The importance of the film "Pour Le Merite"

Several films, adapted to guide viewers on certain topics, were commissioned by the Nazi state before the outbreak of the war. The most important in this category was the "Zeitfilm" style aviation film created by Carl Ritter: "Pour Le Merite" (1938), [Pour Le Merite - for excellence], named after the highest decoration of heroism in Imperial Germany.

"Pour Le Merite" was a founding cultural event, in which, as a matter of fact, all of German history was rewritten, from the end of the First World War until Hitler came to power, in a manner consistent with Nazi ideology. The film deals with a group of former fighter pilots, who according to prominent biographical characteristics are from the flying circus, headed by the commander of the Squadron, whose character is modeled on the biography of Herman Goering.

Goering' name in the film is Frank. He leads his men after the war to revolt against the ruling regime of Democrat Weimar, whom he publicly despises. Out of the hardships of existence the pilots join the small Nazi party. Their struggle is successful, Hitler comes to power, and at the end they see the new German Air Force, which they command.

The film depicts "civil politics as a continuation of the war in other ways" and scenes of violations of the law are presented in it as inevitable, due to the rule of the corrupt left.

The film was described as "the purest Nazi film". At its premiere in Berlin in December 1938, Hitler watched with Carl Ritter by his side, Goering and Goebbels, and outside the cinema hall stood a guard of honor of veterans. Apart from the great box office success, the film was also recommended for viewing by young people, and was watched by millions of teenagers as part of the compulsory screenings held for "Hitler Youth".

Carl Ritter was Adolf Hitler's personal favorite. He congratulated him publicly, describing the film as "a great success, the best film in history so far." The commander of the SS Heinrich Himmler congratulated Carl Ritter on his achievements in the film with warm words. He complimented him on his ability to portray living and believable figures and on reenacting the period before the Nazis came to power, in which Germany was humiliated.

Even outside of Germany, "Pour Le Merite" was considered a great success. An American film critic noted that although non-Nazi audiences would be more interested in the first half, "it is exceptionally made."

The film is based in part on the true experiences of the "Flying Circus" pilots at the end of World War I and after. It begins in the last months of the war in 1918 and in the first half include exciting aerial battle scenes. The euphoria is at its peak and is displayed, among other things, in the festive hospitality of a captive British pilot, who escapes because he is not guarded. 

Later, in preparation for the surrender of Germany, the feelings of disintegration, failure, disappointment and anger are expanded. After the ceasefire, the commander and some of the pilots, all with the prestigious Medal, refuse to hand over their planes to the Allies and burn them, in the midst of the end-of-war celebrations, in a series of dramatic scenes that take place in the middle of the film.

The second half begins with the failed attempts of the squadron commander, Frank, to integrate into the capitalist economy of the Weimar Republic, which is controlled by the occupation authorities. The British pilot who escaped is one of the new regime's heads, where military skills are of no value. This section includes long scenes of Frank's meetings with various businessmen in restaurants and offices, each time his business initiative fails more and he is less suited to the economic reality. Various attempts to rehabilitate German aviation through the gliding sport have been only partially successful, given the obstacles posed by the government. The group continues to meet during the Weimar period and the veterans' fraternity is preserved. They become members of the Nazi party.

The pilots gather at a lone farmhouse of one of them, around a single fighter plane hidden in a barn. The plane is discovered and communist militia forces are sent to take it. In the ensuing battle some of them are killed. The pilots are arrested and on trial. Squadron Commander Frank tells the judge, in a central scene: ''I'm not interested in this country, because I hate democracy like a plague. Whatever you want to do I will avoid, as much as I could. We must establish Germany on its feet, a Germany that will meet the demands of the combatant soldiers."

In the last part of the film, Frank escapes from prison through his friends and escapes abroad. He returns after the Nazis come to power, meets on the harbor wharf his old friends, who have already received senior military ranks. At he end, he is welcomed with royal honor, in front of an endless line of fighter planes. In fact the scene recreates the return of Hermann Goering to Germany, having fled from it to Sweden following the failed putsch in the beer cellar. The scene is combined with a 1935 documentary-like segment: Nazi flags are hoisted in the streets, and the crowd hears over the loudspeaker the re-armament speech of Germany. Later, the crowd gathers in the square at the foot of the monument in memory of the soldiers who fell in the war. The picture is replaced by a dramatic announcement by a veteran pilot, standing on the wing of a plane at an airfield, about the re-establishment of the Luftwaffe.

