>should have been no military response, it is hard to imagine any >convincing grounds for calling "pro-war" a film that so devastatingly >portrays the horror of battle. While I wouldn't exactly call SPR a "pro-war" film (though any film that opens and closes with an American flag certainly subsumes any horrors within a Greater Good) the attitude of many reviewers that the explicit violence is by definition anti-war seems simplistic at best. Part of the pull ("appeal" seems not quite right) of warfare (or more precisely combat which is not at all the same thing) is that it is outside normal experience and to have participated sets that person into a select group. The violence is an integral part of this process, exactly because it's something most people would prefer to avoid. After all, we've *always* known that war is violent (check "The Iliad" for a start). To claim that viewers will see the violence in SPR and think war is horrible and must be avoided not only assumes a large leap but runs counter to much historical evidence (after all, did Brady's explicit photographs stop the Spanish-American War?). If nothing else, viewers familiar with horror films not to mention the violent action and crime films from Hong Kong, Italy and Japan aren't as likely to be devastated by SPR, which is mostly presented in an anonymous, non-emotional context; I can't be the only person that found the soldier walking around with his severed arm comic. ------------------------------------------------------ Lang Thompson http://www.tcf.ua.edu/wlt4 New at the Funhouse website: Did Elvis Steal Rock 'n' Roll?, The X-Files Movie Bites!, music reviews ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama.