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Love Letters: The Heroic
After watching Nolan's Dunkirk it seemed to me that this was England sending a love-letter to itself (or rather an Englishman sending a love letter to England). Upon reflection, it seemed to me that many war movies are love letters. Saving Private Ryan is a love letter America sent to itself. Panfilov's 28 is Russia sending a love letter to herself.
These films, although showing the horrors of war, are still nationalistic, and speak to cultural virtues and the "people" (as a national "race") doing the fighting. Dunkirk, for example, shows us very British people with a stiff upper lip, doing their part to bring their boys home. Saving Private Ryan, could be served with a piece of apple pie.
The Germans, of course, are forever cast as the villain (that's the price you pay for losing two world wars and for the Holocaust), but Das Boot, at least, attempts to redeem the "common soldier" and is noteworthy as one of the very few films in which Germans are the protagonists.
Dirty Letters: The Pornography of Tragedy.
War is hell and boy are these films going to tell you about it! The whole genre of Vietnam guilt films fit in here: Hamburger Hill, Platoon, The Boys in Company C, Full Metal Jacket, etc.
Film, however, must also entertain and as a visual medium it must be appealing to the eye, so the best of these films make the most disgusting aspects of war beautiful. Thus, there is the notion that there is no such thing as an anti-war film, because film makes everything seem beautiful.
Honestly, however, the audience knows what they're doing. They know what they want (it's the same reason why people rubber neck at accident scenes slowing down traffic, it's why LiveLeak exists, it's why the Romans had gladiator pits, it's why public hangings were popularly attended as entertainment for centuries). The official "tragedy" of war (War is hell! I feel so bad! Why do we war?!?! Those poor souls) presented in those movies is, in part, a fig-leaf for the pleasure the audience takes in seeing people blown into tiny bits (KABOOM! They got Roy!). It's kind of like when people used to say that they read Playboy for the articles or when people caught with porn claim it was "research" (e.g., Pete Townsend). So, let's not just blame it on the medium.
And then there's Mel Gibson. Mel managed to make Jesus into torture porn, so of course, his American lover letter We Were Soldiers would also be a dirty letter (complete with images of people with their faces burned off patriotically stating that they were glad they could die for their country). In fairness, I think that it is historically accurate, but Mel just has that extra touch.
Is this all the potential that the "serious" war movie has? Is it just nationalism and/or giddy "Oh Dear! Show me more..." anti-war messaging?
After watching Nolan's Dunkirk it seemed to me that this was England sending a love-letter to itself (or rather an Englishman sending a love letter to England). Upon reflection, it seemed to me that many war movies are love letters. Saving Private Ryan is a love letter America sent to itself. Panfilov's 28 is Russia sending a love letter to herself.
These films, although showing the horrors of war, are still nationalistic, and speak to cultural virtues and the "people" (as a national "race") doing the fighting. Dunkirk, for example, shows us very British people with a stiff upper lip, doing their part to bring their boys home. Saving Private Ryan, could be served with a piece of apple pie.
The Germans, of course, are forever cast as the villain (that's the price you pay for losing two world wars and for the Holocaust), but Das Boot, at least, attempts to redeem the "common soldier" and is noteworthy as one of the very few films in which Germans are the protagonists.
Dirty Letters: The Pornography of Tragedy.
War is hell and boy are these films going to tell you about it! The whole genre of Vietnam guilt films fit in here: Hamburger Hill, Platoon, The Boys in Company C, Full Metal Jacket, etc.
Film, however, must also entertain and as a visual medium it must be appealing to the eye, so the best of these films make the most disgusting aspects of war beautiful. Thus, there is the notion that there is no such thing as an anti-war film, because film makes everything seem beautiful.
Honestly, however, the audience knows what they're doing. They know what they want (it's the same reason why people rubber neck at accident scenes slowing down traffic, it's why LiveLeak exists, it's why the Romans had gladiator pits, it's why public hangings were popularly attended as entertainment for centuries). The official "tragedy" of war (War is hell! I feel so bad! Why do we war?!?! Those poor souls) presented in those movies is, in part, a fig-leaf for the pleasure the audience takes in seeing people blown into tiny bits (KABOOM! They got Roy!). It's kind of like when people used to say that they read Playboy for the articles or when people caught with porn claim it was "research" (e.g., Pete Townsend). So, let's not just blame it on the medium.
And then there's Mel Gibson. Mel managed to make Jesus into torture porn, so of course, his American lover letter We Were Soldiers would also be a dirty letter (complete with images of people with their faces burned off patriotically stating that they were glad they could die for their country). In fairness, I think that it is historically accurate, but Mel just has that extra touch.
Is this all the potential that the "serious" war movie has? Is it just nationalism and/or giddy "Oh Dear! Show me more..." anti-war messaging?