This last scene in the film is the most cinematically impressive. The scene is initially constructed from a preliminary abstract avant-garde, in which the protagonist is seen up close against the backdrop of the body of the ship that unloads him in port. There he is received by his only friends, who take him to the squadron, over which he receives re-command. In the process, the cinematic image develops and becomes broad, rich in details, realistic and even symbolic. At its peak there is a display of dozens of fighter planes in a straight line to the horizon. At the same time, this lengthy scene incorporates footage of the enthusiastic crowd in the streets.

Ernest Udet, whose public status was far more prominent than that of Herman Goering during the Weimar Republic, appears in an important supporting role. His name in the film is Fabian, and comedic romantic scenes starring him make up the first quarter of the film. In other sections, in the middle of the film, he represents the one who managed to get by in spite of everything, and sets up a small aircraft factory. At the end of the film he happily integrates into the new regime. All excerpts are based on details from his familiar biography, thus further establishing the film's authentic value.

"Pour Le Merite" presents the Luftwaffe as the legitimate successor of the Imperial Air Force, leaning on the heroic status of the air heroes of the First World War, They are founders of the new and powerful Air Force, which was established despite the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. The gneral symbolic value of the airplane and the pilot is demonstrated from the opening exposition scene to the very last moment. 

The film attacks the Jews, but does so in a moderate way, in a short segment that shows Frank's failure in business. The Communists are greater enemies, and a considerable part is of confrontations with them. The greatest enemy is the new German democracy, which has ignored the needs of war veterans. The film highlights the warrior hero, not as a mythical archetype but as a modern flesh-and-blood folk character, whose embodiment as a superhero involves the achievements of the entire nation.

Nazi cinema in "Zeitfilm" style

Joseph Goebbels' call to create revolutionary films with an artistic touch, rather than blatant propaganda, was not understood in the early years. Nevertheless, three "Potumkin"-style films were made, about the period of the struggle for power. The best known of these is the "Hitler's Youth Quacks" (1935), which had a huge success and influence. After the removal of the "brown shirts" from the party, these "Savior Victim" films became irrelevant. The familiar and cumbersome "popular cinema" was not a solution either. It was obligatory to invent something new.

In the professional press, a discussion was held in 1936 on the subject, in which "cinematic avant-garde" was not a derogatory word, in contrast to the other branches of art. The German filmmakers in this abstract style, who were inspired by Futurism and Dada, won great and sympathetic articles. The first sequel was Karl Junghans' documentary about the Winter Olympics in Germany in 1936. It was an avant-garde style film, which was supported by Junghans in an article in which he presented it as representing the "new and modern time". He argued that the clear cinematic language of "Potumkin", with its montages and cutting-edge camera, should be distinguished from the amorphous content presented by faceless masses. Goebbels' demand thus became a criterion. The avant-garde has transformed from art to its name into a modernist tool in the service of murderous rule.

The question now was how to assimilate the artistic criteria of the cinematic avant-garde, having been detached from Soviet bluntness, into National Socialist content. Here Lenny Riefenstahl first provided the creative answer. In her documentary films about the Nazi regime's shows, she combined camera, music, and montage as key and original elements. Riefenstahl preferred sharp shooting angles inspired by "mountain movies". She did "creative research" on the characters using many cameras. She created a dramatic edit and attached all of these to dramatic music. In this way she was able to present mass experiences in a creative way, in the totalitarian regime where every work of art had to have a purpose. This created an original German style, which became known as the "Heroic Reportage". This style was adopted for widespread use in Nazi Germany thanks to its modernity, surprising ability, and visual totality.

The shortage of original feature films, those that portrayed the life of the German laborer as dynamic and satisfying, was even more pronounced. Airman Carl Ritter was the first to fill in the blanks, in a style he called "Zeitfilm". This was in fact Riefenstahl's style, with a plot-propaganda content, inspired by a well-developed artistic sense and strict order, which were his artistic hallmark. Ritter has created feature films in various genres, which have given him the opportunity to systematically shape his modernist artistic message, while at the same time extensively developing the nationalist and propaganda message.

