The Town is a short propaganda film produced by the Office of War Information in 1943. The documentary, depicting the American Midwestern city of Madison, Indiana was filmed by Josef von Sternberg in 1943 and released in 1945.
13-419: The Town may refer to: Film and television [ edit ] The Town (1945 film) , a World War II propaganda film The Town (2010 film) , a crime thriller film directed by and starring Ben Affleck The Town (2022 film) , an Iranian drama film The Town (2012 TV series) , a drama written by Mike Bartlett "The Town" (The Simpsons) , episode in
26-593: A city in the United States See also [ edit ] Town (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title The Town . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Town&oldid=1223578330 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
39-547: Is a work of a happy man, reacting without bitterness to a project considerably beneath his own abilities.” Old World The " Old World " ( Latin : Mundus Vetus ) is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas . It is used to contrast the continents of Africa , Europe , and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere , previously thought of by
52-608: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages The Town (1945 film) The Town is a 1943 American documentary film whose subject is the Midwestern town of Madison, Indiana . Endorsed by the United States Office of War Information (OWI), which oversaw propaganda during World War II , the 11-minute film presents Madison “as the model American town where citizens embodied American ideals and values.” Filmed by
65-544: The Terra Australis that had been posited as a hypothetical southern continent. In the context of archaeology and world history , the term "Old World" includes those parts of the world which were in (indirect) cultural contact from the Bronze Age onwards, resulting in the parallel development of the early civilizations , mostly in the temperate zone between roughly the 45th and 25th parallels north, in
78-649: The 28th season Literature [ edit ] The Town (Richter novel) , by Conrad Richter The Town (Faulkner novel) , by William Faulkner The Town (newspaper) , published in London from 1837 to 1840 Other uses [ edit ] The Town (Strindberg) , 1902 painting by August Strindberg "The Town" (The Weeknd song) , from the 2013 album Kiss Land Longford Town F.C. , an Irish association football club The Town FC , an MLS Next Pro soccer team in Moraga, California Oakland, California ,
91-669: The Europeans as comprising the entire world, with the " New World ", a term for the newly encountered lands of the Western Hemisphere , particularly the Americas. While located closer to Afro-Eurasia within the Eastern Hemisphere, Australia is considered neither an Old World nor a New World land, since it was only discovered by the Europeans later. Both Australia and Antarctica were associated instead with
104-427: The acclaimed Hollywood director Josef von Sternberg , the camera showcases the people of Madison – many of whom were European immigrants – in their “public libraries, corner drugstores, schoolhouses and public swimming pools.” The Town was created as part of The American Scene series and “shown overseas to remind troops what they were fighting to preserve and to demonstrate American cultural values to foreigners. It
117-822: The area of the Mediterranean , including North Africa . It also included Mesopotamia , the Persian plateau , the Indian subcontinent , China , and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa . These regions were connected via the Silk Road trade route, and they had a pronounced Iron Age period following the Bronze Age. In cultural terms, the Iron Age was accompanied by the so-called Axial Age , referring to cultural, philosophical and religious developments eventually leading to
130-548: The emergence of the historical Western ( Hellenism , " classical "), Near Eastern ( Zoroastrian and Abrahamic ) and Far Eastern ( Hinduism , Buddhism , Jainism , Sikhism , Confucianism , Taoism ) cultural spheres . The mainland of Afro-Eurasia (excluding islands or island groups such as the British Isles , Japan , Sri Lanka , Madagascar and the Malay Archipelago ) has been referred to as
143-629: The local swimming pool, a courthouse, the portico to a courthouse and the campanile is the Madison Fire Brigade bell-tower.” The citizenry of Madison, some identifiable ethnically as Austrian, Greek, Swedish and French are all active in work and social life. Employing tracking and dissolve shots, Sternberg's camera explores the social institutions in town and country, urban and rural, as well as quiet and secure suburban streets and homes. Commenting on Sternberg's approach to his wartime assignment, film critic John Baxter writes: ”The Town
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#1732772807022156-488: The “progressive social and political ideas of the New World .” Sternberg opens the documentary show-casing “an Italian campanile , a palladian portico , a Renaissance fountain ” as if these were features from a European travelogue. The audience is disabused of that impression when a narrator identifies the structures as the functional and egalitarian architecture of a small Mid-western community: “the fountain belongs to
169-554: Was translated into 32 languages.” The Academy Film Archive preserved The Town in 2012. The film is part of the Academy War Film Collection, one of the largest collections of World War II era short films held outside government archives. Sternberg's portrait of Madison, Indiana in the sun-drenched summer of 1943 serves to artistically unite the Old World influences brought by European immigrants with
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