the whole of the ordeal, despite having lived through the years in which the
war was waged, this film frames the greater time period into a simple to
understand structure that reminds everyone the reason why they were fighting
and had to endure so much loss.
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| General Eisenhower opens the feature with an introduction. |
As a joint effort of the US Department of War
Information and the British Ministry of Information, the picture was
commissioned as a form of propaganda that both celebrated the victory in Europe
and reminded audiences of the hard work that paid to preserve freedom. The
picture was entrusted to Garson Kanin, an American writer/filmmaker who had
been drafted into the Army, to compile the means to share this important story.
Despite Kanin’s name being the lone label for directing credit, British
filmmaker Carol Reed was said to have contributed a great deal to the effort of
assembling the picture. However with Dwight D. Eisenhower being the supreme
leader of the Allied Forces, having commissioned the picture, as well as the
only notable figure in the picture in its introduction, the film was given
credit to the American filmmaker alone.
Despite the heavy American influence, the British
contingent made sure they had some sort of input on the product. The film was
originally edited without a score, with the intention that American audiences
would hear and American composed score, while British audiences experience a
score of their own. However American Marc Blitzstein’s score would be discarded
in favor of William Alwyn’s UK composition. Alwyn’s score dramatically binds
the picture together in a wonderful manner that enhances the emotion and tales
of the film.
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| Actual battle front line footage fills the features |
Keep in minds that although this film celebrated
victory in Europe the war was not officially over. Perhaps that is one of the
reasons the film was produced, to help lift spirits while the Pacific theater
was still waging. Of course, soon after the film’s release American forces
would drop the two most destructive bombs ever used in conflict to push the war
to its ultimate conclusion. This picture could be seen as a way to help justify
in audiences’ eyes the reason for the armed forces to bring about a swift
conclusion to the war, to avoid further months or years of battle. In any case
this documentary is both a time capsule and a form of propaganda, depending on
how you perceive it.
Ultimately True Glory would be honored at the
Academy Awards for the Best Documentary and the National Board of Review named it the Best Film for the year 1945. In following decades the feature is
hailed as one of the finest war documentaries of its day. Today we can look
back at the feature and see that war was not completely sugar coated for
audiences as this film brings the harsh realities of struggle and loss to movie
theaters with this feature. It was presented to audiences as a telling of the
many people that fought the battles and lived the lives that returned freedom
to a portion of the world. It still serves as a remembrance of sacrifice these
many paid for the benefit of generations or world citizens to come.
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