The Aesthetics of War Movies

padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
@Idle Rich - I dunno I guess that's what I'm asking. do people "like" serious war movies the same way they like comedies, frothy thrillers, dramas? (war is not the only subject you might ask this about) where does enjoyment meet fascination meet voyeurism meet respect? I suppose people could just knock it off as a boys thing with explosions and so on but I don't think so. I guess war films - they focus on the explosions of course, that's where the $ is, most people don't want to go watch a movie about how grisly & horrible war is. or one that spends time teasing out all the complexities.

I dunno I reckon war as an artistic topic is a bit like the Holocaust, I can't remember that quote (not the Adorno one, at least I don't think) about how you need to extraordinarily careful about how you treat it cos no matter how careful you are you're still going to aestheticize it and turn it into entertainment. but it's a necessary thing too, cos art can help us explain the unexplainable &, hell, I dunno...

sorry if this is all like first year film student babble, I wouldn't know.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
IdleRich said:
Maybe, but they catch all the insurgents don't they? There is a little bit of narrative at the end to say "oh but a few years the Algerians won" but that lacks the emotional punch of the previous scenes where the last remaining leaders of the resistance are hunted down. I can see that being the bit that resonated with Rumsfeld if he did happen to watch it.
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yeah but the whole point is that the French lost by winning & that the Algerians won by losing. the whole point is that the French were never going to win, no matter what they did, how many troops they put in, how brutal they became. you'd have to completely misread the movie & the history not to see that IMO. which I guess the Pentagon did (fair play to Craner for digging that one up btw).
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
craner said:
I don't think that's true at all, there was a big dollop of late 90s/early 00s liberal interventionist guff weaved into the script; it had a hyper-real extremism to it, but not at all in the vein of your caricature. It wasn't the post-9/11 booster that it came to be seen as on release. A more complex film than that, I think, but as I said, flawed. Any reading or re-reading of what happened in Somalia inevitably is. For a Hollywood blockbuster it did a surprisingly decent job.
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eh I mean the way it was shot as well. it's not merely the filmmakers fault, it's the way the book was written as well. it's not a story about Somalia; it's a story about a bunch of American soldiers in a far off land catching hell from a bunch of crazy natives. &, tbf, about what an impossible situation the whole thing was.

I mean, there's not a single Somalian character in the entire film. not even as a villain. there's just guys running around in technicals with AKs & RPGs & whatever else, & then angry mobs of black people.

craner said:
Exodus had me wiping tears away the other Saturday.
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& come on you're just taking the piss w/this one. it's a rank bit of propaganda. tho the prison break scene is great. Cast a Giant Shadow is meant to be good but I've never seen it.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Idle Rich - I dunno I guess that's what I'm asking. do people "like" serious war movies the same way they like comedies, frothy thrillers, dramas?"
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Well, for me, the answer is no - but I couldn't give a good reason and I can't promise that if you asked me again in a year's time the answer wouldn't have changed. The points you go on to make are valid but I think there is a lot more in them than there is in my tendency to dislike war films which isn't nearly so well thought out.
And even if it is first year film babble then keep it coming, seems good to me.

yeah but the whole point is that the French lost by winning & that the Algerians won by losing. the whole point is that the French were never going to win, no matter what they did, how many troops they put in, how brutal they became. you'd have to completely misread the movie & the history not to see that IMO. which I guess the Pentagon did (fair play to Craner for digging that one up btw).
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Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying, in the build up to the war they picked the evidence and the stories about what would happen that they wanted to believe - I see no reason to think they would have treated the film any differently. And I reckon that Craner finding that shows I'm not barking up totally the wrong tree.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
I mean, there's not a single Somalian character in the entire film.
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Well, I mean, yes, of course (apart from fascimiles of militia leaders etc.) that's the premise of the film (and book, I guess)...but what did you expect?

