I prefer anti-war movies so my preferences are... 1.All Quiet On The Western Front (1940)...also Bobby Dylan's favorite film 2.Paths Of Glory (1956) 3.Dr.Strangelove (1964) 4.How I Won The War (1966) Of course there are exceptions to the rules... 1.Gunga Din 2.King Rat...James Clavell's tale of a Japanese POW camp 3.The Hill...Sean Connery in a military correctional facility 4.Full Metal Jacket 5.Platoon
In his most entertaining oral literature speech Dylan says he read ' All Quiet On The Western Front ' and found it so disturbing he never read another war novel.
Bobby is noted for double mindedness & oddly enough I read an interview many decades back where he stated "I only care for movies that stay with me & AQOTWF is a top preference of mine" But of course during the 1980s he also stated "I don't listen to musicians younger than myself" when asked what he thought about Bruce Springsteen, then just fairly recently I read where Dylan said that listening to rap music is what rejuvenated his career again... Anyway he is correct that AQOTWF is very disturbing because it depicts the horrors of war like no other film and/ or text
I forgot to mention one I thought was quite good (and perhaps it's been mentioned already): Stalingrad (1993). I believe it's a German made film about the siege of said city seen from a German company's perspective.
How many war movies are "pro war"? Most are at their core 'anti war" by displaying the atrocities that are committed during it. Few movies glorify the slaughter or the suffering. I mean maybe a Dolph Lundgren film or something, but the truly good ones are usually fairly balanced and are not pro in terms of the propaganda or the imagery.
Some movies will only show atrocities that the victors want shown. The Battle Of The Bulge, which I like, shows the allied prisoner executions at Malmedy, -but no footage of the large number of German POWs executed by G.I.s. A dirty secret even late into the 1960s.
At least 800 (movies of all type). "We have recently acquired 4,000 new pages of documents from the Pentagon and CIA through the Freedom of Information Act.... These documents for the first time demonstrate that the US government has worked behind the scenes on over 800 major movies and more than 1,000 TV titles." EXCLUSIVE: Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon, CIA and NSA
The Blue Max: First World War film about a German fighter pilot. Great aircraft and flying sequences. No CGI. Battle of Britain: Another film with great aerial sequences with lots of real WW2 aircraft. No CGI. Twelve O’Clock High: Gritty account of a B17 group in the early days of the 8th Air Force bombing offensive when the chances of a crew surviving a tour of duty were slim. Gregory Peck is outstanding. Uses real combat footage of fighter attacks on B17 formations. No CGI. I loathe CGI.
Characters: All films need them and many don't have them. We are told that the stalag has 640 sergeants. All characters. I'm sure Wilder wanted to show just that. And I think effectively
criterion is putting this one out soon. Come and See i have the dvd you mentioned as well. it is a MUST see. imho.
I saw this late one night in the '80s, when Channel 4 would broadcast all kinds of weird and wonderful films and it disturbed the hell out of me in my teens, so much so that I can still see certain scenes and images in my mind's eye over 30 years later after only seeing it that once A hell of a film, and a hell of an indictment on war and what it does to and lets out of people (I thought it may have been part of the Red Triangle series put it wasn't)
as well, the fact that it is a soviet film w a cast completely unknown to western audiences gives it a special kind of impact. and i find it incredible that a filmmaker working within a such a political and cultural era could create a work such as this.
Your post reminded me of another war movie with James Garner. Can't for the life of me recall the title but it involved Garner being kidnapped by the Germans because he knows the details of the D-Day invasion. They drug him and 'age ' him and convince him the war is over and the Allies won and he has suffered memory loss due to being in an accident. Does anyone remember this?
There are many fantastic movies that have "war overtones," though not the major point to the film. Dances With Wolves fits that category, and perhaps A Few Good Men. I saw Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" mentioned but didn't see his "Letters From Iwo Jima" film which I thought was the better of the two released during the same time period.
