James, I don't know if I'd use the term "represent" when talking about the relationship between war films and American cultural attitudes. Usually, war films have an agenda related to maintaining or reclaiming certain aspects of cultural identity. While I'm not sure if any of these resources specifically address the films you listed, there are lots of great texts on war films and their roles in creating public memory. Actually, I think all of the following texts I suggest deal only peripherally with war, but they'd be a good place to start: 1. Lary May, The Big Tomorrow (May discusses film's role in shifts in American culture from the 1930s to the 1950s, and he talks a great deal about WWII films) 2. Susan Jeffords, Hard Bodies (Jeffords addresses how 1980s action films attempted to restore rigid gender identity for men in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate) 3. Susan Faludi, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Male (Faludi's work is perhaps most peripheral, but she has this great chapter on Vietnam which uses the book and film First Blood as an example of the remaking of American memory of Vietnam) Hope this helps a little. Depends on how big your project is, I suppose, but they're great starters for understanding how war films work with cultural shifts to affect public memory and attitudes. Good luck! Melissa Williams IT Fellow, American Studies 104 Scott Hall University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN 55455 (612) 624-4190 [log in to unmask] Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 01:51:57 +0000 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?James=20Camp?= <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Hollywood and the war film Hi Can anyone give me any information or advice regarding useful information on war films. I`m particuarly concentrating on Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day. Im looking to see how these films represent US culture and attitudes of the times. Any information or links to decent websites would be most helpful. Thanks James ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html