This is probably the nub of your question...what makes a good war film? Do you evaluate it on its relation to reality, or as something akin to, say, a Seymour Hersh expose (or whatever goes with your expectations or bent) or as a...war film? I would go with the latter on this, and, so, it will be aestheticized. I mean, it's a movie. The Battle of Algiers is really interesting in this regard, as, despite its neorealist roots and niche, production was frought with ideological schisms between scriptwriter and director. The film was a battleground in the way it was made. Watching it now, you can see that; in fact, it has a wonderful ambiguity because of those exact political tensions. Not even artistic tensions. It was "real" by default, not because of any actual fidelity to the Algerian war, but by a displaced, if engaged, political response. But, you know, I don't think that had Rummy and the Pentagon chiefs really sat around in a Film Stud. seminar discussing it for days, Iraq post-war would've gone differently. You can't learn that much from it. Because it's spectacle. It's a movie.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
But, you know, I don't think that had Rummy and the Pentagon chiefs really sat around in a Film Stud. seminar discussing it for days, Iraq post-war would've gone differently. You can't learn that much from it. Because it's spectacle. It's a movie.
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sure. I was being a bit flip myself w/that suggestion. & of course what you'd really wish is that they'd spent some time coming up with a plan for the war that wasn't so goddamn terrible.

as to your other points I find myself largely agreeing. I guess the question is more then - should the films be made in the first place? which is an abstract question sure, cos they'll be made however, and again it's also a question you could ask about a lot of things. watching, say, The Hurt Locker I was really struck by this, uh cognitive dissonance I guess, between the entertainment in the tension, all the unspoken bits of communication (like any good film) & the painfulness of what it was communicating. I mean it's just stronger cos it's so close to home, there's no distance like there is from a WWII or Vietnam flick. I don't really have a solid answer to my own question either.

btw I reckon Apocalypse Now also stands up largely b/c of the tension present in its making a la Battle of Algiers. different kind - more embodying chaos of a war zone - but still. like, where Battle of Algiers is tense cos it was made tense then Apocalypse Now is madness cos it was made mad. I think Pauline Kael panned it didn't she cos she was disdainful of movies about War as opposed to war movies. or maybe I'm making that up.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
oh & also that made tense thing goes for The Hurt Locker too. again not politics but just the whole thing - I mean the whole premise is about the adrenaline drug of combat, or of danger. probably you could get onto some like real serious death drive Thanatos ish if you wanted to but eh. there's a considerable bit of thinly veiled homoerotic tension as well (but not like the obvious wink wink Apatow kind). I dunno it's almost a surreal movie too, the way they have these three guys - two incredibly tense & one danger addict - driving around a lonely, crumbling city, I've read a bunch of criticism of scenes for being unrealistic like they'd never only have one Humvee on its own w/o support but I wonder if that wasn't deliberate, in effect an analogy for the whole war. the lack of support - not politically but materially, emotionally, for the people stuck w/fighting it.

& I reckon that bit about WWII movies being the greatest is right. cos WWII was the "greatest" war I mean. as vile & nasty as it was - clear cut villain, giant armies fighting industrial warfare (planes & tanks & stuff - there's actually a great line in The Hurt Locker where dude says "I'm really glad we have all these f**king tanks here in Baghdad just in case the Russians come & we have to fight a big tank battle), the fate of the world in the balance, fairly clear cut ending. the shared experience by such a great # of people. how are neverending postmodern brush wars ever going to match up to Steve McQueen giving it to the Nazis?
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I think the problem with war movies is that they don't convey the smell. Blood smells really weird, dead bodies smell horrible, armpits, breath, feet, all that stuff...I just think if I was ever in 'those' situations that'd be what would get me, you can't train someone not to smell, can you?

