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September 1994

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From:
John R Groch <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
John R Groch <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 2 Sep 1994 12:46:31 -0400
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On Fri, 2 Sep 1994, Ara Rubyan wrote:
 
> Recently Steven Brophy continued a thread along these lines:
> ==================================================
> "Was _Platoon_ a glorification of the Vietnam war?"
> ==================================================
> How about another example:  Was _Glory_ a celebration of the Civil War?  I
> would like to see some comparing and contrasting of these two movies and
> furthermore how they portrayed war in general.  Here are some questions to
> ponder and respond to:  Is the graphic portrayal of war "bad"?  Does it
> necessarily promote a celebration of war?   Must this portrayal come packaged
> together with a well-grounded story or viewpoint in order to have
> justification or validity?
 
[virtual ellipsis]
 
> Let's see some discussion on this.
 
Okay. First, I'd agree with Stephen that Platoon exhibits the usual
confusion and incoherence that Stone tries to pass of as profundity.
While I wouldn't go so far as to argue that it glorifies war, it does
manage to provide us with good soldiers, and to frame the problems of
war as, in some ways the problems of bad soldiering.  We don't have to
end war; we have to kill bad lieutenants ("Wars don't kill people; people
do"?).  In fact, the precise problem with Platoon is its humanism, its
refusal to see war as something beyond the aggregate of individual actions.
 
Glory I think is a bit trickier, precisely because it is about the Civil
War.  Was Glory a celebration of the Civil War?  Well, yes, but then
celebrating the Civil War is an old business (in the North at least).
Anyone who went to high school knows the rap:  it freed the slaves, it
united the nation once and for all, etc.  Glory's depiction of war is
brutal, but the cause being pursued is treated as just and the sacrifices
made are thus noble and tragic.  It doesn't exactly glorify war, but it
certainly justifies it, treating it as an unfortunate necessity.
 
In each case, I think the failure of the films to be anti-war stems from
giving us good, pro-active soldiers.  The most powerful anti-war films, it
seems to me, are the ones in which our protagonists are by-and-large
helpless victims caught up in forces they can't control and may not even
understand.  Grand Illusion, Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket, Gallipoli,
and Midnight Clear all come to mind (as does the final episode of
"Blackadder Goes Forth").  In such films, it is war itself that is the
villain, not those who pursue it; indeed, the "villains" in such films are
not "bad,"  as in Platoon, but just doing their job, and thus our sense of
evil shifts from individuals to the systems and structures which require
them to do their jobs (not that we then forgive, say, the drill sergeant
in Full Metal Jacket, but we see him as a symptom rather than as the
disease itself).
 
Looking back on my list, above, the obvious also occurs to me:  in making
anti-war films, it helps to use a war that is already regarded
historically as ignoble and pointless, like WWI and Vietnam.  A film like
A Midnight Clear seems to me all the more admirable for setting its
anti-war statement during WWII, with all the moral baggage it carries as
"The Good War."  One could say the same thing about Catch-22.
 
JRG
 
______________________________________________________________________________
John R. Groch <[log in to unmask]>            |  "Work!  FINISH!  THEN sleep."
English Department/Film Studies Program    |     -- The Monster,
Univ. of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260  |        "Bride of Frankenstein"
______________________________________________________________________________

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