ABSTRACT
Any analysis of Swiss Newsreel in 1945 will have to take into account the publication by Bernard Gasser entitled Cine-Journal Suisse: Aperçu historique (1923-1945) et analyse de tous les numéros de 1945 published by the Cinematheque Suisse in Lausanne in 1978. During the war years, a lot could be seen and heard between the lines and behind the pictures which must, under critical analysis, be regarded as ‘sticking one’s neck out’. The most popular sport, seemingly, was soccer. The pictorial quality of CJS in 1945 is excellent, if excellence means carefully composed and framed images, a steady hand (more often than not a tripod), and a sense for the ‘high quality beautifully framed picture’. CJS in 1945 had become a medium of conciliation, an appeal for understanding and humanitarian attitudes and actions. Very little of Guisan’s spirit had penetrated the prime instrument of ‘spiritual defence’ in Switzerland.
