Blueberry Hill song, 12 Monkeys movie and Vladimir Putin's performance

The essence of the promise of stability, prosperity and security is at the mercy of science and human intelligence. If something still got out of hand, it was because someone was probably negligent, did not perform his task properly, did not turn in time to the appropriate expert - a phenomenon known in modern language as "failure" that requires investigation and examination.

In his book "The Critical Space", the French philosopher Paul Virilio described in detail the striving of rational-scientific thinking to achieve control in the world of phenomena with a tendency to control even the uncontrollable. But capturing the great promise of technology and science will, in his view, lead to an "integral accident" that will not only change the human perception of technology but may even bring an end to the "modern project."

Of course, Virilio did not wish for such an "accident" but warned against it: as great as the promise is, so is the depth of the crisis. Indeed, modern man's expectations of science and the state find themselves repeatedly battered in the face of defiant reality. This time, in the Russia-Ukraine war, we are not just facing a "global accident".

From Gaston Bechelard to Paul Virilio

Gaston Bechelard and Paul Virilio are two of the greatest French philosophers of the twentieth century. They have many similar characteristics: Phenomenological and the anti-structuralist approach. Cognitive fracture as a key for understanding human behavior. Existence of eternal movement, speed and present. Flight and aviation as key amplifiers of consciousness. Importance of material reality and especially architecture. Negation of Post-modrnism. Poetic writing style. Affinity for physics of relativity. Different characteristics are: Purification versus accident. Psychoanalysis versus technology. Classics against Hyper-modernism.

Bechelard [1884 - 1962] was a senior member of the French Academy of Sciences, and greatly influenced postmodern French philosophers. He contributed greatly to the study of the poetics and philosophy of science. He developed the concept of the "cognitive rift", which is essential for the progress of science out of crises. He has extensively developed the concept of "dynamic imagination", according to which the main function of the creative imagination is to refute existing images.

Virilio [1932 - 2018] was a cultural theorist, urbanist and aesthetic philosopher. He is best known for his writings on technology, as it has evolved in relation to speed and power, architecture, the arts, the city and the military. The major concepts he developed are "Dromology" ["Racing"] and "Global Accident". According to them, modern culture, the cyberspace, is instantly virtual. It moves at the maximum speed of light, creating a reality of a uniform world, a huge global city, which is a terminal saturated with detached images and prone to accidents.

For both, fliht and aviation are key to creative thinking. They are  a male-female creature alike and the deity in person. The attributes embodied in these concepts becomes for them, automatically and involuntarily, the creative intuition. This is similar to the reliance of many other creators on these concepts as a starting point for thinking. For example, the issue of UAVs stands out today. It has become a tool through which one can review and summarize any human phenomenon. For Bechelard the UAV is another good conductor, an amplifier, for the imagining mind. For Virilio, it is another link in the de-localization and global accident of humanity.

The difference between Gaston Bechelard and Paul Virilio is the difference between the optimist and the pessimist. Bechelard's point of view is personal and intimate, compared to Virilio's global-cosmic point of view. Bechelard observes in space what the near and familiar reality is, on the personal and private scale. Virilio is replacing Bechelard's dream and reverie with technology and media. He looks at the world from the outer and unfamiliar space, on the superpersonal scale and on society as a whole. Bechelard is the desire, the passion and the hope. Virilio is the surrender and defeat, the inevitable global accident. In Bechelard the world is as round as a well. For Virilio, the world is as square as a screen. Bechelard is innocent and Virilio is cynical. In Bechelard the world opens up and in Virilio it is closing.

While Heidegger, Virilio's spiritual teacher, view the radio as superficial and a reduction, Bechelard saw it as a possibility for deepening and uniting hearts, a kind of universal utopia. The conversations in cafes are loud, but in the universal world of radio, everyone hears each other, and everyone can listen comfortably.

Clues to Bechelard's critique of the "distressed philosophy", as he called existentialist philosophy, can be found without difficulty in all his writings. The refusal of distress was inconsistent with the fashion order of his time, but Bechelard remained consistent in his positions. Boldness was needed to write, in the middle of the twentieth century, in France, in the days of the existentialist climax, that "distress is false: we were created to breathe well''.

Many writers note the psychic powers that Bechelard's philosophy imparts to those who come through its gates, the healing quality inherent in his philosophy, in the possibility he offers, in which man and the world are in constant poetic dialogue. There is indeed a lot of loneliness in Bechelard's philosophy. This is, without a doubt, a philosophy of the individual, the loner. But he is not alone, he is always in the company of the world. Moreover, he is in the company of the beauty of the world. The natural destiny of dreaming, Bechelard believed, is to see the beauties of the world. You can not dream of ugliness in a reverie. Beauty is not only aesthetic, it also a need of the cognitive, ethical and mentality of the person.

Virilio is replacing Bechelard's dream and reverie with technology and media. The sorting and comparison based on the classicical writers by Bechelard, alternates with him to the sorting and comparison based on the present reality. Bechelard's point of view is personal. Virilio's perspective is global. According to Virilio, the world has changed. It is not the same world known by classical works and history. It all became a bustling mega city. We can no longer rely on our natural perception. It was completely distorted by the Tele-Media. The original and new poetic image can not exist in the world of electronic consumerism images, which enslave the imagination and cognition. Loneliness is no longer a sacred value. It is mechanical, and stems from the social split into "human points" created by technology.

The words, too, became worthless. Only the oral experience, the continuity that the delay and acceleration in speech are capable of, remained. It is the stops speech can create, by the wisdom of the thinker, in the mind of the listener. Virilio, through his stretched paragraphs, brings back the reader to the beginning of the social consciousness, of the shoutings of primitive man. He does not have a dialogue with the reader, as does Bechelard. There is hom survival for its own sake. No hand caressing. There is a finger that press the destruction button.

Virilio is one of the most prolific and poignant critics of the drama of the modern technological age. The enterprise of his life is an ongoing reflection on the origins, nature, and influences of the technologies that make up the modern  and postmodern world. He was particularly interested in military technology, representation technologies, computer and information technologies and biotechnology. The question of aviation as a dystopia is central to his thinking, as aviation is a key factor in the creation of the visual world and the global city, a world-terminal that is negatively interactive. Although Virilio does not ruling out technology, he radically criticizes the ways in which it changes the world, and even the human race. The criticism towards him is that he has a flawed perception, which is too negative and one-sided, and loses the empowering and democratic aspects of new computer and media technologies.

Sources:

Gaston Bechelard. The poetics of space

John Armitage. Virilio Live: Selected Interviews

The book "Open Skies" and the film "Eye in the Sky"

The introduction to the book "Open Sky" [1997], by Paul Virilio, begins routinely. He calls the sky "the primary beach." The sky separates the fullness of the earth from the emptiness of outer space. With the invention of the artistic perspective in the Renaissance period, focusing on a horizontal vanishing point, man moved away from the natural connection to the initial vertical contrast of sky-earth, embodied in gravity. Nowadays, when the sky is populated by countless afying objects, it is worthwhile to go back and focus on the vertical horizon.

From then on Virilio turns to an original theory: outer space does not exist as the scientists explained to us. The essence that controls the universe is time, which is matter in itself. Time is the dark matter of the universe. From the initial cosmic darkness derive our cognition of time as matter. This time-material creates the space familiar to us. We should call the regular time "continuity". Continuity exists in itself as matter, from the continuity that exists between atomic particles, to the continuity measured in the ranges of the creation of the universe. It is a substance whose intensity is measured by its speed, which is in relation to the speed of light.

