Nearly one year ago today, I wrote my first two-part blog on the topic of the “anti-war” film. I discussed several notable war movies from the “Golden Age” classic All Quiet on the Western Front to Spielberg’s modern masterpiece Saving Private Ryan. And in my conclusion, I offered up names of some other great war films worth checking out like Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Well, now is the time to revisit this prolific genre of cinema that has produced so many great pieces of film. In other words, I am not here today to dissect the political complexities and moral ambiguities inherent to making this kind of movie as I did in my “anti-war” blog. Instead, I want to celebrate some of the best flicks of the genre due to their diversity of settings, characters, and stories being told out of admiration for the creative teams behind them. Simply put, war movies are some of my personal favorites that cinema has to offer. Why? I guess you’ll have to keep reading to find out… 😉 Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay Full Metal Jacket (1987) I remember first watching Stanley Kubrick’s late-in-the-game classic Full Metal Jacket and coming away feeling conflicted about what I thought about it. On the one hand, I was completely blown away by the first act focused on the emotional and psychological ramifications of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman’s (R. Lee Ermey) abusive training of Privates J.T. “Joker” Davis (Matthew Modine) and Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence (Vincent D’Onofrio). It stuck with me, and I wished that the rest of the film had kept that momentum going. But, after my first viewing, I ultimately came away thinking: “What a weird movie, but a solid opening fifty minutes.” When I decided to rewatch Full Metal Jacket a little over a year ago, I was hoping that I would appreciate the latter half a little more than before. Furthermore, in light of some of the other disappointing Kubrick films I had seen by that point, I wanted to come away from this second viewing holding it up as one of the “good” Kubrick movies. I am happy to say that both of these hopes were achieved upon a rewatch of Full Metal Jacket. If I ever write about the importance of the three-act structure, I will probably revisit this movie to dissect its first act as one of the best of all time. Full stop. While I don’t think that the promise of the movie’s first 45-50 minutes is fully exceeded by the end of its runtime, Kubrick achieves damn-near perfection with the boot camp scenes. As I’ll dive into in more detail later on, Full Metal Jacket is a unique war film in the context of Kubrick’s other notably war movies such as Paths of Glory or Dr. Strangelove. And this first act is one of the main reasons why. Sure, other films such as Heartbreak Ridge and Glory examine the psychological ins and outs of military boot camp. But arguably none do it better justice than Full Metal Jacket. Nothing in the film’s first act is romanticized or sanitized. Rather, Kubrick offers up a gritty, grueling, and torturous examination of the tactics employed by Gunnery Sergeants, such as Ermey’s character, to mentally prepare green recruits for battle. The tension created between Gunny Hartman and “Pyle” (i.e. the Twinkie scene) and the consequences of it (i.e. Pyle being beaten against his will in bed by the other soldiers) toy with the audience and keep us intensely engaged in how all of this hazing will crescendo. And boy, is the crescendo intense as hell! Seeing through the eyes of Pvt. “Joker,” we see “Pyle” mentally break in the bathroom the night after graduation cradling his rifle in between his legs while loading it. As “Pyle” starts reciting the Rifleman’s Creed in an unsettling tone, awakening the other men (including Gunny Hartman). Was this his plan all along, and was “Joker” ever his secondary target behind Gunny? This is left up to your interpretation, but his fatal shooting of Gunny before turning the rifle on himself remains one of the most emotionally satisfying (albeit disturbing) first-act climaxes I’ve ever seen in a movie. I cannot say this enough: watch Full Metal Jacket just for the first act alone. Trust me, it’s worth it. As this blog is about my love of movies, I don’t want to spend too much time criticizing the second act. While it’s my least favorite part of the movie, I came to (maybe) understand why Kubrick did what he did with it. Not only does he emphasize the lack of battlefield experience for “Joker” (who’s now our protagonist, kind of) through his interactions with other soldiers in the platoon, but the seemingly disjointed interviews of soldiers talking about their experiences was perhaps Kubrick’s attempt to shine a light on the inherent meaninglessness of war (honestly, I wouldn’t put it past him). That being said, I don’t think it does a very good job of connecting the first and third acts of the film together. But, I can ignore it in light of the movie’s amazing start and (mostly) satisfying end. After thirty minutes or so of an uncompelling second act, Full Metal Jacket brings its themes of psychological trauma and overwhelming chaos associated with being in war to a close when the platoon expels much time and effort to flank and kill a Vietnamese sniper (who just happens to be a teenage girl). After one of the other soldiers mortally wounding her, the platoon’s de facto leader “Animal Mother” (Adam Baldwin) agrees to the sniper’s request of a mercy kill on the condition that “Joker” does it. Reluctantly, “Joker” does it. As a result, he gains the “thousand-yard stare” and, in the film’s final moments, narrates to the audience that he is no longer afraid despite being “in a world of shit.” While not as engrossing as its first act, Full Metal Jacket concludes in a way that provokes critical thought about what Kubrick is doing in this movie to differentiate from his other war movies. Whereas Paths of Glory bluntly critiques military bureaucracy and blind loyalty to hierarchical power structures, Spartacus embraces the style of the classic Hollywood war epic, and Dr. Strangelove satirizes the paranoia and arrogance of the Cold War, Full Metal Jacket does something else