Essay About World War Ii And Film Industry

Terrence Malick’s “the Thin Red Line” and Hollywood’s Traditional Depictions of WarEssay title: Terrence Malick’s “the Thin Red Line” and Hollywood’s Traditional Depictions of WarTHEThin Red Line is a three-hour epic about the World War II, directed by Terrence Malick, who made his comeback to the film industry after 20 years with a subject that had been neglected for almost as long.(1) The film is based on James Jones’ novel, published in 1962, which was first adapted for the big screen by Andrew Marton in 1964 rather unsuccessfully. For many years, the book seemed to defy cinematic adaptation due to its deliberately choppy, episodic storyline, its lack of a single heroic protagonist and the multiplicity of perspectives.(2) However, Malick tried to overcome these obstacles by creating a film which broke “most of the commercial rules about narrative and drama”(3), as a critic observes. My interest in The Thin Red Line is therefore twofold: firstly, I will try to explore the ambivalent nature of its narrative which oscillates between the Hollywood tradition and art-cinema narration and secondly, I will focus on the representations of war, in an attempt to compare them to the World War II films of the past.

World War II stands out as an intriguing period in the history of Hollywood cinema. After the bombardment of Pearl Harbor and the American involvement in the war in 1941, the Hollywood industry was eager to express its wholesale commitment to the imperatives of war. As Tomas Schatz observes, “never before or since have the interests of the nation and the movie industry been so closely aligned, and never has Hollywood’s status as a national cinema been so vital”.(4) Hollywood’s prompt mobilization, combined with the prominent role of cinema as the dominant mass medium at the time, turned the Second World War into the most thoroughly documented and dramatized event in history(5) Since television and the 24-hour transmission of images were not yet available, it was the motion pictures that brought the war to the wide public through the vast production of newsreels, documentaries and dramatic features. However, despite the abundance of images and representations, all the fiction and non-fiction treatments of the war shared a common message: that the American people fought for a just cause and the war effort had to be sustained at all cost until the final victory.

The representations of armed forces in wartime movies encompass a wide range of films which feature soldiers, sailors and airmen both in combat and non-combat situations. Especially at the outset of the war, the “war themes” were integrated into the already established film genres, such as the musical and the comedy, where the uniformed men functioned merely as props in crowd scenes, in the streets, in night clubs and train stations.(6) However, according to Schatz, “the term war film took on steadily narrower connotations as Hollywood refined specific war-related formulas.”(7) These formulas comprised espionage films, occupation films, home-front dramas depicting military training or the daily experience of the wartime Americans, and above all, combat films, which constituted the core of the genre.

The combat movies provided the most direct and all-encompassing treatment of the war by dramatizing the actual battles and inaugurating a new sense of realism and historical immediacy in the Hollywood films. They depicted battlefield situations on sea, land or air, and described the violence, the hardships and the courage of the soldiers in the front. The largest number of combat films produced during the war take place in the Pacific theatre of operations(8) and some of the most legendary examples include Wake Island (1942), Bataan (1943), Guadalcanal Diary (1943) and 30 Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), to name just a few. Hollywood’s response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour was not only swift but also relentless. In the combat films, the portrayal of the Japanese as duplicitous and barbaric ‘subhumans’ had no precedent. As Dick notes, “in contrast to the ‘good German’ and the occasional good Nazi, good Japanese were almost unheard of.”(9)

However, in the postwar era the World War II film genre underwent some significant transformations. Although the combat film remained the dominant formula for another two decades, the films looking back at the Second World War adopted a more moderate stance towards the enemy and tried to provide a less biased account of the war. As Manvell observes, “as the years pass, the antagonisms between the former enemies become relaxed into a form of mutual respect for prowess and dedication in war.”(10) Some of the most frequently debated films that exemplify this revisionist turn are Attack! (1956), which portrays a conflict within the American army, Tora Tora Tora (1970), which tries to shed light on the circumstances that led the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, and Patton (1970) which provides a very controversial portrait of a modern hero.(11) Patton was actually the last commercially

d-actuated war hero who saw action in World War I, and for that reason, he is still regarded as more than just remembered for his wartime feats. Yet, unlike the “mainstream” war heroes and the ones who would later wear the uniform of the First World War, the general is still remembered as a warrior and commander who would often play the role of “the hero,” as historian James Ostrom says.(12)

The modern image of the First World War was not just a reflection of the “warrior class” which was beginning to gain ground and its historical significance in the war years – it was also a new concept that was expanding and being updated. The modern war hero was not a figure who would be remembered for his heroic behavior or even for his heroism in general. It was a man who would be remembered as a person who took the role of “the hero.” As the years passed and the film became increasingly more critical, the “war hero” became more and more more synonymous with the war. After the early 90s, it was possible to view the first WW I-era war hero as a military hero who fought at the very moment that the Second World War started.

For the following twenty years, in the face of declining and even more challenging theater budgets for most other categories of movie, it was important for the critics to acknowledge and take notice of war hero heroes, even when no one had played him. But such recognition took its toll on all the veterans of the Vietnam war. After the death of Patton in 1944, more than half of those veterans came forward and made their voices heard about the war hero in the Vietnam veterans’ community. The result? The War Hero (1948) was made into one of the most beloved and praised war films of the war. The documentary and discussion of the war hero became a powerful and powerful tool to inform Vietnam veterans and the public. The filmmaker’s dedication to his war character is one of the most famous themes of his career, and it’s quite apparent in his public declarations of dedication or even in his personal correspondence. In addition to his commitment to his hero, the filmmaker also continues to make numerous appearances to reflect on his hero. The first and only known wartime film to record Patton’s life, in his autobiography, which was published back in 1962, was Patton’s memoir, The Man who Saved Victory: A National Defense and Veterans Memorial (1985). This historical film rewatched more than 2,500 minutes of the War Heroes interview in its entirety, revealing untold details about the veteran’s wartime career, including the many things that could have been told from his own recollections, his own life and his wartime experiences.

A New Era

After a time, the Vietnam war came under increased scrutiny after the United States Supreme Court declared in May 1954 that a Vietnam veteran could not be imprisoned for a mere “false-flag” terrorist act. And since the United States became involved in the civil war, more than 200 people were convicted of treason for attempting to assassinate American President Henry Wallace or to aid the Ku Klux Klan. In 1957, an American soldier who went on a tour of Vietnam during the Vietnam war became the first known Vietnamese leader to walk the American flag from active duty. The Vietnam War ended in 1962.

Despite the fact that many civilians in West Point were killed with no public notice, the Vietnam War resulted in a period of quiet and peace. The people, who were largely left to their own devices, would never forget