Despite the lack of a scientific basis for the theory, the continuity of time as a material in itself is well tangible to anyone involved in filmmaking. The film editor connects footage of filmed raw material. Between each of two sections is a section of a black screen. Each passage create in the editor a sense of tangibility. His challenge is to cut off the darkness, the void, just as he cuts a piece of something . The black screen segments between the pieces of footage are a physical entity. This entity is un identified, yet it exist. Its feeling is as of the photographed material. It therefore treated, without choice, like a substance in itself. Nature despises emptiness for its own sake.

Virilio abandoned his keen interest in cinema in favor of interest in the dimensions of time, which allowed him to explore the mega cities of the world as a critical space, enslaved to accelerated technology.

Emptiness in which ordinary time becomes substance characterizes the opening scene of the film "Eye in the Sky" [2015]. The protagonist of the film is a colonel, responsible from London for an operation using unmanned aerial vehicles, which takes place in Africa.

The motto at the beginning of the film is: "In war, truth is the first victim." The motto is the essence of Virilio's thought, which deals mostly with observation technologies and decision making in the field of military aviation, and their impact on visual thinking today, where immediacy plays a central role, due to the congestion of images.

The opening scene of the film shows, in half-body camera views, a girl in Africa in the yard on a sunny morning, watching her mother bake bread, and at the same time playing with a hula hoop, next to her father fixing a bicycle. The ring is symbolic. It points out, according to Virilio's worldview, inspired by the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, the usual time and space, embodied in the growing by the diameter latitudes  of the Earth. Virilio describes this in his book "Polar Inertia" [1990].

Using a drone, the camera gradually moves away from the yard toward the street, where a military jeep with armed men is moving. The jeep is seen through the target sight of a UAV that follows it. The camera continues to move away, and the distance causes the viewer's point of view to focus on the vertical axis, which according to Virilio and Hawking indicates the abstract time and space, according to the earth longitudes,  which are arbitrary and uniform in diameter. The aiming lines of the drone become the letter E in the name of the movie, which  appears on the screen.

The picture shift to the Colonel, who is seen in a second long opening scene, in the close-up of her face in complete darkness, as she wakes up in her bed in her country house, ahead of a work day. It's still night time. The lighting is foggy and warm, using night lamps indoors and outdoors. In contrast to the clear sense of reality in Africa, the sense here is of an undefined, mystical reality. As if time is matter and the central dimension.

The camera follows her in half-body shots: while still drowsy she puts on a robe, takes the dog out into the yard, and opens the computer with a fingerprint. On the wall are pictures of the faces of the terrorists she focuses on. The picture sharpens. The photographs finally awakening her, along with an urgent mail.

An eye in the sky - the full movie on YouTube

Paul Virilio - Camera movement over eighty years

The properties of the element of fire guide Virilio in writing on the subject. Fire is an almost imageless element, except for three: light, heat, immediacy. The light according to Virilio is the light of the camera, the heat is the weapon, the immediacy is the decision making.

Virilio reviews how the development of the camera was due to the development of the machine gun, and in general how the development of cinematic photography was due to the consequences of various military developments. Observation and visual intelligence are the cornerstone of the military. That is why they have been at the forefront of technology since the dawn of history to the present day. As the weapons became more sophisticated and the slaughter on the battlefield increased, so did the need for more sophisticated means of observation. The observation plane became the most effective means, and in this way the battlefield, and later the whole world, also became cinematic. The war itself became a spectacular visual spectacle, due to the sophistication of the night lights and the intensity of the shells, in parallel with the sophistication of the defenses against them, trenches and fortifications, which created a sense of disconnection.

The function of the camera is first to connect the fragments of the whole that are revealed to it in separate images, into one complete image. Unlike more modern photography, which focuses on details and create resolutions. Nowadays, with the development of means of observation also for the invisible, such as infrared and radar, and other electronic means, the problem is the management of the information that comes from them, which is the most reliable, but also dense. This created the need for computing, and from there it was a short way to make automatic decisions. In this way the war became a nonstop film, and the nonstop time management replaced the management of space. There was also an obsession with stealth weapons, simulations, and electronic deception. As a result, the war became impersonal and intangible.

Because the sense of reality went wrong, so did human reason. The need to filter information under the conditions of human-machine combined activity was first discovered in World War II, with the sophistication of air defense equipment. Thus was founded the science of cybernetics, based on the concept of the system and the feedback, and in particular the negative feedback, which allows for the screening of human errors through practices.

A detached worldview was created as a result, making motion pictures more tangible than reality. Reality, which has been imprisoned and eliminated by the electromagnetic cyber world, is being revived through the worlds of guided imagery of cinema. Movies have become the telescopic rifle through which we look at war in particular, and the world at large.

In World War II, aerial observation, which has become very sophisticated, has become the most important means of feeding raw materials for films designed to portray reality with an objective eye. But the aerial observation also turned the surface into a detached object, as in a laboratory. Everything became too clear and immediate from the air, and repeated evidence was required, as in a laboratory experiment, to confirm any report. This is due to the increasing speed and mobility of the modern ground military movement. The need for a broad verbal interpretation of the outcome of air battles and bombings, has turned silent films into talking films, among viewers in the command rooms. The ability to carry out nocturnal attacks using bright lighting and the use of radar added to the sense of cinematic detachment from reality. The speed of the decision became more important than its correctness. Mobility, the hallmark of the military force, has become a series of means of communication, sent only by the commander-in-chief to any force on the ground. Statistics have become a major tool for him in decision making.

The citizens of the home front have also became partners to the reality of the command rooms. They were attentive to alarms, under the cloud of uncertainty of the bomb approaching them on the one hand, and watched at night the spectacular spectacle of the air defense spotlights and light bombs.

A similar spectacle is currently being experienced by Israeli citizens watching from a protected area in the background during clashes in Gaza, such as in Operation ''Wall Guard'', in which trails of thousands of missiles illuminated the sky. The first Lebanon war is an early and different example of the means of sight taking over the war, using the unmanned aerial vehicles to asist the airplanes.

In World War II, the culmination of the spectacle of light and fire was the atomic bomb. Immediately after the war it was replaced by the exhaust from the jet aircraft engines, and a few years later the fire emitted by the missile engines launched into space. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which required an immediate response from the United States following fears of launching missiles from the island, expressed the empowerment of the processes that connected the observation, immediacy and weapons, that are a modern incarnation of primodial fire.

In the Vietnam War, unmanned jet aerial vehicles were used for the first time, as part of a sophisticated electronic system of aiming and collecting data from various sensors. The UAVs, and the missiles launched by pilots remotely using the Send and Forget method, contributed to the disengagement of the fighters from the war. What remains is the link between the flash of light and the war. For war as a vision in Vietnam contributed the use of drugs by soldiers. War as a cinema has become a default.

In the 1970s, the advanced flight simulator was developed, which enabled full simulation of operational flight, and became almost its replacement. The flight has become a cinematic misenscene. Strategic deterrence was also practiced through electronic war games. The computerized maps, created using the aerial scan of the surface, created a new world of computer mapping, imaging and navigation. The pilots were given an overhead display, sophisticated helmets, and the ability to fly and launch through speech and eye focus. The flight became automatic. The eye and the weapon merged.