entirely. In short, it forces the audience to confront the mindset of soldiers in war to offers an (arguably) less-than-satisfactory explanation for why they do what they do. This may just be a more complicated task than what Kubrick set out to achieve in his other war movies, but he manages to produce an overall great result that is worth your time despite some of its structural and tonal drawbacks. Image by Alexander Lesnitsky from Pixabay Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) I knew virtually nothing about Good Morning, Vietnam before watching it, but was hopeful based on the knowledge that Robin Williams (Dead Poets Society, Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting) was the lead. And by the time his character, Adrian Cronauer, begins his first stint as a disc jockey in Saigon at the height of the Vietnam War, I was hooked. By this point, I’ve seen a number of Robin Williams’s best performances. Not only some of his more well-known ones that I’ve already listed, but his more underrated ones in films like One Hour Photo, Death to Smoochy, and Insomnia. And while I loved him in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting, Williams’s turn as Cronauer in this movie might just be his best performance on the big screen. Admittedly, they are very different performances. Whereas there is virtually nothing of Williams’s iconic improvisational comedic timing in Good Will Hunting, that talent defines his turn in Good Morning, Vietnam. And since I agree with most other cinephiles and fans of Williams that his comedic style was his signature strength, I think it’s safe to say that his role as an eccentric, anti-authority DJ during the Vietnam War allows him to exercise all of his funny muscles and shine in a way that he could never fully match later in his career (although he got damn close a number of times). As a character, Cronauer is so likeable without relying on sentimentality or hyper-virtuosity in his personality. Quite the opposite, in fact; Williams plays this wartime DJ as a cynical, impolite and unabashed rebel who wants nothing more than to take all that his commanding officers hold dear about the decorum of the military and throw it back in their faces by telling the soldiers jokes that are actually funny. In that respect, director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Avalon, Bugsy) deftly balances consistently witty humor with regular reminders of the hostile environment in which Cronauer and the characters in Saigon are in. To that extent, Good Morning, Vietnam is both a great comedy and a solid war film in equal respects. While Williams is undeniably the standout here, he has a great supporting cast around him to lift him up and have some moments of their own. Notably, I appreciated Forest Whitaker as the happy-go-lucky and loyal Private Edward Garlick who remains at Cronauer’s side in spite of obstacles from both the prim-and-proper U.S. Army superiors and the North Vietnamese. Furthermore, Bruno Kirby does a great job playing Lieutenant Steven Hauk, the uptight straight-man opposite Williams’s off-the-walls performance. Perhaps the most underrated actor in this movie, however, is Chintara Sukapatana as Cronauer’s disinterested love interest Trinh. Despite her and Williams having chemistry, I appreciate that Levinson and screenwriter Mitch Markowitz did not feel compelled to force a cheesy, old-school Hollywood romance between their characters which would’ve come off undeserved given Cronauer lacking any essence of a romantic leading man. All in all, Good Morning, Vietnam does not get enough credit from film fans today for how well it pulls off its vision as both a standout 80s comedy and war movie. If anything, this movie deserves more attention and praise for Williams’s central performance which holds up (in my humble opinion) as one of his best. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Jacob’s Ladder (1990) One of the lesser-known war films in today’s blog is the psychological horror flick Jacob’s Ladder from director Adrian Lyne (Flashdance, Fatal Attraction). From the screenplay of writer Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost, Deep Impact), Jacob’s Ladder stars Tim Robbins as Vietnam War veteran Jacob Singer who begins seeing disturbing visions and hallucinations filtered by his experiences in the war and he is persuaded to figure out what exactly is going on. Of all the films I’m discussing today, this one might be the best to fit the definition of a “hidden gem.” I particularly appreciated Robbins’s lead performance. Whereas the role that made him famous―Andy Dufresne in Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption―is more subdued and likeable, his portrayal of Jacob Singer is twisted yet sympathetic in a way that foreshadowed the fact that he is a multidimensional actor (perhaps most on display in his Oscar-winning role in Clint Eastwood’s drama Mystic River). Having only seen Robbins in Shawshank, I very much liked watching him portraying a psychologically disturbed veteran by playing into the tropes of this subgenre of horror films while simultaneously avoiding cliché or oversimplification of the real impact of post-traumatic stress. Which points to what I like most about Jacob’s Ladder. The director and writer’s vision, along with the actors’ commitment, work together to offer up an effective genre-blending take on the war movie by injecting a horror-inspired atmosphere to metaphorically explore the psychological effects of PTSD and mental trauma in general. Without giving too many plot specifics away, Jacob’s journey in the film is less about ascending to sanity than it is about developing a clarity of the hellish reality that he experienced in the war. In that respect, the film offers a genuinely affecting examination of peoples’ spiritual relationship with its own mortality without ever feeling cheap or exploitative. To be clear, Jacob’s Ladder is not a war film for everyone. I’m sure even some fans of more traditional war movies may be unable to give themselves over to the material being explored here (let alone the manner by which it is explored). But I found this movie to stick with me long after I watched