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April 1999, Week 4

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From:
American Cotton Museum <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 21 Apr 1999 22:52:15 -0500
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A year or so ago, AFI came out with their list of the best 100 films of
all time. Earlier this year, Forbes American Heritage Magazine came out
with a list of the ten best movies of World War II. Recently, while doing
some searching on the WOrld Wide Web, I located a site that listed at
least 150 World War II films.

I am curious as to what our list members think makes a good World War II
film? Certianly, Saving Private Ryan and The THin Red Line are far
advanced in many areas over their earlier counterparts like Sands of Iwo
Jima, To Hell and Back, and The Naked and The Dead, but are they
necessarily better? Sure, Saving Private Ryan depicts scenes more like
they should have been in To Hell and Back, (which Audie Murphy himself
felt was too sanatized) but other modern war films such as Memphis Belle
have actually taken history and changed it on screen.

What part does an accurate depiction of violence in a World War II film
play in how he film is viewed by the public. Are "James Ryan" and the
other characters in SPR more beliavible, heroic, or real than Audie Murphy
(who played himself), characters played by John Wayne, etc. and other
earlier WW II film stars/characters, simply because
their films were made in eras of great difference in technology and taste
(with regards to violence, etc.?

Thoughts?

Vince Leibowitz,
Executive Director
American Cotton Museum
"Where Cotton Is Still King"
http://www.cottonmuseum.com
600 Interstate 30 East
P.O. Box 347
Greenville, Texas 75403
(903) 454-1990
(903) 450-4502
President
Northeast Texas Museum Association
http://www.cottonmuseum.com/ntma.htm

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