During World War II, the "Zeitfilm" films came to fruition. They presented daily life in Nazi society, but were almost absent from its outward signs, such as salutes. They were also meant for export, and prominent symbols in the background were an obstacle to that. The typical "Zeit [period] film" was certainly required to be used as an alternative to entertainment cinema, but not with the aim of completely replacing it or causing a revolution. It served as an ideological self-affirmation, one that would prove that National Socialism could achieve the same results achieved by Soviet cinema.

Carl Ritter explained the meaning of the term in the lecture "Zeitfilm and Contemporary History", which he gave in Hamburg in September 1936. At the beginning of his speech he sought to give the art of cinema the respect it deserved and to stop treating it as cheap entertainment. The state has already taken this step, when it has organized and nationalized the entire field. He came out as a buffer against the "realist" studio films that were typical of the Weimar period, which were detached from reality, because they superficially characterized the characters, plots, and backdrops. He took an example from Soviet cinema, which managed through real realism to absorb the spirit of the period and excite the audience, because it managed to express a very wide range of human realms. The "Zeitfilm" is mainly a film that makes a cross-section of this time, which create a cinematic report. But there is no need to present criminals in it, but the positive and beautiful, using examples from the classic German street. Cinema in Nazi Germany is a national venture, and is suitable for "Zeitfilm" because it is capable of presenting a quality cross-section of the entire population, culture, and history. Ritter wanted to further create light-hearted entertainment films, which are the bread and butter of the industry, but asked that one in ten films be serious. He claimed that despite their seriousness, the Zeitfilms could be the art of cinema at its best, citing the example of his "Traitor".

"Poetic cinema" is a comprehensive definition, involving the essence of poetry, with many challenges involved. It stands out in its position in relation to the common commercial-entertainment film and characterizes films with a significant statement, created by "Authors". As a rule, the artistic film does not stand in binary contrast to Hollywood cinema, but is placed in a different place across the continuum. An important question is whether "Zeitfilm" is close to poetic cinema. The answer is that the main characteristic of poetic cinema is the ability to understand something from something. In poetic cinema, lyrical expression is a challenge to viewers, existing in the tension between the two basic modes of cinema: realism and formalism, in which all cinema films are located. On one side of the continuum are the documentary and neo-realistic cinema, which are easy for average viewers to understand, as they has no visual surprises that stop the full narrative move. On the other side of this sequence is expressionist, artistic and surrealist cinema, also known as "formal" or "poetic", which uses "open images" that can be interpreted and are intended for elite audience. At the center of the sequence is the "classic" cinema, in which all the elements are intended to serve the plot, with the clear aim of not attracting the viewer's attention to anything else. The "Zeitsfilm" cinema lacks open images and all the elements in it are intended to serve the ideological purpose. It is a classic cinema, designed for a wide audience and all the elements in it, like directing, photography, music, acting, editing, set design and the like, serve the plot narrative.

 

Aviation and photogenicity in Nazi cinema and Carl Ritter films

The Journey film was a popular genre in the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich. Apparently it was a documentary genre, documenting an authentic journey abroad to obtain scientific information. The documentary filmmaker was described as a lone wolf, often a pilot, who fought heroically to document invaluable scientific information. His expedition presented the fighting values ​​of strength, determination and sacrifice. He fought to bring valuable treasures to the homeland. Using the camera lens as his weapon, the filmmaker captured potential areas for the new living space.

Nazi aerial propaganda began in earnest in the short film "Freedom Day", which was a complement to the film "Triumph of the Will" about the party conference in Nuremberg. Lenny Riefenstahl also made this film, which celebrated the re-armament program, which was announced in March 1935. The film, intended for military personnel who remained dissatisfied with the "civilian" film, deals with the military demonstration that took place at the end of the civilian conference and the concept of the fast war. The Air Force and Air Defense are given central screen time and the film ends with a plane formation in the swastika formation.

Propaganda was strengthened in the cinematic news diaries of the period. One news diary from 1936 revealed the types of aircraft in the corps. The most interesting sections deal with bombers. The background music is threatening and you see bombers loading bombs. A bomber structure maneuvers, and they all hit their targets on the first try. The film ends in a mass flight, then the announcer announces: "The German Air Force is strong and proud, ready to maintain German peace and protect the land of the ancestors."

The cumulative image was strong enough to arouse widespread fear in other countries, enabling Hitler to use the Luftwaffe threat as a political weapon in his foreign policy in the late 1930s. Air operations during the Spanish Civil War, and in particular the attack on Guernica, which was widely covered in film diaries, confirmed the power of the Luftwaffe and the threat it posed.

