Abstract
This introduction ambitiously explores historical, legal, and theoretical dimensions of the United States Information Agency's (USIA) motion picture operations and archives, framing and contextualizing the scope and contents of the Journal of e-Media Studies special issue. In doing so, it draws from the agency's vast archival paper trail, employs close readings of select film titles, integrates audiovisual supplements, and maps the growing but fragmented body of scholarly literature concerning the agency. Although organized as a top-down propaganda agency, the USIA's motion picture output–totaling to nearly 20,000 titles and legally withheld from domestic distribution until the 1990s–was multi-genre, thematically and stylistically heterogeneous, and a function of often-competing international and local interests. Spanning over half a century of Cold War histories, the study of USIA motion pictures cannot be reduced to a single ideology or historiographic approach. Therefore, after tracing key historical threads, this introduction suggests three productive but adaptable theoretical lenses by which to engage the archive. First, it explores the concept of "moving image diplomacy," which functions loosely as a transitional lexicon that synthesizes the Cold War concepts of public and cultural diplomacy with contemporary iterations of film and media. Second, it delineates the agency's complicated relationship to Hollywood, arguing how we can make these connections more visible and transpose the familiar historiographies of Hollywood studies toward the motion picture output and systems of USIA. Third, due to the agency's concerted investment in documentary format, the introduction defines a theory of the "universalizing documentary," unpacking the ideological ramifications of the US government narrating both American and multinational stories exclusively for international audiences.
Recommended Citation
Gharabaghi, Hadi and Vukoder, Bret
(2022)
"The Motion Pictures of the United States Information Agency: Studying a Global Film and Television Operation,"
The Journal of e-Media Studies: Vol. 6:
Iss.
1, Article 2.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1349/PS1.1938-6060.A.475
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/joems/vol6/iss1/2
Figure 1: Transcripts of Proceedings, Film Advisory Committee (September 24, 1951), excerpts Right: List of members of Film Advisory Committee; top left: cover page of transcript; bottom left: meeting attendees [Department of State, Washington, DC, C-32, entry P218, 1948–1958, RG 306: Records of the USIA, 1900–2003, NACP].
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Figure 2: New Eyes, New Ears (1951), selected images Shots showing the storing and transporting film reels across Japan. [NARA 306.2885]
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Figure 3: Earthquake Village (1963), selected images. In this scene, an Iranian boy, Hassan, who has lost his parents in the 1962 earthquake, follows the “Tall American” and helps him rebuild the destroyed villages. According to Ali Issari, the film was commissioned and funded by USIS Iran and USAID. It was shown to the Congressional Committee in charge of an aid program for Iran in 1963 as evidence to help lawmakers with decision-making. [Film courtesy of Ali Issari; Ali Issari and Doris Paul, A Picture of Persia (Exposition Press, 1977); Interview with Ali Issari by Hadi Gharabaghi, March 31, 2007. ]
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Figure 4: Television Baghdad booklet cover and example of daily schedule (1957) The USIA invested in television as early as the 1950s. In one such case, the United States Operations Mission (USOM) and USIA sponsored the first television station in Iraq under the management of television advisor, A. Vance Hallack. [Declassified NND 927716]
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Figure 5: Nine from Little Rock (1964), selected images. Director, Charles Guggenheim. Winner of the 1965 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, the documentary is among the agency's most well-known, exemplary, and important films. Yet it is part of a larger story concerning USIA. While the agency's institutional motivations were certainly complicated amidst (rightful) global criticisms of embedded prejudices in the United States, many USIA films feature stories of American civil rights movements and historically marginalized communities. [NARA 306.5160]
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Figure 6: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums (1964), poster for Japan Director, Bruce Herschensohn. [film, NARA 306.9015] [poster, NARA 306-ppb-339-2012-001-pr]
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Figure 7: Sons of Hai Ba Trung (1962), selected images. Director, Duong Quy Binh [NARA 306.4973].
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Figure 8: Advertisement for USIA Worldnet programming [NARA 306-par-8-13]
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Figure 9: Diagram of the formation of documentary diplomacy in the United States [Arranged by Hadi Gharabaghi]
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Figure 10: Traces of moving image infrastructure and diplomacy from early Cold War Left: non-theatrical screenings in Palestine, 1945 (NND 66479); Right: floor plan of USOM Communication Media Division in Lebanon (NND 978509)
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Figure 11: USIS advertisement for screenings of Charlie Chaplin films With the rise of video in the 1980s, Hollywood films became a useful means of outreach for USIS posts. Although contemporary films were popular, the "classics"--such as the films of Chaplin--were often the most sought out. See Alvin Snyder, Warriors of Disinformation, 147. [NARA 306-par-7-06]