The 6th Orphan Film Symposium

The Army Films: Pro & Amateur program was introduced by Greg Wilsbacher, Director of the Newsfilm Library at the University of South Carolina, which holds over 11 million feet of Fox News film. He cited the success of the Fox Movietone legacy as not stemming from robust programs, but actually from the inter-war period and subsequent downsizing of resources at a time when the need for the military training film was growing.

Greg turned the microphone over to Bill Birch, work worked as a camera operator for Fox Movietone News as part of Frank Capra’s famed Signal Corps unit. Bill, who filmed stories about the home front as well as combat in the Pacific Theater, was a wonderful raconteur and told an entertaining story about his experience rising through the ranks of Signal Corps.

Bill Burch (843rd SSPD), Dan, and Greg Wilsbacher

Because the army increasingly relied on the Signal Corps during World War II, the organization needed to expand and recruit fast. As a staff cameraman for Newsreel, married and without children, Birch was extremely “draftable,” a point he made as a PowerPoint image appeared of him in his twenties reclined in uniform on an army cot. Bill was interested in working for Signal Corps since he could perform camera duties. After numerous interviews Birch was “enlisted” in Chicago, receiving the impressive rank of Staff Sergeant in December 1942. Birch explained that this was unheard of since he had no basic training and no clue as to who to salute, so he saluted everything that moved! Birch’s precautionary measures paid off since his first job was in California working for none other than Hollywood director, Frank Capra. Under Capra, Birch worked on the entire spectrum of army films—newsreel, studio and documentary material, reenactments, combat films, and the P-word: PROPOGANDA!

Birch was involved in the Why We Fight series, which was intended to demonstrate to American soldiers the reasons for U.S. involvement in the war. Later on they were also shown to the general U.S. public to persuade them to support American actions.

Birch wore many hats during his time at Signal Corps and was responsible for setting up complete units--sound, optic, electric, props--and loading them onto the truck. He even modified a car to shoot newsreel by positioning the camera on the rooftop. Capra received a direct order from Washington to reenact “The Battle of Hill 609,” the film of which was lost when the ship was torpedoed and sunk. Capra whole-heartedly embraced the job and was provided with a cast of soldiers who had been at the actual battle. The unit moved to the desert that apparently bore a strong resemblance to the original battle location in Tunisia. The film team worked in the sweltering heat, around the clock, with no sleep.

While working in Okinawa, Birch received orders to shoot a new training unit in Ft. Washington, Arizona led by revered Army general George Patton, also known as “Old Blood and Guts”. Birch recounted giving orders to the general in order to execute a shot that involved Patton’s salute to the American flag for a specified period of time. When Patton didn’t execute his saluting role correctly, Birch had to graciously accept the blame and request that he do it over. The intimidating general suggested that Birch recite army orders to him to get the shot that he needed. After he completed the orders, his presence was requested by the general. Birch saluted the general and was asked:

”What did you do in civilian life?”

“I was a cameraman,” Birch replied.

“Nobody that hadn’t done something like that for a living would have the balls to do what you did. And you did it perfectly!”

The program then switched to the more sobering subject of concentration camp liberation footage. Marsha Orgeron, author of LIBERATING IMAGES? Samuel Fuller’s Film of Falkenau Concentration Camp (2006), presented on Sam Fuller’s twenty-two-minute film, which recorded the aftermath of the liberation of Falkenau, a Nazi concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. She contextualized the footage as during a time when recording and documenting the horrific truth of the concentration camps was encouraged by the government. Upon full discovery of the Nazi Concentration camps, General Dwight Eisenhower ordered camera crews to comprehensively document evidence of the atrocities for use in the war crimes tribunals. Enlisted men took on the unofficial capacity of filming what they witnessed not only for political ends, but for their personal collections and subsequent viewing by their families and friends. These films eventually made their way into archives in the U.S. Orgeron explained that while there were prohibitions against general filming, there was tacit acceptance for any witness to film the horrors discovered in the liberated camps. Many soldiers immediately sent their amateur footage back home.

Marsha Orgeron and Christa Lang Fuller

Sam Fuller’s liberation footage of Falkenau stands in great contrast to the genre of amateur liberation footage. For one, the film is so extensively edited that it tells a story (a fact that contradicts his claim that he ignored the film for years), and it operates on multiple experiential levels—witnessing, filming, remembering, and revising. Fuller’s film can be broken down into three parts— it depicts 1) the dead before burial, 2) the transportation of bodies to the burial site, and finally 3) the burial itself. Fuller and Captain Kimball Richmond were responsible for the filming and orchestration of the film’s constituent parts. Captain Richmond incorporated residents from the neighboring village into the film, whom play an active role as witnesses and participants; they are forced to confront the reality of what had been done. Fuller often included the neighboring houses in the frame, indicating their proximity to the camp, and hence the town's awareness and complicity.

Sam's Camera

Mark Toscano introduced the newly preserved print of Fuller’s V—E + 1. The original was held at the Academy Film Archive, where Toscano works, for over 10 years. There had been a plan to preserve the film, but it didn’t happen until Orgeron’s research. In her paper, she writes that “Fuller’s panning movement and walking-in reminds us of the cinematographer’s guiding hand, his presence as witness and in some ways, as judge.” The controlled camera is impressive given the horrific content, but also allows for a different kind of witnessing freed from the jittery effects of shock and disbelief, and toward a place of reckoning, remembering, and understanding.

Image from V—E + 1 May 9, 1945

Sam Fuller on celluloid (ca. summer 1945). Courtesy of the Academy Film Archive

Christa Lang Fuller, Sam Fuller’s wife, spoke after the film screened. She discovered the film in 1966, with no previous awareness of its existence. Born in Germany, Christa shared memories of coming from a generation that was continuously reminded of Nazi atrocities, and often applied blame to relatives and friends. She also signaled the importance to show films like Sam’s to young people so they do not become immune to horrors. As an aside, Christa mentioned that Sam shot extensive footage of “less morbid” subjects such as the Karaja Indians in the Brazilian Amazon.

- Gabriella Hiatt