John Beal

Frank Capra's companion piece to the "Why We Fight" series, produced for the War Department to orient troops headed for the Pacific. Joris Ivens began the film; Capra finished it, building a portrait of Japanese history and militarism out of captured Japanese footage — including material taken from Japan's own propaganda — before the surrender made it obsolete. It was withheld until 1977, and its portrayal of an entire people is both historically revealing and deeply of its moment. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the film is in the public domain.

War · Documentary