The Nazis accepted from Italian Futurism the adherence to technology and speed, but refused to accept the abstract style by which Italian artists expressed these values. The Nazis disliked abstract art, which in their opinion was "Jewish" and boycotted it. Instead they gradually formulated their own style, which was the empowerment of the neoclassical style prevalent in Europe. 

The style stood out especially in architecture, in the erection of public buildings wit facade of high marble columns. Albert Sapir expands on this in his book "Inside the Third Reich". It depicts the fever of Nazi construction for public buildings in a grandiose-global-imperial style. Hitler closely supervised the redesign of Berlin in this megalomaniacal style. 

But the architects and designers aspired to adapt the style requirements to the everyday reality as much as they could. As a way to integrate the classic line into the modern reality of life, where technological design demanded more modern lines, Nazi designers also developed a style with cleaner, simpler and more versatile lines, called the "passenger ships" style.

The airplane in Carl Ritter's films was part of that design concept. According to the formalist conception, photogenicity, which is the aesthetic quality conferred on photographed objects, is a consequence of how the object is presented with the film's means of expression and does not depend on the object's essence or its hidden qualities. Photogenicity evokes the emotional, aesthetic mode of cognition that allows for direct knowledge of the world. The photogenicity in the film evokes the emotional consciousness, from its appeal to the visual sense through the movement in space and time, which is taken for granted.

The airplane is a key photogenic element in the cinematic expression in Ritter's films. The most impressive photographic expression is of the aircraft at close range and in particular of the front part which includes the propeller, hood, wings and cockpit. These parts are always photographed from the low upward point of view, which worships the object. The ground crew takes care, while demonstrating expertise and avoiding the impact of the propeller. They prepare the aircraft for the flight, with the pilot arriving after everything is ready and handing out the orders for takeoff.

A clear example is the movie "Traitor" which is apparently not even defined as aviation flm. Many scenes in it are focused on airplanes. The opening scene, for example, in which the spy is given one last briefing before entering the factory, ends with a flight of three airplanes passing over, as if to warn him. Another important scene, in the middle of the film, is the one where the spy sits on a plane, photographed from the front from the ground at an upward angle, with the propeller actually above the camera, to show that the airplane is an independent force entity dictated by reality and human destiny. The climax of the film is a multi-participant aerial chase after the spy who escapes on a plane he stole. Numerous and sharp photographic passages are repeated between the close-up of the pilot figure, the sight of the plane, the large ground crew, and the distant landscape.

The ground crew is a large and complex ground-based human system, which envelops the limited air crew, and is also featured prominently in Ritter's aviation films, as part of an entire complex that forms the new Germany. This system includes the masses of professonal jobs holders in the various professions at the airfield,in aviation, technical and logistics wings. In this complex, whose economic and social possibilities are virtually endless, any person who is willing to dedicate himself to the new order is able to find his place. Several scenes in Ritter films deal with the moments of tension in which the radio contact with the plane is lost and the ground headquarters tries to locate it. The headquarters include ground crews for radio, maps, meteorology, udjutancy, medicine, firefighting and the like. They all work in perfect coordination and timing. Just as the plane is the embodiment of the new German man, the airport crew is the embodiment of the new German society.

In the third circle, after the airplane and the airfield, is the home front, which is prepared for a borderless war. In this circle are the loved ones of the pilots and in particular their loved ones who are waiting for them while they work in the hospitals, or are recruited for one position or another. Significant civic activities, such as concerts and performances, are also designed to support the front. In all of Ritter films there are sharp transitions between dramatic war scenes that take place at the front and romantic and amusing scenes that take place at the rear, in many cases between wounded airmen to the female staff at a hospital. Ritter, therefore, found a perfect format for designing his films according to aviation formalism and semiotics, using the airplane and the human apparatus that surrounds it.

Ritter developed, step by step, the myth of the airplane and the pilot, in a series of five aviation films he created between the years 1936-1943: "Traitor" (1936), "The War on the Enemy of the World" (1937), "Pour Le Merite" '(1938),' 'Shtukas' '(1941),' 'The Dora Crew' ' (1943). In most of these films he served as screenwriter, director and producer.

The real star of the movie "Traitor" is the airplane. The plot takes place in a state-of-the-art airplanes factory into which a spy penetrates. The complex technological processes of aircraft manufacturing are described in various scenes. They are accompanied by test flights and finally a dramatic aerial pursuit of a spy who escaped with a plane.

