Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay [NOTE: Follow the link here to read “Part One” of this blog.]
The “Not Pro-War” Film Before addressing some films that I think both attempted to answer this question and provide an adequately or greatly satisfying answer, I will discuss some movies that make the attempt but (perhaps) fail to stick the landing. To begin with the first of several book adaptations for today, the film that perhaps kicked off both the modern war genre and the “anti-war” genre: the 1930 adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel All Quiet on the Western Front. In the words of Remarque (and, in my opinion, the film), the story of Paul Bäumer and Second Company is that of a generation that had been “destroyed by war, even though it might have escaped its shells.” For sure, the “Great War” remains one of the most enticing subjects for filmmakers who care to examine the paradoxical nature of war (if not one of the most lucrative ones). Both Remarque’s source material and the 1930 cinematic masterpiece directed by Lewis Milestone excel at bringing to light the absurd hyper-nationalism plaguing Europe in the early 1900s which led to one of the deadliest military conflicts in human history. You may have noticed that I am praising All Quiet on the Western Front, but have pre-emptively characterized it as not wholly embracing an “anti-war” mantra. To be clear, I do think that this film aptly fits into this subgenre…for a 1930s audience. While both the book and film were well received in the United States upon release, the reception in Nazi Germany was (unsurprisingly) far less amicable. To the point that copies of Remarque’s novel were banned and burned, and Nazi brownshirts stormed theaters in Berlin disrupting the showings, accusing it of being a “Jewish film,” destroying projectors, and attacking audience members they declared to be Jewish. However, France, Italy, Austria, and Australia were some of the other countries that banned either the book or the film for decades after their respective release. My point is that while this film defied cultural, political, and cinematic expectations in 1930, it has been around long enough for viewers to demystify it and see it less as a powerful critique of contemporary society and more as a “legacy film” that stands alongside the many other groundbreaking movies of its time (á la the likes of The Jazz Singer, Dracula, and The Wizard of Oz, among others). Furthermore, it is arguably more well-known (and older) than some of the other films I am putting into contention as quintessential “anti-war” films. Needless to say, All Quiet on the Western Front remains a masterpiece of the war film genre that everyone should certainly watch for its cinematic qualities and historic value. Another film, the 1964 black comedy from Stanley Kubrick Dr. Strangelove, offers a rather (for its time) unique approach to examining the darker side of war: satire. There are many films from the past fifty years that satirize the absurdity of war (notably the 1970 precursor to its companion TV series M*A*S*H or the Robin Williams-led take on DJ’ing in the Vietnam War, Good Morning, Vietnam). Additionally, there are movies made prior to 1964 that offer powerful parodies of contemporary political and military events (notably the Charlie Chaplin vehicle from 1940, The Great Dictator). But few war films surpass the darkly comic reputation of what many consider to be Kubrick’s masterpiece (at least one of them, alongside Spartacus, 2001, and The Shining). However, Dr. Strangelove (at least in the eyes of many cinephiles) seems to transcend this subgenre of a subgenre. How? To be honest, I am still struggling to figure out the answer. To be honest, I am not the biggest fan of Kubrick or his films (with some notable exceptions). And while I respect what Dr. Strangelove tries to do, for me it fails to hit the mark more often than it does. First, a brief note on what I like about the film. Kubrick’s unflinching ambition shines well here, considering the fact that he aims to satirize the Cold War (specifically the possibilities of nuclear winter and mutually assured destruction) less than two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis. While I ultimately find little to enjoy about the final product, I greatly admire contrarianism in all walks of life, including film. Second, while I find the movie’s eponymous ex-Nazi scientist to be a little overbearing, I commend Peter Sellers for his commitment to the enigmatic persona of Strangelove. I appreciate how it pays homage to the deranged scientist Rotwang from Fritz Lang’s foundational silent science-fiction film Metropolis. Otherwise, I find Dr. Strangelove as a movie to lack the whole that its parts try to build up to. The plot is somewhat aimless and many of the scenes are dry without much wit and engaging without much payoff. Furthermore, the film gives off the impression of acting more like a mockumentary of contemporary Cold War politics in the U.S. than a dramatic satire of the same. Ultimately, I struggle to even understand what people like about the film. But, I do understand why it is considered a staple of “anti-war” cinema; I just don’t personally characterize it as such. Another film, however, that I do refer to squarely as an “anti-war” piece: the 1979 epic from Francis Ford Coppola Apocalypse Now. Of the four films I am discussing in this section, I firmly believe this film comes the closest to conforming to Monnet’s definition of “disenchantment” discussed in “Part One” of this blog. Coppola’s adaptation and modernization of Joseph Conrad’s literary masterpiece Heart of Darkness, encapsulates both the epic and dehumanizing nature of war in a way that most war movies only dream of. Apocalypse Now, for the unindoctrinated, tells the story of Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) who is tasked with