Style and Content in Paul Virilio's Works

Quotes on Paul Virilio, the French Post- Modernist thinker, from the book: The Virilio Reader,  editor James Der Derian:

Preview: Reading Paul Virilio's writings is an oral reading. It is well understood only when read. This is because the word being heard has the ability, because of the time needed to be spoken, to pause on the visual image for the appropriate period of time to decipher it, while producing and creating the appropriate mental stimulus for deciphering, something which is impossible when the eye experiences constantly changing images in silent reading, or as in the everyday reality in general. In this respect, Virilio is like other Post Modern French thinkers, including Gaston Bacheler, who also create difficulties in understanding them without getting into their shoes. Thus, any reading of a summary or article of their writings is worthless. Read the source first to understand what it is all about, like reading a song.

Paul Virilio character impression was of  of a proud yet somewhat shy man, with none of  the character that marks many of the nouveaux philosophes. He was popular and received many invitations to speak, and accepted only few.  Born in 1932, as a child his first encounter with the speed of the war machine came at the outset of the Second World War, listening to the radio in his hometown of Nantes, hearing that the Germans had reached it, and then, almost simultaneously, hearing the sound of tanks outside his window. It was his first brush with Blitzkrieg. Aerial bombardments also left a deep impression, as they destroyed the city completely. He was drafted to fight in France's war with Algeria, before taking up a career practicing and teaching urban architecture. In between he learned the art of stained-glass making.  His official bios usually begin with his tenure as professor (1969), general director (1975), and president (1990) of the Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture.

Beside his contributions to the philosophy of technology and society he wrote numerous shorter pieces on film, art, architecture, and current diplomatic-military affairs.

Virilio represents the power of will, intellect, and belief over the technological predestinations of late modernity. Virilio believes that accidents play a double game, as both disaster and diagnostic of the human condition. They can serve as a powerful agnostic wrench in the works of the new techno-deities. 

Virilio's gift for original and often un anticipated transition from seemingly commonplace discussions to profound, at times transcendent, critical syntheses, requires a particular attentiveness to the interplay of the topical and rhetorical. He is able, in part, to accomplish these transitions - which might best be described as accidental syntheses – by virtue of the specific sensibilities of the French language and culture not easily reproduced in other lenguages. 

What is for some panache, others will consider indulgent. At times these unwieldy sentences appear to be nothing more than an expedient means for imparting raw information. In other instances the task of reading him involved recognizing moments in which a shift in registers occurs from what at first appears only to be informational, to what finally amounts, in a quasi haphazard fashion - by virtue of a sheer glut, a vertiginous welter of references - to one of those unique accidental syntheses. 

The task may then best be described as sensing, approximating, or even guessing in a manner which strives for a certain rapport.

Internet browsing, hypertext and other computer-related stuff, goes well with Paul Virilio's theories about the impact of speed on the western world as we know it. Climbing up across Searching in the Internet tree, one will find the complete collapse of distance accompanied by a radical attenuation of identity. Lost sight, as well as the original site of the "Person'' are characteristic to browsing. He - or she are thinned out, disappearing into the infosphere, seven degrees removed from everything. Something that one moment had been so close, seemingly so significant, had become nothing at all.

Virilio is not the first to discern this dark side to an Enlightenment which had, for the most part, contracted a new happy, progressive marriage of self, reason, and technology. Earlier warnings about the possible perils of technologies of reproduction have been powerfully and persuasively voiced. 

First on just about every list would be Walter Benjamin. Writing in Germany in the 1930s, he observed how mechanically reproduced art, especially film, would become useful for Fascism, for the rendering of politics into aesthetics, with the advantage of mobilizing the masses for war without endangering traditional property relations. In the essay, “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” he anticipates Virilio's linking of technologies of acceleration and war in citing an early analyst and advocate of speed, the Futurist, Filippo Marinetti.

Second is Guy Debord, leader of the Situationniste movement in France in the 1950s and 1960s, author of the short but highly influential, Society of the Spectacle. Surveying the spread of spectacle, the fetishization of the image, and the rise of a consumer society, he anticipated the failure of conventional, radical, spatial politics in May of 1968 in France. 

Third, there is Michel Foucault's extra-disciplinary genealogies of politiwas techniques of control arising from pan-opticism. Displaying no anxiety of influence, Virilio takes Foucault's pan-opticon model to an extraterrestrial level of discipline and control, offering a microanalysis of how new technologies of oversight and organizations of control, innovated by strategic alliances of the military, industrial, and scienti communities, have made the crossover into civilian and political sectors create a global administration of fear. 

All of these critical thinkers and others have provided key insights into the political and social implications of the advent of new technologies of reproduction. Yet they seem out of date, stuck in place, when compared to the restless yet, in all its timefullness, strangely rustless conceit of Virilio, that the proliferation of highspeed, realtime, cinematic, global, computer networked - in a word – virtual systems of how we see, has forever changed how we know. 

In an essay which originally appeared in Le Monde Diplomatique, Virilio maps the social consequences: What lies ahead is a disturbance in the perception of what reality is; it is a shock, a mental concussion. And this outcome ought to interest us. Why? Because never has any progress in a technique been achieved without addressing its specific negative aspects. The specific negative aspect of these information super highways is precisely this loss of orientation regarding the other and with the world. It is obvious that this loss of orientation, this nonsituation, is going to usher in a deep crisis which will affect society and hence, democracy. In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.

In short, virtuality destroys reality. On its own, perhaps not a great loss; but Virilio has his eye where others do not, on the collateral damage done to the ethos of reality, the highly vulnerable public space where individuals responsively interact. For Virilio, the interconnectivity of virtual systems is not ushering in a new day for democracy but a new order of telepresence; high-paced interconnectivity is becoming, technically and literally, a substitute for the slower-paced intersubjectivity of traditional political systems. He sees the self as a kind of virtually targeted ground-zero; once voided, concentric circles of political fallout spread, leaving in the vitrified rubble.

reading Virilio will, inevitably, leave one feeling mentally disturbed, usually compounded by a bad case of vertigo, since speed is not only the subject but also the style of Virilio. In a typical Virilio sentence, which often elongates a full paragraph, the concepts can spew out. Many get recycled in later books. Some, benefiting from a new empirical settings, stand out like polished gems. But almost all of them them provide radically different takes on the social implications of technological forces, liberating their analysis from the customary.

a very important and central claim of his books is ''Critical Space'': The exo-colonialism of the industrial, imperial period has become introverted – internally, by the de-industrialization and pauperization of the urban center, and externally by the rise of an intensive transnational capital and transpolitical megalopoles. Mega cities are in   a post-industrial endo-colonization. 

Virilio was arguing from the perspective of a post-Einsteinian relativity, that not only seemed to play fast and loose with analoging, but also seemed to violate some of the basic laws of physics. The inadequacy of language to describe results and the field of quantum mechanics in general, confirmed with Virilio's point of view. The reader might have to suffer some conceptual gymnastics to get it. Yet, for every one of Virilio's oblique concepts or extravagant theoretical claims, there are others which slice right through the sludge that is served up as political analysis.

By this quality alone, there is no question that he belongs in the company of Benjamin and Adorno, Debord and Baudrillard, Foucault and Deleuze, Barthes and Derrida, for taking our understanding of the discursive relationship of technology, society, and politics to a higher plane of political as well as critical consciousness. After the millennium turn he stands out from the critical crowd, as a conceptual innovator and intellectual provocateur, the one who goes to the edge and sees beyond the traditional maps of modernity. 