in a way that many war movies (or horror movies, for that matter) didn’t. Image by mstewart_12 from Pixabay The Pianist (2002) Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning biopic The Pianist made a pretty big impact on me when I first saw it in high school as part of an elective class I took about the Holocaust. Similar to my initial viewings of other war movies like Glory and Saving Private Ryan, I never forgot this movie and knew I’d revisit it every now and again to remind myself just how good it is. And I was not-at-all surprised about a year ago when I watched The Pianist again by how amazing it is and how, to this day, it remains undoubtedly one of my favorite war films of all time. For the unfamiliar, Polanski’s film tells the real-life story of professional Polish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) whose life and family in Warsaw are uprooted and changed forever by Nazi Germany’s invasion of their country. Now subjected to Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies, ghettoization, and the looming terror of being sent to concentration camps, Szpilman does everything in his power to survive the horrors inflicted upon him and his loved ones during what is arguably the most infamous example of human rights violations in modern history. Whereas Good Morning, Vietnam excels as both a great comedy and war movie, The Pianist differentiates itself from the rest of its genre by de-emphasizing the experiences of soldiers as the most important lens through which war can be dissected. Instead, through the eyes of Szpilman, the audience sees just how much war permanently alters the lives of civilians who (more often than not) had little to no say in what happened around them. In this respect, Brody excellently humanizes Szpilman as someone who became largely driven by his will to survive despite the horrors and atrocities going on around him (understandably, he won an Academy Award for his performance). Furthermore, The Pianist being centered on the story of Jews in World War II may turn off some viewers who feel that Holocaust victims are often depicted in media as lacking the drive to resist their Nazi oppressors. However, Polanski avoids making Szpilman or many of the other Jewish characters in the film pure victims of circumstance who avoid violence at all costs. Quite the opposite, as one portion of the film’s third act involves Szpilman witnessing members of the Warsaw Ghetto organize and fight back. Thus, the film joins the ranks of a select few other movies putting Jewish resistance groups front-and-center (lookin’ at you, Defiance!). Aside from outright militarized resistance, however, Szpilman’s efforts to survive in The Pianist offer up a prime example of what hundreds of thousands of European Jews did to get by and help their loved ones do the same. From smuggling weapons for the Jewish resistance to endearing himself to a Wehrmacht officer in exchange for food, Polanski highlights the sheer audacity of the human spirit to fight back despite people not always using guns and bullets to do so. Not only is The Pianist my favorite film of Roman Polanski, but it remains one of my favorite examples of what the war genre can be. For those less interested in seeing tons of blood and guts on a battlefield but who are looking for a grounded and inspiring story of surviving war and genocide, I cannot recommend The Pianist enough. Thank You for Your Service (2017)
In my humble opinion, Thank You for Your Service is the least known film of today’s blog which is sad because it is worth checking out. It is also a pretty solid examination of the effects of 21st-century warfare on those who experience it. In his directorial debut, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jason Hall (American Sniper) adapts the book of the same name by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Finkel about the struggles of soldiers returning home after tours in Iraq and their efforts adapting to civilian life. The lead here is Miles Teller (Whiplash, Only the Brave) playing Staff Sgt. Adam Schumann who, despite dealing with nightmares and traumatic flashbacks, deals somewhat better with PTSD. This is, in large part, due to his wife Saskia (Haley Bennett) and two children giving him something to focus on. Meanwhile, his comrades Tausolo Aieti (Beulah Koale) and Billy Waller (Joe Cole) who face their own trials and tribulations but lack the same grasp of reality that Adam barely clings to which put them on somewhat different paths after Iraq. Unlike the other war movies I’ve written about, Thank You for Your Service doesn’t necessarily have the same powerful hook in terms of the plot. Furthermore, the film lacks the kind of star power that movies like Good Morning, Vietnam or Born on the Fourth of July have (no disrespect to Miles Teller or Haley Bennett). And yet this film does an exceptional job of shining a light on the unique dimensions of PTSD-related trauma that veterans of the War on Terror face. Not only do Adam’s, Tausolo’s and Billy’s stories offer divergent takes on how soldiers cope with civilian life, but when put together they offer a compellingly bittersweet picture of the potential and limitations of brotherhood. Simply put, Thank You for Your Service is by no means a masterpiece but it deserves being seen by more people than who original saw it in theaters. Not only does it have some solid acting and storytelling, but its ability to highlight the difficulties of coming home from war without coming off as cheap or exploitative makes it a great addition to the modern war genre. These, of course, are only some of my favorite war movies. And even when you include the ones I wrote about last November, there are still plenty that I think are worth checking out. But, I want to leave some on the table for a possible future blog. It’s a good thing so many war films have been made. 😊 What do you think of war movies? What are some of your favorite (or least favorite) war movies? 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
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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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