The movie "War on the Enemy of the World" established the plane as an excellent photogenic show piece in the movies. This is a documentary about the actions of the "Condor Legion", the unit of airplanes sent by the Nazis to fight in the Spanish Civil War. This film also has a feature film sequel.

In the film "Pour Le Merite", Carl Ritter portrays the fighter pilot, according to the fascist ideology of Ernest Junger. The pilot is not a mythical hero, but a popular soldier who is forged in the war and returns sober to the democratic civilian world, with the aim of establishing a new order in it. The film is based on the biographies of Herman Goering, Ernest Udet and their comarades in the "The Flying Circus". It depicts Hitler's rise to power through their eyes and includes many aerial scenes. The film became a founding cultural and political event in Nazy Germany.

"Shtukas" tells the story of a two-seater attack squadron that played a major role in the fast wars at Poland and France. The motif of the archetypal pair is prominent and central. Carl Ritter has created in "Shtukas" various scenes of a pair of fighters in the air, who collaborate back to back in many ways, thus establishing the ideal binary pair in terms of fascist ideology.

"The Dora Crew" is the story of a reconnaissance aircraft crew and is considered a sequel to "Shtukas". The plot is about four crew members, who travel to Berlin to receive their airplane and meet in their girfriends, in what becomes a romantic entanglement. Using intelligent use of the "quartet" archetype, Ritter manages to express a need for order and organization, which is equivalent to the four compas directions. A wrist watch received by one of the girls appears occasionally in close-ups. In analogy to the watch, the team mobilize between the fronts in the north, south, east and west. The film's core is the sharp transition from dramatic war scenes to amusing urban scenes.

Nationalist propaganda in Nazi cinema

 

At the end of World War II it became clear that the influence of Nazi propaganda was very great. The process of de-Nazification in Germany was virtually impossible. So great was the power of propaganda and especially that of the movies. For the young people the films were the most effective tool. Nazism relied on youth's love of cinema and created an organized network that captured it. After coming to power, propaganda films were the most important tools for establishing these achievements. A major demand of educators was for more war propaganda films with heroes.

There is debate as to how much impact cinematic films have on the general public and in particular how effective investment in propaganda films is. The answer to the question is simple: the number of viewers. The number of viewers is a crucial testament to success and influence. Ritter's movies have been watched by tens of millions of viewers and there is no better proof than that of the extent of their impact.

Karl Ritter was the talented, uncompromising and unscrupulous Nazi campaigner who best suited the task of shaping the Hitler Youth. Ritter won praise from the leadership of the young Hitler and the SS As a "dear friend, soldier and political artist, and a true Nazi". He made films that became "compulsory screenings" and influenced millions of young Germans. He was a personal friend of Adolf Hitler, and the favorite Nazi director. Ritter summed up his philosophy about his films as follows: "My films deal with the insignificance of the individual… Everything that is personal must disappear for the sake of the goal."

In the list of the ten films that most influenced Nazi German youth, there are two of Ritter's films, after epic historical films such as "Bismarck". Before becoming a director, Karl Ritter was a producer at UFA, including of the film "Hitler's youth Quacks" (1933), directed by Hans Steinhof. The film deals with the death of a boy who belonged to "Hitler's Youth" at the hands of the Communists and is based on a real case. The film became the No. 1 propaganda piece of the Nazi regime, influencing millions of young Germans to join the party. Despite this, it is not clear in the film who the Nazis are and who their enemies are. They all look like Germans who are similar to each other. The prominence of the values ​​of the Nazi regime, which are mainly order and cleanliness, in the face of consistent disregard for the Communists, is what makes the film effective as a propaganda tool.

The Nazis functioned as a modern corporation running a brand, which was the key to their success in shaping German public opinion. The Nazis understood the power of the brand, and used it to create a parallel universe of images and symbols. The outer layer of this brand were: Hitler himself and his image, the pressure for solidarity, the declaration of a modern utopia with an antique garnet, and the creation of an existential threat to the German way of life. But beneath all of these were marketing principles like targeting and segmentation, and a comprehensive insight into the concept of design and packaging. Beyond that the regime was anchored in a kind of banality of normalcy and it seemed, on many levels, like a normal Western society. This element became more credible by promoting a vigorous consumer culture. In many ways the Nazis were ahead of their time, dominating political marketing arts like spins and speedy denials. 

