War Film Genre
Matthew Jaskot
English 102-7 9:30 A.M
Avodian
September 20, 2012
War from the Beginning War films have been around for quite some time. They have many different aspects to them. Each film has a little bit different view, depending on what the director wants the audience to get out of the movie. Some target the importance of how horrific and heart breaking war was, while others were used to inspire their country to support their troops. There are films though that go straight to the point of war and show all of the intense combat, the pain and suffering the soldiers did for their country, and the brutality of what countries did to prisoners in concentration camps. War films never get dull, they will keep the audience interested and on the edge of their seat the whole time, unless of course a person cannot handle the blood and sight of innocent soldiers being blown to pieces just to serve their country. As soon as cameras could take moving pictures of combat, war became a popular subject for narrative movies. Although no one can be certain of the exact first war movie, many historians feel it is probably a one-and-a-half-minute war film, Tearing Down the Spanish Flag , made on a set in New York City immediately after the United States declared war on Spain in April 1898. All the wars in American history have had stories told about them by Hollywood, although some wars are more popular than others.
War films started to get important when they started trying to rally the U.S citizens into believing that the America needed to enter the war. In films like Over the Top and The sinking of the Lusitania rallied the American people by showing them when the Germans sank the Lusitania, when we were neutral in the war. That was enough to make the people mad and influence them to go out and join the military and to go to war. These films were not very long, but were enough to bring out the American spirit in the citizens.
When the U.S entered world war one,
English 102-7 9:30 A.M
Avodian
September 20, 2012
War from the Beginning War films have been around for quite some time. They have many different aspects to them. Each film has a little bit different view, depending on what the director wants the audience to get out of the movie. Some target the importance of how horrific and heart breaking war was, while others were used to inspire their country to support their troops. There are films though that go straight to the point of war and show all of the intense combat, the pain and suffering the soldiers did for their country, and the brutality of what countries did to prisoners in concentration camps. War films never get dull, they will keep the audience interested and on the edge of their seat the whole time, unless of course a person cannot handle the blood and sight of innocent soldiers being blown to pieces just to serve their country. As soon as cameras could take moving pictures of combat, war became a popular subject for narrative movies. Although no one can be certain of the exact first war movie, many historians feel it is probably a one-and-a-half-minute war film, Tearing Down the Spanish Flag , made on a set in New York City immediately after the United States declared war on Spain in April 1898. All the wars in American history have had stories told about them by Hollywood, although some wars are more popular than others.
War films started to get important when they started trying to rally the U.S citizens into believing that the America needed to enter the war. In films like Over the Top and The sinking of the Lusitania rallied the American people by showing them when the Germans sank the Lusitania, when we were neutral in the war. That was enough to make the people mad and influence them to go out and join the military and to go to war. These films were not very long, but were enough to bring out the American spirit in the citizens.
When the U.S entered world war one,
Cited: Dick, Bernard F. The Star Spangled Screen: The American World War II Film. Lexington: Kentucky , 1985. Hantke, Steffen. “The Military Horror film: Speculations on a Hybrid Genre”. The Jounal of Popular Culture 4 Nov. 2010: 701-719. Kaes, Anton. Shell Shock Cinema: Weimar Culture and the Wounds of War. Princeton: New Jersey, 2009. Whillock, David E. “Defining the Fictive American Vietnam War Film.” American Film Journal 18 (Summer 1990) 244-250. Youra, Steven. “James Agee on Films and the theatre of War”. Film Criticism 10 (Fall 85) 18-31.