The pilot as a superhero in Israeli cinema

The Israeli fighter pilot as a superhero

The slogan "the best for pilots" still has significance in the State of Israel. Most of the public attach great prestige and importance to the pilot. World War II immortalized the pilot as a mythological figure. The stories of the "Battle of Britain" heroically described him. Winston Churchill said: "Never before have so many owed so few''. Ezer Weizmann, who served as a pilot in the British Air Force during World War II and served for about 8 years as commander of the Israeli Air Force, has become the most significant symbol of the Israeli pilot. He created the local slogan. It attests to excellence and implies that whoever flies is good.

The main historical factor in the development of this myth in Israel are the many wars that have been decided by its air power. Operation Kadesh in 1956 was relatively successful for the Air Force, but did not significantly dispel the myth. During the Six Day War, the Air Force's achievements were set and the documentaries about it highlighted the Israeli pilot myth. After that, when the Air Force was automatically associated with successes and abortions, there was a huge increase in the number of volunteers for a pilot course. Self-confidence was high and the pilots were wrapped in a lot of love.

The image of the almighty hero pilot remained in the minds of civilians even during the Yom Kippur War. Despite the low morale it brought with it, the Air Force was portrayed in this war as the main defensive wall. The pilot stereotype was perpetuated in it as the perfect hero, who is also a "sacrifing savior'', willing to risk his life and sacrifice his life for the State of Israel.

After the Yom Kippur War the pilots boasted less of the wings. This happened mostly to the young. But even if there was a slight respite in public admiration for pilots, they were able to regain the aura, thanks to successful operations such as "Entebbe" and "Attack of the Reactor in Iraq." These operations had a style that gave the Israeli pilot a Hollywood touch.

Today, the army is no longer a top value in Israeli society and it is permissible to criticize it, including the Air Force. Still, the image of the fighter pilot in public is better than that of other military personnel. Today the society is individual and the pilot expresses exactly that value. If you add to this elements like quick reaction, decisiveness, courage, challenge, self-control and accuracy, you come to the conclusion that this is the character of the popular hero.

An interesting question is in what direction will the pilot figure develop in the future, where the war will be largely waged using unmanned aerial vehicles, which require different characteristics and population segments.

In this context it is worth mentioning that the film industry was, from the beginning, an important source of employment for Air Force personnel around the world, after being discharged from military service. They have been integrated into this industry in all fields and levels. It was these people who shaped the character of the "Knightty Fighter Pilot" in popular culture.

The myth of aviation in the visual media in the State of Israel

Central to the approach that explores aviation as a comprehensive phenomenon is the practice of the terms "aerial awareness" and "aerial consciousness". The difference between them is, in short, is like the difference between the terms "artist" and "artisan".

The term "aerial awareness" explains the enthusiasm of individuals for the flying machine, which accumulates for independent creation and voluntary activity of creating traditions and symbols on the subject.

In Western powers, such as the United States, England, and France, aerial awareness puts the independent individual interested in aviation at the center. It is dominant and accordingly the character of the pilot is shaped as a lone hero, with a sensitive mind. He operates a highly complex machine while constantly physically moving in three-dimensional reality. He experiences and makes decisions that are not the property of the common man, who lives in a two-dimensional environment. The fighter pilot is therefore an "artist".

The term "air consciousness" means the intelligent use of aviation to create a comprehensive national and social identity and accordingly the pilot is part of the social system and does not question it. In World War II, there were four countries that controlled the "air consciousness", in what can be called the "air dictatorship". These countries are: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan and the Communist Soviet Union. Because in these countries the emphasis in training was on quantity versus quality, the title appropriate for the pilot in them is "artisan".

In the middle are the countries that do not clearly belong to one of the two blocs, including Israel, which has created a unique aviation culture. Apart from being part of the myth and saga of the "best air force in the world", the images of the Israeli fighter pilot as a superhero also feed on Israel's ties with the United States, including American popular culture, with its superhero culture. Contrary to the image of the "wild west man", defense needs also contributed to the design of an Israeli fighter pilot with political views and social criticism, in films and in reality, as in the case of Yiftach Spector, who became one of the critics of Israeli defense policy.

Real American aviation events in the last half century have influenced Israeli society through television, which covered them as prominent and fascinating media events. For example, the "first Gulf War" that took place in the years 1990-1991. During it, American precision bombing videos were given extended screen time each evening. Feature aviation films, including "top Gun" (1986), illustrate the close connection between the American Air Force and the Israeli Air Force, thanks to the social background and similar ideals, the use of identical aircraft and the training and common goals.

The most important aviation-television event to date is the first landing on the moon, in July 1969. As in the rest of the world, Israel too watched with anxiety and excitement the miraculous journey of three Apollo 11 pilots: Reporters were sent to NASA space center,  TV and radio coverage of the event was from every possible angle and commentators and scholars have debated the question of the historical, scientific and spiritual significance of the landing. The Apollo 11 astronauts have gained the status of cultural heroes in the local media and entiresupplements have been devoted to their experiences.

The popular culture in the United States greatly reinforces the myth of aviation, but at the same time the image of the pilot as an individual with personal needs. ''Star Wars'' movie series, in which the figure of the pilot stands out as a superhero, can be analyzed as a biblical text about the cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil and the desire to survive with the help of God - "the force". There are Jewish scholars who challenge the ideological separation between popular culture and religious life and link episodes in the saga to Jewish religion and history. The saga allows for a local critical discussion of various issues, such as feminism and gender, government and minorities, psyche and personality, quality of life and environment and more. "Star Wars" also has practical importance for Israel militarily, as synonymous with space warfare and as a source for learning military strategies.

Feature films about the fighter pilot in the State of Israel

Compared to the extensive place that the Air Force has in Israeli society and the many books written about it, few feature films have been made in the country about the subject of the fighter pilot. In the few films made in the State of Israel, the icon gradually became from national to personal, and in the meantime he is also exposed to social criticism.

The film "Sinaia" (1961) is a unique feature film in Israeli cinema, the plot of which takes place during Kadesh operation. It star is an Israeli fighter pilot, Yiftach Spector, who was loaned to a film from the Air Force and later became one of its top pilots and commanders. The film was made while he was still a young pilot. It is generally based on a real event. Spector plays himself as an Israeli pilot, whose Mister jet crashed near a Bedouin encampment in Sinai. He manages to take control of an Egyptian Piper plane, fixes it in a tent and takes off with the wounded Bedouin baby Sinaia and her mother. The plane crashes and the pilot dies. Sinia survives and is picked up by another Israeli officer, who was left to wait for rescue. Spector's character adds a mythological dimension to the film, as he plays the character of the legendary Sabre.

Early feature films, such as "Sinaia" and "Eight after One" (1964), perpetuate the fighter pilot myth as a local superhero. The later films are more critical. There are Israeli aviation films that use this myth to present criticism of national policy, or self-criticism of the character of the personal pilot as a superhero. In feature films such as "Way of the Eagle" (1990) and "Armand's Kites" (2011), the protagonist pilot character is subject to self-criticism and external criticism.

An example from the recent period is the film "Adventure in the Sky" (2019), which combines computerized visual content scenes. An aviation-loving boy and girl find scraps of an antique Air Force "Messerschmidt" plane. They decide to renovate the plane and fly it in the Independence Day demonstration. Throughout the film one can find a close affinity with the First Air Force Fighter Squadron, but comedic antagonistic sub-characters, who display the arrogance sometimes identified with the pilot profession, manage to maintain the critical character.

Between the character of the pilot as a national hero and the criticism of him lies the private personality. The Israeli fighter pilot walks on a taut rope, which is intertwined with both his profession and his conscience. The result, for the most part, sharpens self-criticism, which is also a key tool in his ability to improve performance, as part of the "best air force in the world."