heading deep into the jungles of Cambodia to assassinate the rogue U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who is in the thick of a guerrilla war against the NVA and Viet Cong without official permission from the American government. For about two-and-a-half hours, the audience becomes immersed in the psychological detriment, overbearing machismo, and bureaucratic absurdity of war through Willard’s eyes before, during, and after his encounter with the notorious Colonel Kurtz. I will not try to condense this entire movie into a couple of paragraphs. Instead, I will highlight a couple particular scenes to address both how this movie embodies and, to some extent, struggles to uphold the ideals of an “anti-war” film. Regarding the former, we must examine the famous “Ride of the Valkyries” scene. Early on in the film, Willard and company join a helicopter squadron, led by the zealous commander Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), as they are escorted across enemy lines to the mouth of the river they need to access to find Kurtz. As the speakers rigged to the choppers blare some triumphant classical music from German composer Richard Wagner, and launches napalm on the coastal village. After landing to observe his new beachfront before hitting the tide to surf, Kilgore says to his men, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” This scene is the prime example of why, understandably, many viewers deem Apocalypse Now an explicit and impactful “anti-war” film. Coppola draws on the themes of hyper-militarism and imperialism so rampant in Heart of Darkness to critique U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. In other words, he pulls off what (in my opinion) Kubrick struggled to do in Dr. Strangelove: using dark comedy to satirize the military and war in general. There are a number of scenes that do this, as well as dive into the horrors of war effectively, that make Apocalypse Now a strong contender for the “anti-war” mantra. However, I struggle to accept that the overall narrative of the film is more of a traditional war movie than it is a psychological drama about what happens when one’s mission (an extended metaphor for the war itself) takes over one’s entire drive to exist. This is exemplified by everything that happens after Willard arrives at Kurtz’s compound (specifically his mission to hunt down and kill Kurtz). It’s as if he is driven to kill the war itself because of the drain and toll it has taken on him personally. Simply put, I greatly appreciate the ambition and perspective of Coppola’s masterpiece. But, I cannot in the end accept that it is a true “anti-war” film as much as it is the examination of the origins of evil. To wrap up this section, I come to a film that is often referred to as being part of the “anti-war” subgenre that is well-intentioned but, ultimately, somewhat void of true dedication to examining that which makes war horrible. In fact, the 1981 film Gallipoli by Australian filmmaker Peter Weir comes off as dated as All Quiet on the Western Front despite the fact that it came over fifty years later. To set the stage, Weir’s film Gallipoli chronicles the birth, obstacles, and tragic end of the friendship between fellow Australian sprinters and wanderers Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) and Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson). Archy embodies the arrogant and eager young man willing to lay down his life for king and country, whereas Frank represents the cynical and jaded man whose lack of attachment to the empire’s nationalistic fervor makes him reluctant to fight. Shockingly, they both end up joining the fight and experience the famously lethal campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula (at the time a part of the Ottoman Empire) that resulted in a Turkish victory and killed nearly 200,000 Allied troops. Without devoting too much time to the minutiae of the film’s plot, Gallipoli does not meet my conception of an “anti-war” film for similar reasons as Apocalypse Now. In other words, even though it is draped in anti-war sentiment the movie’s primary narrative focus is not so much on the war itself. Rather, the war (and thus the characters’ divergent ideas about it) provide the backdrop for a story about young male friendship and the loss of innocence for the “Lost Generation.” Understandably, many viewers of this film see it as carrying tropes of the “anti-war” film due to the intensely grounded third act in the battle itself. However, I do not think that such an ending can make up for the rest of the narrative that spends less time focusing on conversations about running than talk about the war directly. Also, other movies have done it better (lookin’ at you, Hacksaw Ridge). So, there are four films that attempt at embody the values of the “anti-war” subgenre, but (to varying degrees) miss the mark. What about those films that meet my expectations for serving up a story that “disenchants” war and all its horrid aspects? The “Anti-War” Film To bring it on home, we examine four films that I think embody the various defining attributes of what an “anti-war” film truly is. Unlike previous sections, I will be discussing these films in reverse chronological order. To begin with a more recent entry in the war genre: the 2014 Brad Pitt-led World War II film Fury. Coming hot off of his critically acclaimed police thriller End of Watch, director David Ayer was inspired by stories of his family members who were veterans and by tales of American tank units in Europe during the war for his next film. Centered on a veteran tank crew (Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal) and their new addition (Logan Lerman) during the war’s final days, Fury seeks to highlight the moral ambiguity present in wartime. In other words, Ayer shows through the actions of this tank crew that soldiers from any side, any