Simulating Carnage

by 'tamerlane'

I love a good war movie. Not because I love war, but because I love good movies.

I don't appreciate stridently anti-war movies. If you want to make an anti-war movie, just make an accurate one. Don't beat me over the head with your MESSAGE. Nor am I a fan of gung-ho, macho gore-fests. A machine gun may be able to fire 1,000 rounds per minute, but Rambo isn't carrying 1,000 rounds.

My fondness for war films caused my leftist friends called me a fascist war-monger. Hey, they all loved The Hours-does that make them "suicide-mongers"? A subject as important as war, and how we as individuals and societies cope with it, is worthy of exploration through art. Just don't get all jingo or maudlin on me.

My suggested viewing list, in no particular order, (with some films to avoid):


Das Boot (1981)

I'll never forget the reaction of the young couple in front of me in the theater. After a few minutes of making out, the girl had her eyes glued to the screen, her hand blocking the boy's kisses. By the end of the movie, she was bawling those eyes out over the deaths of "the enemy." I think he was sniffling, too.

Das Boot succeeds because it shows the German submariners as humans facing extreme danger and tribulation-brave, afraid, vulnerable, witty, crude, sensitive. In other words, people like us.

Tense action combined with a minimalist depiction of battle. Not made in Hollywood, so no happy ending. If you can, catch the 6 hour mini-series from which the feature was was edited down.

Glory (1989)

Sophisticated take on the illustrious negro regiment, the 54th Massachusetts. Good work turned in by Matthew Broderick, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman, and Denzel Washington. Big issues are treated with a deft touch-one image, one line, one expression speaks volumes. Battle scenes depicted accurately with permissible poetic license. One cannot understand the Civil War without understanding what it was like to fight in the Civil War-mutual slaughter at a distance measured in yards.

Ted Turner's Gettysburg (1993) was also a lot like the Civil War-poorly directed and lasting way too long. But if you're into fake beards, fat reenactment guys performing evolutions, and characters abruptly launching into extended soliloquies on the metaphysical questions of the Age, go for it.


Paths of Glory (1957)

Kirk Douglas, all pecs and chin, as a french colonel in WWI defending soldiers under court martial for refusing to fight. Kubrick directs. Not commonly known is that nearly the entire French army mutinied in 1917, in response to horrific losses at the hands of idiotic generals.

When young men are asked to risk their lives for their country, their country has the obligation not to frivolously spend those lives. By early 1915, the Germans on the Western Front had radically altered tactics, but the British and French continued mindless head-on attacks right until the end.

Breaker Morant (1980)

During the Boer War, Australians given the task of ethnic cleansing for the British Empire under the unwritten "Rule .303". Based on a true story and successfully adapted from a play, exposes the hypocrisy of asking soldiers to do the dirty work, then washing our hands of them.

Black Hawk Down (2001)

Fictionalized account of the bungled 1994 intervention in Somalia. Plenty of heart-pumping action, with no small measure of gore. Without hectoring, reveals how vulnerable our high-tech war machine is to "asymmetric warfare." Also underscores the insanity of UN "peacekeeping" ops when there's no peace left to keep.

The soldiers' camaraderie in Black Hawk rings true. A refreshing break from the usual treacle of men bonding to the strains of an harmonica, swapping stories of sweethearts, mom's cooking, and Bessie the cow.

With that in mind, watch the Normandy landing scene that opens Saving Private Ryan (1998), then stop. By the end of this turgid mess, I was ready to award the Iron Cross to anyone who'd take out Ryan. Writer Robert Rodat The Patriot is a hack who sprinkles scraps of historical fact into a gruel of cliched pap. FYI: It was not US Army policy to assign one GI from Brooklyn to each platoon.

Enemy At The Gates (2001)

A standard Hollywood drama that also faithfully depicts 20th century street combat, despite some inaccuracies (Bob Hoskins is way too old to play Krushev in 1942; if the Germans really had the hundreds of tanks at Stalingrad shown parked in neat rows, the town'd be called Hitlerburg today.)

Ed Harris is deliciously cool as the apocryphal König, while Jude Law is brave yet scared as the real-life Saitsev.

The extended scene of Saitsev's arrival to the battlefront perfectly captures the insanity and chaos of war, and stands out as one of the best of all time.

Don't waste your time with Stalingrad (1993). Purportedly made by the same team as Das Boot, I suspect it was actually a bunch of 10-year old boys filming one of their play sessions.

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (2004)

Two brothers are conscripted at the outbreak of the Korean war. Far too melodramatic, with preposterous coincidences, but the battle scenes are raw and unadorned. Death is random: cowards are just as likely to die as heroes. But when does heroism become numb brutality? Flawed, but offers a unique perspective on having to choose (or being forced to take) sides in a civil war.

When Clint Eastwood plagiarized the opening scene of Tae Guk Gi for his poignant Letters From Iwo Jima (2006), he must've figured no one would notice.


The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

While not a combat film, this masterpiece is a searing examination of war's physical, mental and emotional effect on three veterans adjusting to peacetime life. The hardened, realistic Hollywood atmosphere that made Best Years possible would be banished in just a few years by 1950's cheery abundance, never to return.

A similar hard look was attempted following Vietnam, with Coming Home (1978), and later, Born On the Fourth of July(1989). Both tried too hard and failed. Only The Deer Hunter (1978), with its quiet analysis of how different personalities respond to the crucible of war, is worthy of the legacy of Best Years.


(c) 2009 by 'tamerlane'. All rights reserved.