This was your response to my point:HUH??? I'm just hoping you didn't do Film Studies in college. In any case, check out Propaganda in Nazi Germany for a thoughtful commentary on the role of films, some of them technically brilliant (and DRAMATIC) in shaping the consciousness of the Third Reich.
Now where exactly did I say there was no technical brilliance or drama in propaganda? I didn't understand your answer because it was to a point I never made.
" Anyone who imagines there is no dramatic conflict in truly effective propaganda fails to understand how propaganda works."
When did I say there was no dramatic conflict in truly effective propaganda?
"Of course, there is conflict. It helps the viewers to get over their own misgivings about whatever it is the propagandist wants us to buy into."
You've invented a straw man and then claimed I didn't understand your answer. I understood it just fine. You just didn't understand my original point and so you made up a point so you could push your uninformed views on film.
Maybe you should approach a serious post with a careful reading before you start with the snide cracks about "film school: with someone who knows more about film that you ever will. Posting a link to someone else's writing about propaganda so you can pose as someone who knows something about a subject will only get you laughed at. Inventing strawmen as you have just makes you look like a fool looking for a fight, and stepping in it when you try to show up someone who's actually worked with film, sparky ;).
Here is where you said it, back in post #10:
But judge it as a movie, not as a pro-euthanasia screed, because if it were that there would be no drama in the decision--if he's doing something the movie's point of view says is a good, right thing, why is it shown as a dramatic decision?Perhaps you didn't mean what you said, but that is in fact what you said, not some "straw man" I concocted to put down a distinguished film critic like yourself.