Abstract
The Cold War provided a clear geopolitical framework for foreign correspondents on both sides of the Iron Curtain but to what extent did it influence cinema productions as well? The editor of Cinema in the Cold War: Political Projections, Cyril Buffet, argues that ‘the cinema had a prominent role in the Cold War, and the Cold War was implicitly or explicitly a theme in many movies’ (p. xi). He writes that cinema is ‘the best propaganda instrument’ and the films produced between 1947 and 1991 ‘decisively contributed to mould and establish a widespread Cold War culture, by inventing and reiterating stereotypes, by promoting policies, by conveying fears’ (p. xi). The Cold War attracted a huge interest. A total of 130 films were produced in the United Kingdom alone between 1945 and 1965. Buffet argues that the Cold War should be treated as a global phenomenon because it was experienced in every country but in his view ‘the arguments, the clichés were the same on both sides’ (p. xii). In terms of genres, the spy films were the most controversial ones produced about the Cold War. Buffet’s edited volume consists of eight chapters, which aim to capture ‘the cultural aspects of the Cold War’ (p. xiii) from a range of national contexts. The book is split into eight chapters – focusing on different films from a range of contexts. In Chapter 1, Isabelle de Keghel analyses ‘the most important Soviet film covering the incipient Cold War’ – Meeting on the Elbe (p. 1). In Chapter 2, Buffet then focuses on a GDR film – … und deine Liebe auch. John Sbardellati revisits the so-called Maltz Affair in Chapter 3, sparked by the Communist author and screenwriter Albert Maltz who wrote a controversial article in the New Masses in 1946 in which ‘he made a plea for artistic freedom’ (p. 33). Linda Risso provides an overview of the short films produced by NATO in Chapter 4. Lori Maguire’s Chapter 5 is devoted to ‘the repeated appearance of scenes showing the partial or complete destruction of New York City in American cinema’ (p. 57). Sergei Zhuk then turns his attention in Chapter 6 to the consumption of American Hollywood productions in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. By focusing on the figure of the ‘angry young man’, Marco Dumančić argues in Chapter 7 that there was ‘a continent-wide shared cultural ecosystem’ (p. 94). The final chapter by Ewa Ochman uses the film Shoah as a case study demonstrating ‘the exploitation of the Polish-Jewish past’ by the communist regime (p. 114). All in all, the book offers fascinating insights into Cold War cinema that would be of interest not just to academics working in the fields of Film or Cold War studies.