The film "Every Bastard is a King" (1968)

The discussion of the values ​​of the pilot character rises another step in Uri Zohar's feature film "Every Bastard is a King" (1968), for which the script was written by Eli Tavor and produced by Avraham Deshe. The film was a huge success. The film is dedicated to the IDF forces that operated during the Six Day War. It is a hybrid, as it include long documentary footage. Hybridity is also an artistic means of illustrating the main message of the film, as will be described below. It is a film that can be fully understood and analyzed as an aviation film, as the protagonist represents the character of the pilot as a superhero, even though he is a private pilot, acting for personal motives. The film tells the true story of Abie Nathan and his peace flight.

The film consists of three plots naratives: The first deals with the peace pilot Rafi Cohen (Oded Kotler) whose character is modeled after Abie Natan. The second deals with the character of his driver Yehoram (Yehoram Gaon) who becomes a brave warrior in the war. The third deals with an American journalist, Roy Hemings (William Berger), who came to cover the upcoming war with his wife Eileen (Pierre Angeli).

Abie Nathan, a restaurant owner and peace activist, took off privately on a light private plane to Egypt in February 1966, in an attempt to talk to Nasser. The film gives his flight a human and representative meaning that goes beyond its historical impact. He is crowned as an alternate superhero pilot. A key sentence at the end of the film is: "If you want to live - you must learn to fly".

The film begins with a small convoy of cars, in which Yehoram is driving the leading car, with Rafi sitting next to him. Along with them in the car is the widow Eileen. They drive to the airport in Lod. The convoy pass between the planes, parking and loading onto a large passenger plane a coffin wrapped in the United States flag, in which lie Roy Hemings' dead body. At that time, the airport and air transport were considered another expression of Israeli air superiority. The scene herald the reality of today, where flying in passenger planes has become massy and tedious.

Then begins the chronological narrative, which opens with a description recorded by Roy, of the situation in the country on the eve of the war: ''Israel is a systematic and messy collection of paradoxes, which somehow have some logic, which can not be explained. Everything you say about the Israelis is the opposite''. His words are heard against the background of a picture of a gleaming El Al plane taking off with its coffin.

The mystical-religious dimension is integrated, with Rafi leading seven demonstrators, who are marching to Jerusalem for peace. They tell Roy that if the politicians did not bring peace, maybe Rafi will succeed. Yehoram says that Rafi's courage stems from despair. He once saved Rafi's life at a rooftop party, where he walked on the railing to impress a girl and almost fell into an abyss. The story is told against the background of a flashback scene, of Yehoram the paratrooper and his friends jumping from a large military plane. Yehoram says that parachuting is the best thing in the world, but getting off the plane is scary.

Hemings reveals the aspirations of the collective war of the Arabs. You can see in the flashback the incident where Rafi walked on the roof railing, told again by Rafi himself, to Eileen with whom he develops an affair. Rafi has an instinct for self-destruction. He may be interested in being a "sacrifing savior''. Even the  mental dialectic, the culmination of which is the idea of ​​love, is incapable of solving his problems.

Hemings resents that Yehoram took a female soldier as a hitchhiker, but Yehoram says he is "free as a bird" and works to live. Hemings repeats the sentence as he records the experiences of the day. The romantic entanglement expands in Yehoram's event with Eileen.

Roy gets a phone call from Rafi, who wants to talk to him about a return flight to Egypt. Rafi tells Roy that he is flying not because of what he is, which is meaningless to him, but despite who he is.

Rafi tells Roy about the flight to Egypt. The flight scenes appears in full: preparations for takeoff, flight, spontaneous reactions in public. For a moment, Hemings and Rafi return to a disco hall. Hemings is trying to understand the incident as a "miracle''. Rafi answers him that if he wants to understand, "he must fly''. Afterwards scenes are: Landing in El Arish, Egyptian soldiers surround Rafi who says he wants to talk to Nasser about peace, a conversation with the local Egyptian governor about the rights of the people of Israel over the Land of Israel, the flight back to Tel Aviv, the welcome reception, mass and imaginary in part, to a hero carried on hands.

After the conversation between Roy and Rafi, we hear from the disco hall a radio announcer, who tells about a village where a dragon threatens its inhabitants. Out of nowhere a hero arrives with the aim of killing him and succeeds using a paper sword. In a tragic turn, the villagers kill the hero, as they no longer need him. The real "hero journey" is not done by someone who aspires to be a hero, but is shaped in retrospect by the masses.

Yehoram receives a military draft order. The war begins, with lengthy documentary scenes, which perpetuate the historical events, even though they seem seemingly irrelevant to the plot. The tanks go into action, in a battle scene of occupying Rafah. A small bird standing on a branch shaking in the wind is combined between this sections. The plot soundtrack is replaced by voices from the military radio instruments. The scenes of the charging tanks are combined with the scenes of the fighting and wounded warriors and especially with the heroic story of the warrior Yossi, which is the dramatic climax of the film. Although the air force does not appear in the war scenes, this does not detract from its triumphant aura.

At the end of the film, at six after the war, Roy accidentally walks to a minefield. Despite Rafi's warnings, he steps on a mine and is killed. Before his death, Rafi's sentence resonates in his mind: '' Do you want to understand? Fly''. Then his early recording from the beginning of the film about the paradoxical situation in Israel is heard again. Is is heard against the background of the passenger plane taking off with the coffin. In the last scene, Yehoram and Rafi say goodbye to each other in the terminal.

"Every Bastard is a King" puts a mirror in front of Israeli society on the eve of the Six Day War. It present a fascinating correlation between the spirit of the period and the character of the individual pilot. The film explore aerial consciousness versus aerial awareness. The first state of consciousness is that of Rafi, who sees in aviation the appearance of everything. The second is that of Roy, who sees aviation as a non-binding awareness. Yehoram presents the critical intermediate figure.

At the same time, the film explores two types of dialectics: horizontal and vertical. The horizontal dialectic seeks, out of an existential habit for what is on the surface, the earthly. The vertical dialectic strives, from a line of ideological assumptions, upwards, to the sublime. There are scenes in the film that highlight the gap between the two types of dialectics. For example, Eileen, who has no true national identity, has relationships with the three men. The personal scenes can also be defined as "prelimimary" and show an indistinguishable duration. In contrast, the aviation and war scenes are "symbolic", as they present awareness and order.

The film create a deconstruction of the Israeli reality. It dismantles and challenges the structural structure on which the state is based. The film glorify the aviation myth, which allows each person independent spiritual clarity, regardless of the stereotype of the knighty fighter pilot.

George Lucas and the Star Wars movies series

Throughout his life George Lucas had a number of major interests in addition to cinema: anthropology, politics, history, mythology, adventure stories and speed. He connected all of this to liberation from the conventions typical of the Sixties and to liberation from gravity in outer space. He began to convert into space fantasy concepts and symbols he had planned to use in "Apocalypse Now" [1979], a protest film about the Vietnam War, which was eventually created by his partner Francis Ford Coppola.

Lucas imagined a large technological and fascist space empire haunting a small group of freedom fighters. He began by a two-page handwritten idea, telling the story of a revered Jedi warrior, as told by his apprentice. A more advanced ten-page script, entitled "Star Wars," dated May 1973, is based on Akira Kurosawa's film, ''The Hidden Fortress'' (1958). This film had a huge impact on him. Lucas had no basic plot, and he used the bond that appears in this film between the samurai and his apprentice. Kurosawa also influenced him visually, through duels in swords, epic battle scenes and quick editing. The martial arts of the Jedi in "Star Wars" led to a wave of film productions with superheroes in this category in the 1980s, for example "American Ninja" (1985) produced by Menachem Golan.

