LuckyWillWhy people dis/like war films. (Part I)
July 1st 2007 07:36
If film is simply escapism why do we watch war films?
Additionally if watching a movie is to relax or 'chill out' how can widespread violence be comforting. Unless you're a homicidal masochist, this genre of film doesn't apply to the usual standards. However, these are the two most popular responses to reason watching a film, e.g. escapism and to relax. For the majority who have experienced war they'd want nothing more than to evade war films that seemingly glorify genocide, misguided patriotism or bodily aggression against another. For the rest of us, why selectively watch war films to endure a type of portrayed torture on-screen?
Admittedly there are many types of war films that can be segregated and categorised, due or based on historical fact, fiction and to scales of local, national and international magnitude. Wars can be between countries or groups of religious, governmental or daresay 'ideological', persuasions. There can be sociological wars fraught between members of ethnicity, gender, sex, class and race that may underpin warring relations among thinkers, or similar feelings towards 'actors' that take up arms. For a more traditional context we could see them (depending on your persuasion) as freedom fighters, dissenters, liberators, government militia, defense forces or more cohesively as soldiers. So if there's such an assortment of wars and inclusively war films can they still be viewed under an all-encompassiong banner of promoting the visual stimulation of oppression, struggle and pain?
Just today I hired out "Flags of our Fathers". Having not yet seen it I know very little other than it looks a) American-made b) concerned with an American war/battle c) probably pro-American. Glimpsing at the cover I saw Clint Eastwood had something to do with producing it, either directing or as a financier. I presume he's too old to be thrown into the action of a war film and plus, he's done his fair share in westerns over the years. Yet, I put it to you (Orble reader or the broader outer community), I chose this particular movie over all other 'new releases' for something quite contrary to escapism or relaxing. I wanted something real. I didn't fancy a war film like that of modern horrors of werewolves vs vampires (Underworld) or even half-bloods vs vampires (Blade/s). Similarly something like a Hellenic version wouldn't do either (See: Gladiator, 300). Nor, a war against the capitalist society (The Corporation, Supersize Me) or one on global warming (An Inconvenient Truth) or even one on speech (F*ck).
I wanted something real. Moreover, something relative to my life had I been born less than 70 years ago and could reasonably imagine the circumstances surrounding this un-enviable position. Usually I admire stories of hardship against odds - it's where the greatest victory lays. Things done simply net the least rewards. Sometimes bearing a grimace, flinching at the starkness or feeling dour at the event to transpire makes me feel an uneasiness that I never would have encountered otherwise and for that I'm glad. Not that I'm advocating war but the grounding principles therein are of perseverence, stamina, resolution and qualitatively, 'action', are found in their most rawest forms. No one leads by complacency and therefore none will follow. War films are arguably the best source to find the most savage, honest and brutal depictions of human nature. You may say they are the worst of human emotions but nevertheless they are real. The only lies are found in politics.
This reality, I hope, to find in more war films and hoping furthermore to find it in "Flags of our Fathers". More broadly I don't feel like comedies, horrors, drama's, thrillers or manga's. I feel like something real. Something tangible to a piece of history and to ourselves as animals of Earth, that do and will get caught up in war that is as evident to us now as as it was when we first started out, creationist or evolutionist speaking. War - as a part of us as humans and a part of our life.
Do you like war films?
Or do you dislike war films?
(Neither is right or wrong and is generally contingent upon our mood.)
Or do you dislike war films?
(Neither is right or wrong and is generally contingent upon our mood.)
Next review - Flags of our Fathers
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For gritty and real, I prefer the nasty gangster movies.