nation, or any part of the world can lose grip on reality and, with it, any semblance of the good person they may have been back home. Each of the five main actors play their part very well: Bernthal as the hotheaded misanthrope, Peña as the hardworking wiseass, LaBeouf as the headstrong godly man, Pitt as the tired but alert leader, and Lerman as the cowardly babyface who confronts the horrors of war in the eyes of his comrades and does everything in his power to not succumb to the appetite of war by relishing the killing that must be done. For me, this film is both underrated and underappreciated in terms of how much it upholds the central values of the “anti-war” film. And while there are certainly aspects of “hero worship” for the main characters (particularly during the climax), I think it does more to demythologize war than revere it. There are two particular scenes that accomplish this most effectively. First, the execution scene. In the wake of Norman’s (Lerman) first battle in which the tank crew struggled against some anti-tank guns, Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Pitt) decides that he needs to do the job he is there for: kill Germans. So, after an intense session of “tough love,” “Wardaddy” puts Norman in a near-chokehold and gives him no choice but to pull the trigger and kill a captured German soldier. What this scene exemplifies for me is how war forces soldiers in the line of duty can sometimes lack true choice in their actions. While soldiers throughout history have undeniably made horrible decisions that have resulted in countless slaughter and destruction (much of which was avoidable), the nature of war itself is the blurring of choice in favor of strict adherence to orders no matter how morally questionable they are. Undoubtedly, many other war movies offer some version of this idea. But Fury does it in such a startling way that makes it stand out from much of the rest. The second scene from the film is the notorious apartment scene (or, rather, collection of scenes). After capturing a small town, “Wardaddy” and his crew settle in and discover two German women holed up in an apartment: Irma and her younger cousin Emma. Both are initially terrified of the American invaders, but end up settling into their new conditions as “Wardaddy” and Norman treat them respectfully (if not amicably). Ayer relies on constant, subtle tension to keep the audience ever intrigued by what will happen next. Will “Wardaddy” suddenly become a villain and assault the women? Will Norman react and confront his commanding officer? Everything is on the table, and never avoids becoming uncomfortable. And it only gets worse when the rest of the tank crew enters the apartment. Suddenly, the scene turns into a commander keeping his unruly men (namely Bernthal’s Grady “Coon-Ass” Travis) in line. Ayer highlights the thick, deep-seated tensions between men at war who choose to spend what little downtime they have differently. As such, the scene’s tragic end is all the more powerful: when Norman discovers Emma’s dead body amongst the rubble of the apartment building (now crumbled under the weight of an artillery barrage), Grady takes him by the collar and shouts, “You feel that?!? It’s called war!!” In these two scenes especially, Fury captures the emotional and psychological anguish that soldiers experience in war. Again, this film is not unique in that regard. However, unlike some of its counterparts, Fury rams its message home: that war is hell, not only due to the violence one must commit in defense of himself and his fellow soldiers but also due to the psychological toll that committing such acts takes on the people committing them. Next, we move onto one of my favorite Oliver Stone films: the Tom Cruise-led biopic Born on the Fourth of July. Based on the best-selling 1976 autobiography by Vietnam War veteran and anti-war activist Ron Kovic, the film tells the story of Kovic (Tom Cruise) from his upbringing in the Long Island suburb of Massapequa and his time his time serving in Vietnam as a marine to the birth of his reputation as a peace activist in the mid-1970s. While not Stone’s only exploration of the Vietnam War (preceded by the 1986 Best Picture winner Platoon and the 1993 critically panned Heaven & Earth), this film is up there for me as his best narrative feature film. Why? To put it simply, Stone (and Kovic, who co-wrote the screenplay) offer up an unabashed examination of a soldier’s downward spiral into depression, alcoholism, self-isolation, and political transformation due to his involvement in a war that he initially agreed with but, ultimately, concluded it to be a quagmire of epic proportions. Cruise elevates the already-great story by embracing the day-to-day struggles of Kovic for years after leaving the front lines. Other war films offer up existential journeys of this nature, from the William Wyler film about three World War II veterans, The Best Years of Our Lives, to Clint Eastwood's biopic about Chris Kyle, American Sniper. However, few surpass the raw emotion and bold approach to stripping-away blind patriotism that Born on the Fourth of July does. More than anything, that is why I firmly and confidently place the film in the “anti-war” category. So far, I have discussed several great films (and a few not-so-great films) that take some stance on war and its impact on humanity. But I have yet to discover any film that stands up to the final two on the roster today. From what little I know about film, all others pale in comparison in terms of their ability to “disenchant” war. The first of these two, perhaps surprisingly, is a Japanese animated film. The directorial debut of Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata and released in 1988, Grave of the Fireflies offers up the heart wrenching tale of siblings Seita and Setsuko struggling to survive (and also live) in war-torn Japan