UFA studios were prominent, by their ''stars system'', in that approached and dictated the consumption culture. The company became known for its designed productions. The rich scenery, and especially the lavish costumes, were a prominent hallmark of the films produced in it. As an added value to films, UFA studios have also dictated the entire popular culture, similar to the Hollywood film industry at its peak. UFA movie stars have shaped, through careful planning, the tastes, fashion and lifestyle in Germany. UFA has promoted itself and the industry sectors close to it, through the intensive distribution of posters, advertisements, newsletters, magazines, movie diaries and of course a carefull selection of the content in the movies.

The mainstay of Hitler's propaganda machine in the early years was his rhetorical performances. The show took place, in the early years, up to five times a day, to different audiences. There is a chronological parallel between the elite of Hitler and the entry of the soundtrack into cinema, which took place at that time. It was a period of crisis for the film industry, which found it difficult to adapt to the innovation. The talking Film has created a new cinema, based on a direct speech soundtrack instead of improvised backing music, with such an abundance of dialogues that the films were called "Tokies".

Nazi Germany was not a closed kingdom. Fashions and styles with an international interplay thrived in it and were sometimes adopted by the regime, including an imitation of Hollywood. "Ordinary society" was perpetuated, in the media in all its branches, through an ethos of lightness and openness. The media specialized in everyday issues that are characteristic of the innocent community, and this expertise was strengthened through a constant appeal to social solidarity. The Nazis created their own narrative, through an explanation of their worldview, in which everything was self-evident.

An important part of Nazi propaganda dealt with consumer culture. The Nazis saw it as a means of training the regime. The individual was entitled to strive for property and private goods, as in the whole of the modern Western world. Plenty of brands have been offered to the masses. The Volkswagen car is perhaps the most obvious example. Material culture created an aspiration for social progress and careerism and a regime that relied on providing benefits to loved ones. The consumer culture creates a person who is limited in terms of his ability to contribute to society, since his cognitive skills are not honed. Such a person tends to be very much influenced by publicity and political propaganda and at the same time has a self-focused personality, with a low psychiatric stimulus threshold. UFA led the consumer culture in Nazi Germany through films, stars, and adherence to aesthetic code, which created an imitation model.

The "Icarus complex" was defined by the psychoanalyst Murray, who also analyzed Adolf Hitler's personality for American intelligence. The complex describes a person with an alpha personality, who does not recognize his limitations as a result of mental complexes, which cause an imbalance between his desire to succeed and the ability to achieve goals he has set. Such a person strives for a kind of over compensation. Because of feelings of inferiority, he formulates grandiose aspirations for future achievement. He often exhibits elitism, driven by hubris and detachment from social reality. The massive ego of some celebrities is a type of such distortion, which can be called a malignant ego. They appear as a supernova star, which explodes after shining brightly for a short time. Politicians may demonstrate the same qualities and in extreme cases they have even reached their status thanks to them. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Carl Ritter are historical examples, for which this diagnosis is literally valid.

Myth, formalism and semiotics

Myths are a universal and interesting cultural phenomenon. They have existed since the dawn of civilizations, and probably have the greatest perseverance, similar to the important of religions. Every culture has created mythical images, which suggests that myth is a fundamental component of human expression. Although Western culture is generally defined as scientific and secular, it also includes many active mythical contents. There are many archetypal symbols, which believers believe to have a divine origin. For example, a bird may be the "forerunner", a high place may be the "place of revelation", and a giant tree "the tree of life".

Mythological origins are central to semiotics, which is the professional field of sign language practice - the basis for brand design. In mythological legends anything is possible. This is also the feeling that a marketer of almost any product tries to instill. Marketing is a mix of products, services and ideas. The marketer seeks measurable results, as an answer to every consumer's search for meaning in modern life.

For the semiotician, any simple object may have a symbolic meaning. Such symbols are, for example, Sigmund Freud's cigar, Charlie Chaplin's walking stick, and Michael Jackson's glove. The symbols can be exchanged in the free market. Despite this, they are endowed with a multiplicity of meaning, and what for one person is in the nature of "reality", for the other is in the nature of "imagination". Barter is conducted according to clear rules of the game. The domain of symbols is never higher than the domain of products, and there is always a product attached to the symbol, otherwise the symbol is not valid. The airplane became by the propaganda artists an object of symbolic significance of the highest degree.

