Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945). US War Department, Army Pictorial Service. Held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Know Your Enemy: Japan
The companion orientation film on Japan: years in production, repeatedly rewritten, released on 9 August 1945 and pulled from circulation within weeks.
- Year
- 1945
- Made by
- US War Department, Army Pictorial Service
- Directed by
- Frank Capra and Joris Ivens
- Free to use because
- A work of the United States government — no copyright, anywhere
The note
This one is included with its history attached rather than despite it. It went through draft after draft and several directors — Ivens left over its direction — and by the time it was cleared for showing the war it was made for had days left to run. MacArthur suppressed it during the occupation. It is a hard listen and a valuable one: the clearest surviving evidence of what the United States was prepared to say about an enemy population at the very end of the fighting. Public domain.
Know Your Enemy: Japan, 1945. US War Department, Army Pictorial Service. Directed by Frank Capra and Joris Ivens. This is the film’s soundtrack: narration, score and location sound, streamed from the Internet Archive’s master. No picture — the audio is the work. A work of the United States government, and therefore free of copyright anywhere it is used.
The soundtrack