Throughout 1973 and 1974, Lucas worked on the script, writing and living most of the time alone. He tried to create a classic genre picture of an adventure movie. As a result he sought to connect to the collective unconscious that exists in legends. Among the scholars who influenced him were Bruno Bettelheim and Carlos Castaneda, but the most important was Joseph Campbell.

Lucas completed the rough draft in May 1974. It is a wide-ranging story, featuring many elements that will appear in subsequent drafts: the Jedi vs. the Sith, two lovable robots, Princess Lia, Han Solo. But nothing is yet in its final form. Lucas finished the first draft in July 1974.

The initial script version Lucas wrote includes many scenes with maneuvers of spaceships battles. He wanted to sell the script to the studios, but did not know how to visually illustrate it to them. The solution was to hire artists who created illustrations and production models, which would provide a basis for budget estimates. The artist chosen, in November 1974, was Ralph Macquarie, a former illustrator at Boeing. Macquarie painted a series of eye-catching drawings of stars, spaceships, characters and scenes, in collaboration with Lucas. Later, along with other illustrators, the first drawings for the visual product known today evolved. In this way, the script and the characters also developed.

The ''Star Wars'' movie series is mostly based on the pattern of superheroes in the stories of mythology. As part of this film series, nine sequels have been released, which constitute the canon of the series as a feature epic. The first film in the series, "New Hope", was released in 1977. The last, "The Rise of Skywalker", was released in late 2019. 

The series gained unprecedented popularity. So important was the series at the time that the National Museum of Aviation and Space in Washington dedicated a special exhibition to it, showcasing the mythical message of Luke Skywalker's "Hero's Journey."

There are three main factors for the initial success of the ''Star Wars'' series: a. The structure of the narrative. George Lucas and his fellow creators of the series have been influenced by many sources of inspiration. Prominent among them was Joseph Campbell and his book on the theory of monomyth. B. The order of magnitude of the epic. Today we are inundated with similar, high-budget science fiction films and blockbusters. At the time of the production of the first trilogy in the "Star Wars" series, no similar productions had yet been made. C. "Star Wars" was a product of its time, the mid-1970s. It resonated with the spirit of the time. It touched on the anxieties and tensions of the public consciousness at that time and in particular on the issues of the Cold War and the Vietnam War. 

The series was regarded as redefining cinema, as it create an imaginary universe rich in details. It is known in almost every home in the world and has gained millions of devout fans, including at the level of religious believers, who see it as a modern expression of the biblical struggle between good and evil.

The nine-film canon consists of three trilogies, which represent the parts of the human psyche and its development, according to id, ego, super ego. The Disney company, which acquired the franchise for the brand from Lucas, also develops it through anthology films, complexes in theme parks, TV series, animated series, computer games, books, comic books, clothing and toys. In this way the brand reaches every person in the most appropriate way, according to the latest branding and marketing approaches and the plan for the future is to continue to develop it intensively.

Prof. Joseph Campbell is considered a world expert in mythology and follower of Carl Jung. Campbell researched and found that in all cultures of the world there are myths with the same characteristics, all of which together can be called "monomyth". His books have been a major source of inspiration for George Lucas. His main book is "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". This book presents the constant characteristics of the superhero character, which are preserved behind its many incarnations in different cultures and periods.

The ''Star Wars'' movie series is based entirely on this concept. The films include a gallery of archetypal characters typical of the world of mythology, such as the superhero, the mentor, the distressed young lady, the trickster, the evil hero, the omnipotent magician, the binary duo, the extended family of close friends and more. At the same time, the superhero goes through in the films of the series a journey, known in terminology as "The Hero's Journey. This journey includes many stages of development, which are well characterized in the stories of superheroes from all cultures.

George Lucas spoke at a conference in honor of Professor George Campbell in 1985, to which Campbell responded. Much can be learned from the exchanges between them regarding the "Star Wars" series. 

Lucas told the conference that about ten years ago he intended to write a screenplay for a children's film and had an idea to create a modern fairy tale. This is despite the opposition of his friends, who thought he should do something more important and socially relevant. Lucas began research and writing and a year passed without progressing, then he encountered the book ""The Hero with a Thousand Faces '', read it and began to focus. He found in this study parallels to his intuitive writing and answers to many questions that came to his mind. He continued reading Campbell's books and at the same time writing the script, in a process that lasted several years and ended in a script of hundreds of pages.

Campbell replied in his speech that he had not seen movies for many years, as he was engrossed in research. He came as a blank page to the estate of Lucas, who invited him to be a guest and watch the three first films. He was thrilled with admiration. Lucas was in his eyes a man who understood the use of metaphor. The lack of use of metaphors was in his eyes a built-in weakness of American art. What he saw were things that were in his books, but were presented in terms of a modern problem, which is man and the machine: Is the machine going to serve human life, or is it going to be the master and dictate. The definition of "machine" also includes the totalitarian state, whether fascist or communist and also includes things that happen in the United States, such as the bureaucrat phenomenon that is the man-machine.

In the twentieth century the character of the superhero was often identified with the pioneers of flying in airplanes and spaceships and a very important secondary superhero in the series is Han Solo, the photogenic and cynical pilot who is a loyal friend of Luke Skywalker, the idealistic boy who is the superhero of the series. Han's ''Millennium Falcon'' spacecraft, which has a double bow, is the fastest in the galaxy. It is the object most identified with the series, except for Luke's Light Sword. In the series complex at the Disney theme parks, the full-scale spacecraft is the main attraction.

The importance of Han Solo's character is great, as aviation is linked in the series to the superhero skills. Anakin Skywalker and his sun Luke are described as the best pilots of the galaxy, before they become Jedi warriors. Harrison Ford, who plays the character in the series, has earned superstar status and played the role of other fictional heroes in cinema, including Indiana Jones. Along with the rough identity of the cowboy-pilot character, Han is also undergoing a moral awakening. The process of his development into a superhero continues after his death, through his son Ben, who turns from being Darth Vader's successor into a positive character. 

A second significant connection between aviation and the "Star Wars" is the space battles, which are a key element in the series. Lucas drew inspiration for them from World War II aviation films, which he watched during the long years of writing the script versions.  A collection of aerial combats scenes in old aviation films, which he filmed and edited in a 16mm format, were an integral part of the presentation concept and later the main source for the spaceships battles scenes. The flight scenes in the series are always a spectacular show, accompanied by pyrotechnic displays of firing and spaceships crashes, which reinforce a sense of alchemical connection of the human figures with the metallic objects.

In order to produce these scenes, Lucas set up a special company to deal with the subject of special visual effects. The company is ILM (Industrial Light and Magic). Following the success of "New Hope", ILM became one of the most successful companies in the industry. All the films of the ''Star Wars'' saga were filmed by it and in addition the special visual effects of many other successful film series.

There are similarities between the ''Star Wars'' films and the Nazi aviation films on several levels: A. Emphasis on the photogenicity of the aircraft and the multiplicity of aviation scenes. B. The aviation films of the Nazi regime developed the character of a fighter pilot for propaganda purposes and in this way they also contributed to the developing of the pilot character in the "Star Wars" series. C. The wicked characters Palpatine and Darth Vader are reminiscent of Hitler and Himmler. D. The uniforms of the warriors of the evil empire are similar to the Nazi uniform and so are the mass gatherings. E. The most popular films in the Nazi regime were aviation dramas, in which the romantic scenes are between flight scences during a war and in this too they are similar to the "Star Wars" films.