during the final days of World War II. During their time together, these young orphans grapple with loss of innocence, growing up, and witnessing the death-knell of their country in some of the worst ways imaginable. In an effort to spoil as little about this film as humanly possible, I will say that Grave of the Fireflies is a masterpiece of animated storytelling, war cinema, and filmmaking in general. I personally relate to it on so many levels, particularly as a younger sibling who watches Seita’s care for little sister Setsuko and thinks only about my relationship with my older sibling and how it would be both tested and strengthened in similar circumstances. But, I am here to discuss the film through another lens. Takahata himself denies that Grave of the Fireflies is an explicitly “anti-war” film, but I could not disagree more. Perhaps the greatest testament of this film’s achievement is how it shines a light on the wartime culture of Japan (a culture that most nations in history would be too unfamiliar with). Specifically, it utilizes Seita and Setsuko’s various encounters with other civilians to show how the government has forgotten to care for the same people it claimed to protect and fight for. In human history, the casualties of war who tend to lack much of a voice are those who do not volunteer to fight or are drafted. It is those who are far away from the battlefield yet suffer its toll the most in many ways. What better way could a filmmaker “to strip [war] of all magic and illusion”[1] than that? There is perhaps only one film that competes with Grave of the Fireflies as being the best “anti-war” film ever made? For my money, it is none other than the 1957 Kubrick masterpiece Paths of Glory. For the unfamiliar, this film (based on the 1935 novel of the same name by Canadian-American author Humphrey Cobb) tells the story of a group of French soldiers in World War I whose retreat in the face of overwhelming odds earns three of the men, under the command of Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), a court-martial in which Dax must defend the honor of his men, his army, and himself. I cannot speak highly enough about Paths of Glory. In my opinion, it is unquestionably Kubrick’s masterpiece. In just under 90 minutes, the audience witnesses the debilitating psychological and emotional consequences of “The Great War” on those at the front, the hyper-carelessness of the commanding officers charged with their safety, and the utter hypocrisy of the military bureaucracy that condemns three “cowards” to death for simply recognizing the absurd nature of the orders they were given. All the performances are great, but the standouts are Douglas’s headstrong but rational Colonel Dax, George Macready as the asininely overzealous Brigadier General Paul Mireau who orders the French artillery to fire on his own men whom refuse to leave the trenches and attack, and the three soldiers (Ralph Meeker, Joe Turkel, and Timothy Carey) who are condemned to death on hopped-up charges of cowardice regardless of their validity. The most powerful emotions of the film’s narrative sit with the journeys of these characters. In the case of Dax, Douglas gives us a loyal but skeptical officer who wants nothing more than his men to be proven guilty only of making a rational decision in the face of certain death. Macready offers up a tantalizing and fixating villain in Mireau whose fierce devotion to the “old rules of war” make him blind to the empty sacrifices being made on his command. Finally, from Meeker, Turkel, and Carey we are given three flawed, but tough, young men whose divergent approaches to dealing with being declared traitors and their imminent deaths birth onto the screen some of the most impactful performances of a soldier’s final moments I have ever witnessed. With all that being said, however, why do I think this could be the best “anti-war” film ever made? Simply put, Paths of Glory boldly criticizes nationalism, military bureaucracy, and the “small victories” nature of modern warfare that plagues many conflicts throughout human history (but especially over the course of the last century plus). Kubrick’s masterpiece, in other words, is the epitome of “disenchanting” war. Towards the end of her essay, “Is There Such a Thing as an Antiwar Film?”, Professor Monnet concludes that film, by its inherent nature as spectacle and entertainment, shapes “the violence of war into larger meanings and coherent resolutions.”[2] She also believes that art “can raise questions,” but movies “cannot escape from [their] inherent tendency to provide semblances of answers in the form of narrative structure and emotional experience.”[3] While I see where she is coming from, I think that Paths of Glory and Grave of the Fireflies might just be the two narrative films that transcend such statements. By their very existence, not only do such films counter these notions about narrative storytelling in cinema. But they also offer up a new conclusion: that there is, indeed, such a thing as an “anti-war” film. With all that said, I have listed below my five favorite films discussed in Parts One and Two of this blog:
Again, there were so many war films I did not discuss that nonetheless deserve some attention with regards to this specific topic. Just to list a few (in no particular order):
What are your thoughts on how war is portrayed in cinema? What war films that I did not discuss do you think belong in this “anti-war” film discussion? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst [1] Monnet, A. S. (2010). Is There Such a Thing as an Antiwar Film? (D. A. Cunningham & J. C. Nelson, Eds.). Retrieved November 20, 2020, from https://people.unil.ch/agnieszkasoltysikmonnet/files/2010/09/Antiwar-Film.pdf: Pg. 408. [2] Ibid, 417. [3] Ibid, 418.
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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