American Cinema

• Before class begins, turn in your Comedy units:•Unit Notes• Young Frankenstein• The Princess Bride• The Truman Show

•We will begin War and Cinema today

War and Cinema

War Films Basics

• Explosive action sequences

• Superhuman feats of bravery

• Displays of mass destruction

• Hellish no-man’s land of violence and death

• Slightest actions can end in death (own or of friends)

• Life is lived moment by moment

Morality

• Laws, beliefs, behavior and morality are suspended

• Not just permitted to kill, characters must kill

• Might makes right and the ends justify the means mentality

• Good guys (usually “us”) fight fair

• Bad guys (usually “them”) torture and kill innocent civilians

• Good guys break the rules for moral or compassionate reasons

Group Goals

• Traditional Hollywood films focus on the individual

• War films focus on the group

• Needs of the individual give way for group needs

• Individuals will do whatever it takes for the good of the platoon, squadron, division, etc.

Gender roles

• Women roles are infrequent

• Women threaten male roles by introducing emotion – man’s essential vulnerability

• Psyche of male soldier reshaped to repress feminine traits – must be ruthless, unemotional, fighting machines – in training often refered to as “ladies”

• Machismo is presented as the key to survival on the battlefield

Back from the front

• Focus on the difficulty of returning to “normal” life

• WWI and II this was shone as possible

• Vietnam changed this idea – more traumatic – over-masculinization of soldiers

• Showed uncontrollable potential for rage and violence

• Some showed as vulnerable due to disabilities and injuries

• Others shown as becoming outlaws or social outcasts

Modern examples

• Vietnam created desire to explain the war’s outcome and even rewrite it

• Films showing rescue missions of POWs became popular redemption

• Approach to combat as a source of personal trauma

• Toll of war on soldiers and their families – post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

• Videos shot from the soldiers perspective (phones and web footage)

Our unit films

• Glory – 1989 – Edward Zwick

• The Monuments Men – 2014 – George Clooney

• Lone Survivor – 2013 – Peter Berg