The "Star Wars" saga can be analyzed as a biblical text about the cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil and the desire to survive with the help of God - "the power" in trhe series. There are Jewish scholars who challenge the ideological separation between popular culture and religious life and link episodes in the saga to Jewish religion and history. The saga allows for a critical discussion of various issues, such as feminism and gender, government and minorities, psyche and personality, quality of life, environment and more. 

"Star Wars" also has practical importance for Israel. Militarily, it is synonymous with space warfare and is a source for learning military strategies. From the Israeli society point of view, the popular culture in the United States greatly reinforces the myth of aviation, but at the same time also the image of the pilot as a private person with personal doubts, which are also expressed in the Israeli feature cinema.

The pilot as a superhero in Hollywood cinema

 

Superheroes in twentieth-century popular culture in the United States

The warriors were a focal point of admiration in every generation, in their lives and deaths. Their qualities were focused on one character, who was public example and savior and took on a mythical character. A particularly revered hero is a superhero, omnipotent, with superhuman powers. Throughout history the superheroes have undergone constant processes of change, created because they belonged to the popular culture of their time, which had particular characteristic and used the technological means at its disposal. The characters of the ancient superheroes, from the Bible and Greek mythology, became knights on horses in medieval societies and pioneers of aviation and fighter and space pilots in the twentieth century. At the same time there was a development in the storytelling technique: oral, written, printed, film, digital.

As reality became more complex, the need for mythical archetypes became more important. In the process of developing the popular American hero from the traditional Western hero to the cheap press adventurer and the superhero of comic books, we find a creative response to urbanism and social change that, however, retained deep-rooted assumptions of race, masculinity, and values ​​shaped by European tradition and experience. The wild west dventure heroes have provided successive generations of readers with frameworks for coping, and ultimately for the adoption of changes, reinforced by the concepts of heroism that the white man imagined.

At each stage, the American superhero navigated the difficulties between barbarism and civilization and faced a sequence of hostile environments. The hero of the Wild West brought law and order  and at the same time prospered in the atmosphere of freedom there. The Yellow Press hero has extended this order to the farthest and darkest corners of the globe, towards legendary time and the dangers posed by urban life. The Comics magazines superhero solved the problems created by urbanism by bringing fantastic situations to familiar backgrounds, in order to create a mythical framework for modern existence.

Repetitive processing of adventures around unchanging plot formulas, has allowed American superheroes to remain relevant to the hopes and fears of each generation. 

The fictional superheroes in the colorful Comics books were very popular in the United States in the period between the two wars. Technological production constraints did not allow, until the 2000s, a convincing cinematic design of the vision necessary for presenting the Comic book superhero adventures. Around the early 2000s, with the development of computerized imaging technology, fictional superheroes became very popular in movies as well.

Knighty Fighter Pilot in the Golden Age of Hollywood Cinema

The superheroes of the comic books evolved in parallel with the character of the knighty fighter pilot, who was a product of the film industry. Cinema, as a multidisciplinary and multi-participant medium, is a place where the myth often appears, as both cinema and myth clearly appeal to as many common denominators as possible. This can explaine the large volume of films in which the myth of aviation and the pilot is prominent.

In Hollywood, three major aviation films were made between the two world wars. All three perpetuate the stereotype of the knighty fighter pilot. Dozens of imitations were made on them, including using unnecessary photographic materials. These three films are:

"Wings" (1927) - the first ever Oscar-winning film, at the first 1928 Academy Awards ceremony and the only silent feature film to win this award. The film deals with the young American fighter pilots of the First World War and features light-hearted romantic dialogues alongside dramatic aerial battle scenes. There is an impressive soundtrack of an uninterrupted Richard Wagner-style musical concerto throughout.

"Hell's Angels" (1930) - the prestigious production of billionaire Howard Hughes, the personality who is identified with the entire period, as a film producer and aircraft manufacturer. In the biographical film about him, "The Pilot" (2004) by Martin Scorsese, the individual and capitalist dimension of his character is shown, which is typical of American culture, which presented the character of the pilot in parallel to the character of the wild west hero. The plot of "Hell's Angels" is about two friends who fight as fighter pilots against the Germans, sharing love with the same girl. Long flight scenes show the bombing by airships and bombers, alongside classic air battles between fighter planes, featuring dozens of real planes. It was filmed several times, in part due to the transition to the sound film, which occurred during its production. Despite the lengthening of production and the increase in expenses it became profitable.

"Dawn Patrol" (1938) - a film that is unique in that the emphasis is not on the romantic and chivalrous pilot character, but on the many sacrifices demanded by the air front. The stars of the film, in the roles of senior pilots, were David Niven and Errol Flynn. The argument between them in the film about the necessity of sacrifice has a meaning that goes beyond the scope of the film: the pilots, as the superheroes of the skies, also have the highest moral authority to decide the fate of the tasks assigned to them.

The film industry was, from the beginning, an important source of employment for Air Force personnel around the world, after being discharged from military service. They have been integrated into this industry in all fields and levels. Film actors with civilian pilot licenses have joined the ranks of Hollywood Studios' star gallery. Well-known examples of superstars combining pilots activity are: Jimmy Stewart, Chuck Norris, Clint Eastwood, John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford. Their flying hobby has helped cultivate a brilliant, long-lasting and stable film career of leading protagonists roles.

Aviation and Sixties Culture

After World War II, public enthusiasm for flying in the United States helped create excessive expectations of the air force among its many supporters. Articles in the popular press praised the future guaranteed by American air supremacy. Senior military figures, radio-TV anchors, popular comic book characters like Steve Canyon and movie stars like Jimmy Stewart, played key roles in the evolving campaign. Hollywood films have provided the public imagination with moving images that have confirmed what has become the accepted wisdom: that America's security against the Soviet threat can best be guaranteed using air power, along with nuclear capability.

At the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century, humanity began to break through the boundaries of the earth towards outer space, thereby changing the worldview of humankind. In the international arena, there was a significant escalation in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, as part of the "balance of terror" of intercontinental missiles carrying atomic warheads. At the same time, a civilian space race was held, beginning with the launch of the "Sputnik" into space by the USSR and culminating in the Apollo 11 spacecraft from the United States, in which the first man landed on the moon.

Most of the manned spacecraft pilots, for example Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong, came from a fighter pilot background. In this way, the important place in the media occupied by the fighter pilot was naturally filled by the spacecraft pilot after World War II. The missile and the spacecraft became a major theme of "The Electronic Tribal Fire," which is a popular nickname for the television with the few channels of the period.

It was a period dominated by a limited number of secret politicians and generals, in which the fear of an atomic surprise war was a tangible fear that was also reflected in the horror science fiction films of the period and the ''Film Noir'' genre. The sense of irrationality of the arms race has spread among young people in every corner of the globe. It created the postmodern society, which is based on alienation, despair and skepticism towards the establishment, while at the same time relying only on the self and the search for an alternative culture.

The Vietnam War was a clear hallmark of the period. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans were sent to a country in Southeast Asia to fight for a corrupt regime and many of these young people sacrificed their lives there. The war took place while it was known in advance, as early as the early 1960s, that it could not be defeated in the way it was conducted. The war was waged in a limited way by the United States, without full military force, with extensive use of aircraft and without success in the ground. The Americans used helicopters to transport forces, carried out field attacks using fighter jets and carried out strategic bombings using heavy bombers. A new central battlefield was the aircraft against the surface-to-air missiles, in which for the first time secret unmanned aircraft were also used extensively.

