Propaganda Is Art

This essay was written in response to the question, "is Testament propaganda OR is it art?":

The notion that a text can be either art or propaganda, and never both, is absurd. Throughout history art has taken on various forms—many were an attempt to sell an ideology. The Sistine Chapel in Rome, Michelangelo's famous work made under duress, was made to sell people Christianity. Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted his conception of the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary in 1849-50 titled Ecce Ancilla Domini for a similar purpose(Rose 40). The communist artist Diego Rivera painted with the idea that art’s purpose was to serve political and social function; a majority of his work consists of political murals such as Distribution Of The Arms (Phaidon 390). Perhaps the most famous work of propagandized art from the twentieth century is “Guernica” by Pablo Picasso. “The best-known 20th-century work of art. It relates to a specific historical event, and expresses Picasso’s political commitment. For this reason, art and politics, the creative hallmarks of the work and its historical circumstances, must be treated as inseparable” (Warncke 387). given the long history of art, and its ties to political and social beliefs, clearly the film Testament is both artistic expression and propaganda. Another case of combining these two concepts, in film, is Leni Riefenstahl’s opus Triumph Of The Will, which is a well-known Nazi propaganda film, which is obviously only respected for its artistic form and not for its message. The director, however, remains well-known not only for her Nazi affiliations, but also for her unique visual aesthetics and directorial innovations.

The director’s portrayal of the realistic events in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, as well as her use of storytelling devices such as foreshadowing and symbolism certainly qualify the film as artistic expression. The most notable use of symbolism in the film is the mentally challenged boy, Hiroshi. This representation of Hiroshima is utilized because of the lasting effects that radiation poisoning had on the city.

Visually the film is very bleak and disturbing. Many aspects of the film show, effectively, how hopeless their situation is in Hamlin, California. This hopelessness is perhaps most effectively displayed through Henry Abhart, who continues to attempt contact with the outside world despite incessant failure and criticism. This hopelessness also leads to the end of social habits and practices. The priest is shown in the beginning of the film with a devout and pious appearance which gradually changes to no uniform. When he is last seen he’s wearing denim pants and a casual blue shirt.

In addition, flashbacks are effectively employed to foreshadow death. The flashbacks, shown with grainy home-movie film, often center around a singular member of the family. When Carol, the mother, is the only one left a home-movie is shown of the whole family; just before the credits roll the camera pans in on her face and she is smiling. The audience understands this to be the inevitable death of Carol and the community.

The artistic statement of the film is overt—disarm the nuclear weapons. Lynne Littman seems to have attempted to show, as realistically as possible, the potential aftermath of a nuclear war. As opposed to blockbuster Hollywood movies, this film is not filled with action, explosions, war, or anything else. This film focuses on the reactions to nuclear war in a community similar to where many American's reside. In choosing a small town, she is making the film identifiable with many people. She uses very sensitive scenes to show the effects without having characters discuss. One of the most horrifying scenes is when the mother is bathing Scottie and he is bleeding from his anus. This is an effective way to show the effects that radiation can have on a person. The rotting of his insides is shown to the audience in a very quiet and oblique manner. The scene when the daughter, Mary Liz, asks her mother what making love is like the audience is made to understand that she will never experience this. Brad asks his mother to dance because he has never danced with a girl before, and he never will. These effective ways of portraying the sadness of youths losing their lives due to nuclear war strike viewers perhaps more so than adults. The saddest thing about this film is that everyone knows that they are going to die; they are just waiting for it to end. The actions of those who fired the nuclear weapons put these innocent people into endgame.

Though this film is both art and propaganda, it does not distort facts to convince its viewers. Many works of propaganda do in fact exaggerate certain details in an effort to alter the viewer's opinion on the subject. With subject matter such as nuclear weapons, however, the need to exaggerate claims and show falsifications is simply not necessary. Despite its lack of fantastical elements, and even if the film did distort facts, it remains a work of both art and propaganda.


Works Cited
The 20th Century Art Book. New York: Phaidon P, 1999. 390-91.
Rose, Andrea. The Pre-Raphaelites : Colour Library. New York: Phaidon P, 1992. 40-41.
Warncke, Carsten-Peter, and Ingo F. Walther. Pablo Picasso 1881-1973: Part II 1937-73. Taschen.