Humans live by the stories they hear and experience throughout their lives. These stories are steeped in common symbols and myths, and involve riddles and answers. They showcase the human ethos, and so do the commercials. The cinematic plot is an expression of this. The cinematic or advertising story is multidimensional, and is integrated into a system of matching symbols, resulting from behavior, myth, tradition, and the like, in the lives of viewers and consumers. The purpose is of creating an integrated narrative in all popular culture.

Because the myths express central cultural values, they appear in all media and cultural channels, both mass and elitist. Myths exist in the world of advertising, propaganda and also in the world of films. Cinema is a place where the use of myths is gaining ground, and incorporating myths into feature films is a major phenomenon. The Hollywood studio film is a product that many people share in the production process. Hence, similar to the myth, it turns to as broad a common denominator as possible.

In the twentieth century, as human society became more modern, technological, and complex, so did the need to use myths in popular culture to define the role of each person in the masses. Cinema is a connection between reality and imagination, and offers a space for transition between them. It is a total art, combining many fields of art, and many movie stars have also become role models. Movie heroes belong to the "superhero" category, which is one of the most important archetypes in human culture. They are at the top along with the archetype of the "family" in its extended definition, as a group of people with close ties.

The seismic change in the political structures of post-World War I Europe spawned the fascist movements and regimes, built on the principles of mythical modernity. Mythical modernity was based on an aspiration for advanced technology, using belief and archetypal conditioning for its application, rather than the enlightened mind. The desire for a mythical fascist order developed during the war. The events of the war, the fall of the dynasties and the political upheavals were the most visible result of a rupture in the old order, and gave rise to fascism.

An influential German thinker was Ernest Junger. Junger, the decorated combat soldier who became an influential philosopher of the Nazi movement, clearly recognized the shocks around him, and preached a new civilian reality, taking an example from the war. Junger described the war in hygienic terms: war is an end in itself, it is the ideal existential situation. The war created a new kind of human being, a new race of warriors who adopted an ethos of military masculinity, discipline, power and heroism, and a fusion of man and machine. Civilian life is a continuation of the war in other ways. Technological and political warfare continues in them and with it human forging intensifies.

The clear symbol of mythical totalitarian modernism in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy was the airplane. The linguistic symbols and metaphors associated with aviation discourse, its perception and interpretation, are many, and the sources that can be relied on in this context are very numerous. They include important cultural events, artwork, books, magazines, propaganda products and more. It was not the aviation itself, but its connections, not the pilot himself, but the concepts involved, that were the focus of attention. They served as a means of revolutionary liberation from the burden of the past.

The social agenda, which has been the focus of attention in fascist regimes, is clarified through the narrative of aviation heroes, and through the vision of the new man that fascism has tried to make a reality through an anthropological revolution. The protagonists were models and prototypes that citizens were required to use in order to shape their lives. The norms and values ​​that the media published as embodied in those heroes permeated the social reality and the world was understood according to their register.

The airplane and the pilot were totems, in the fullest sense of the word of icons with archetypal characteristics. They reflected the desire for order, and they were the epitome of modernity. The spiritual reciprocity between fascism and aviation was unequivocal. It has created mythical modernity, as opposed to liberal modernity.

This worldview fits into the formalist film style, in which directors are interested in expressive and subjective re-creation of their experiences of reality, rather than the way others perceive it. In formalist films one can find a high degree of manipulation, a re-design of reality. Formalist cinema tends to emphasize form, technique, and style of expression.

There is a parallel between marketing characters with the goal of becoming celebrities and states marketing, with the goal of making them more attractive in the international community. Specifically, the image of political leaders is the result of intense professional investment, measured by the field of consumer product marketing as brands. Hitler was an icon in the international community, as was Nazi Germany, which became a brand. The state as a brand exists for the purposes of domestic and foreign policy.

Roland Barth, one of the forefathers of semiotics, examined images through the analysis of the messages they contain, in order to know to what extent visual images create an ideological worldview. Key concepts in the analysis are the "signifier" and the "marked". The "signifier" is what we see, hear, feel. "Marked" is the meaning we derive from the signifier. For example, photography is perceived by us as a reality, but it has an ideological and cultural construction. A photograph of a polished soldier of local descent, against the backdrop of the flag of his country's colonial power, reflects his loyalty and identity which may not actually exist.