As the Cold War and the Vietnam War continued, criticism about the connection between aviation, government and the media began to appear in film and television. The images of heroism and patriotism have been replaced by satire, with films such as "Dr. Strangelove" (1964), "Catch 22" (1970) and the TV series "MASH".

Most of all the 1960s decade is remembered  thanks to the permissive youth culture that developed in North America and Europe, also known as the "Flower Children" culture. This culture, pacifist and anti-capitalist, rejected the values ​​of the parent generation and publicity. The "Sixties" became a term used to describe the counterculture and the revolution in social norms in dress, music, drugs, art, social customs, feminism and more, which characterized the decade and their considerable influence continues to this day.

One of the manifestations of the youth protests in the Sixties was the independent cinema, created outside the big studios, which were perceived as part of the outdated political system. These studios at the time created low-quality commercial films. A new generation of creators aspired to create films that will express their world. Their skills brought them to Hollywood and they changed the method in it. Independent cinema began to penetrate the heart of corporate Hollywood, creating the "new Hollywood," through directors like Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola, Brian de Palma, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg and others.

George Lucas, an aviation film buff, belonged to this group of creators. He, too, was given relative freedom of action to create his original cinematic works, which were popular and profitable.

In 1976, the United States celebrated the 200th anniversary of its independence. At the time, Lucas conceived the ''Star Wars'' film series, which offered, starting in 1977, a compromising cinematic alternative in the field of aerospace and aviation.

Nazi pilot and filmmaker Hans Bertram

Hans Bertram is the third in the Nazi regime, after Ernest Udet and Carl Ritter, who combined a career as a fighter pilot with a film career. Bertram was born in 1906 in Germany. In the early 1920s he learned to fly and became a professional pilot. From 1927 he was an aviation consultant to the Chinese government and was involved in the establishment of its maritime aviation service.

"Flight to Hell" Adventure - In April 1928, about a year after Charles Lindbergh's historic flight from New York to Paris, a German Yonkers W-33 sea plane crossed the Atlantic Ocean from east to west for the first time and the German pilots recieved a victory parade in New York. A few weeks later, elections were held in Germany, in which the Nazi Party won, for the first time, 12 seats in parliament.

About four years later, on February 29, 1932, pilot Hans Bertram and mechanic Adolf Klausmann set out from the German city of Cologne to fly around the world on the same airplane model. For about ten weeks they successfully flew east. On 15 May 1932, they left Timur, with the aim of making the first overnight flight to Australia. They made a mistake in navigating, landing hundreds of miles west of their original destination. They also made a mistake on their way back, moving even further away from civilization. They struggled to survive in various ways and were eventually rescued after 52 days, forty of them without food. The search for them made headlines in the international press of the time.

After recovering, Bertram returned to the airplane, continued on a flight across Australia and from there returned flying it to Germany. Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, and established his rule until about Easter 1933, the date on which Bertram landed back in Berlin, where he was welcomed as a hero.

Bertram wrote his experiences in a book called "Flight to Hell," which became a bestseller with millions of copies and is been sold successfully even today. The name of the book is reminiscent of Howard Hughes' movie ''Hell's Angels" (1930). In 1987 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced a mini-series based on the book.

In 1934, Bertram joined the Nazi Party, writing screenplays and directing films. At the same time he continued to serve as a Luftwaffe pilot.

Overseas Adventure Films - Documentary travel films were a popular genre in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Apparently it was a genre that documents an authentic journey abroad to obtain scientific information. The hero in these films is a lone wolf, often a pilot, who fight bravely to document with the camera invaluable scientific information. In fact, his expedition presented the fighting values ​​of strength, determination and sacrifice. He fought to bring valuable treasures to the homeland. Using the camera in analogy to the pstol, the filmmaker captured potential areas for the new living space.

In addition to documentaries, feature films whose themes are adventures abroad were a vital part of all the movie genres prevalent in Nazi Germany. They provided the audience with a sense of partnership on research trips to faraway lands, along with a partnership in building the empire, without having to leave home. These films accounted for about 10 percent of all films produced in 1933, and close to 20 percent in 1939. These films dealt with fundamental questions of society, including: the attitude of the Aryan race towards others, the sense of community and loyalty to its members, the need for resources, building a German home in a distant land, dealing with sexuality in a women-free environment and more. Their common combination of a strong sense of realism and propaganda, along with a tragic ending, established the "Heimat" emotion, the longing for the pure German home. They justified the Germans sense of ownership of land in the "living space".

"Women to the Golden Mountain" (1938), for which Hans Bertram wrote the script, was a typical overseas adventure film. The film is about a group of gold miners on a remote mountain in Australia, who invite wives by mail. The women adapt well, but a heart-to-heart fight creates a confrontation between two men, which ends in the killing of one of them by his friend, who is a former pilot. The pilot flees the scene, but returns with an airplane to locate his friends, after the state lost contact with them following a sandstorm.

Hans Bertram's Aviation Films - Bertram's work in the adventures  genre formed the basis for his subsequent war films, which dealt with the lives of young pilots, from the beginning of their training at the Luftwaffe until their participation in the war. The films feature young members of the Nazi party, who face distance from home, and demonstrate their independence and skills, along with their masculinity.

"Baptism of Fire'' (1940) is a documentary by Hans Bertram. The film shows precisely how the Luftwaffe destroys Polish communications facilities and airfields and provides close air support to ground forces in their rapid movement. The announcer tells viewers that "the young Luftwaffe is ready to fight and destroy like a sword in the sky, ready for battle, determined for war and will destroy anyone who tries to sabotage peace in Europe." The film ends with Goering's speech: ''These very impressive pictures bring home, to the German people, the great impact of the campaign in Poland and especially the part of our Luftwaffe, who has carried out combat missions for future generations. We owe to the Luftwaffe, in particular, the contribution to the defeat and destruction of the enemy… ''. "Baptism of Fire" was very effective as intimidation propaganda and was screened at German embassies across Europe, in front of a local invited audience.

''D III 88'' (1939) is a war-propaganda aviation film by Bertram, whose plot deals with two fellow pilots in a seaplanes squadron, who compete with each other in the air and are suspended from flying. They nevertheless embark on an emergency flight in which they manage to discover the enemy fleet, but land in the sea and their plane capsizes. To look for them, the veteran squadron sergeant leaves, in a fighter airplane left over from the First World War, whose serial number is the name of the film. The aviation myth is particularly prominent in this scenes. A halo of mystical fog surrounds the ancient plane, which is stored in a separate hangar as a museum item. On the wall hang pictures of the pilots who flew in it and died. A long flashback scene describe the plane's last flight. The plane was kept intact thanks to its pilot, who became a "sacrificing savior". The film was a huge success and was recommended by the Nazi critics.

"Bombers Wing Lutzau" (1941) is a Nazi war and propaganda film by Bertram. The film is popular sequel to "D III 88", with the same participants. The plot deals with life long airplanes crews career, during the First World War, the Spanish Civil War and their experiences in a time of peace. They have to prove themselves during the attack on Poland and then the wing performs missions on the Western Front and against England.

During 1941, Hans Bertram's fighter airplane was shot down in Libya. He was captured and sent, apparently, to a POW camp in Australia.

In all, Bertram wrote the screenplays for 10 films completed between 1938 and 1985 and directed six films. In the early 1950s he set up an aerial photography company in Germany. He died in 1993 in Munich.