People who like war films are really into history, I never was much in that way so I never really watched them but the Doc likes them so I sit through quite a few. Rome Open City is another good one, The Spanish Earth another but both of them fall into that weird Battle of Algiers territory too.
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Also as a question, are there any really good films about London and the Blitz? I just read about Joe Louis (the Joe Louis) visiting London during the war and describing the tracers as 'the most beautiful thing I ever saw'. It's a really ripe subject I think, the Blitz.
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
mistersloane said:
Also as a question, are there any really good films about London and the Blitz? I just read about Joe Louis (the Joe Louis) visiting London during the war and describing the tracers as 'the most beautiful thing I ever saw'. It's a really ripe subject I think, the Blitz.
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Um... (don't blame me, I've never seen it)

On the urban terrorism thing, Odd Man Out I remember being fabulous, though I haven't seen it in decades. And of course you can't top Third Man for a spot of that post-war debris/divided city/moral turmoil thang.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"...it will be aestheticized. I mean, it's a movie. The Battle of Algiers is really interesting in this regard, as.."
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Yeah, definitely true, I really liked the score (Morricone?) but a soundtrack can't but be part of an aestheticization can't it?
 
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martin

----
baboon2004 said:
And how come no-one's mentioned Escape to Victory yet?
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Best football / war film ever! Where else would you get Max von Sydow and Ossie Ardiles on one screen?

"Come and See" is like a baseball bat in the face, but I don't know when I'll want to sit through it again. "Threads" - well, technically it's about war, no? On an epic scale, all 100+ episodes of "Mahabharat" documented the struggle between good and evil pretty well, I thought - and all on a DIY, shoestring budget.

"Apocalypse Now" is great, and shouldn't be dismissed just because students like quoting bits down the pub! (or do they anymore? well, they used to). According to 3 separate people, I remind them of Donald Sutherland in "Kelly's Heroes", but I still haven't seen it.

We had to watch "Escape from Sobibor"at school, can't remember why...

On a Northern Ireland tip, "Contact" and "Elephant" are both completely grim.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
"Play Dirty" is pretty good, esp for a Michael Caine film.

Certainly one of the most cynical and nihilistic war films I've seen...
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
baboon2004 said:
In a better world?

Also, who knew Sly was such a good goalkeeper?
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Least of all him. He wanted to get the winner, as befits his star billing (at least in his own mind), but had it explained to him that goalies don't generally score. There's some Banks-like wondersave near the end to compensate, isn't there?
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I see someone has started a thread called "What Scares You?" - my answer would include Threads.
Speaking of which, anyone seen a film called Letters From A Dead Man (Pisma Myortvogo Cheloveka)? Someone recommended it to me the other day and it sounds interesting.

"The story takes place in an eastern European country(no reference is made to what country) after a nuclear war. A military regime has been imposed, there is no reference whether this is a local regime or an occupation. The soldiers tend to carry western weapons like AR pattern rifles and HK G3. The main character lives with coworkers under the university buildings where they once worked , all characters have a type of confession to tell relating to the catastrophe. Decay is everywhere but there is also irony in the decay and destruction, such as the scene in the library that is half covered in water with pages upon pages floating on this evil soup of corpses and texts that the main character ,as a true scholar, goes to a semi submerged desk to study a book. Just like "Threads" this is the only other movie that truly shows how final a nuclear apocalypse would be."
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091759/usercomments
 
empty mirror

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
the first ten or so minutes of Saving Private Ryan is up there with the best cinema EVURRR and then it quickly turns to trite trash

does Cobra Verde count?

i haven't seen this in a minute but i saw 84 Charlie MoPic a zillion times as a youth
looms large in the imagination, it does

and then there's Melville's Army of Shadows or whatever it translates to

closely watched trains (based on the great Bohumil Hrabal's book----his novella about the book burner dude, Too Loud A Solitude is great, but not about war)

as for books:

Red Badge of Courage
and
Naked & the Dead
and
Gravity's Rainbow (a stretch? i think not) and Pynchon's V. (decidedly a war book)
and uh...
Dog Years (Gunter Grass)
Catch-22
and Slaughterhouse Five

and all that Holocaust lit (Wiesel, MAUS)

don't really read war books
 
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