GOING TO THE MOVIES
Morris Dickstein
WAR!
In one of those odd ironies of film distribution, just as peace was
breaking out across half the globe last fall, a number of extraordinary war
movies were released. Each of them would have been an unlikely project
just a few years ago; each involved the recreation of a painful, even grisly
subject in strikingly contemporary terms. They exemplified how the treat–
ment ofwar has become more frank and daring, more graphic and demand–
ing, especially as the movies have come to reflect our still-troubled conscience
about America's role in Vietnam.
Only one of these films, Oliver Stone's
Born on the Fourth ofjuly -
adapted from an angry memoir by a crippled veteran, Ron Kovic - actually
dealt with Vietnam, yet none of them would have been made as they were
without our post-Vietnam immersion in the dark, brutal, bitter side ofwar.
They exposed audiences to a level of pain and violence unthinkable in earlier
war movies, and they bring us face to face with the terrible losses and indi–
vidual sacrifices that are the unwanted fruit of all serious combat. Though
influenced by the
Catch-22
spirit of the Vietnam era, none of them - with the
partial exception of Stone's movie - insists that all war is absurd, a mere
sham. They allow for patriotism, even for political necessity, but confront us
unforgettably with the high personal cost of victory as well as defeat.
Significantly, not one of these movies deals directly with World War
Two, the prototype not only of the just war but, as a 1940s film subject, of
the clean war, before Hollywood ever conceived of the blood-curdling real–
ism of battle that could be achieved by special effects, lighting, and expensive
location shooting. Instead the movies of that period aimed at a more official
realism available only in cooperation with our armed services, which, as the
price for their enormous technical assistance, approved all scripts in advance
and blatantly insisted on being shown in a favorable light.
In a sense, then, these were official productions, made with a govern–
ment seal of approval at a time when few filmmakers would have dreamed
of being critical of the American military. From the forties to the sixties–
from
The Story of
G.I.
joe, Back to Bataan, The Sands of fwo jima,
and
Bat–
tleground
to
The Great Escape
and
The Dirty Dozen
-
the World War Two
movie is essentially the action movie, but also an effusive tribute to the
American soldier and the American way of life. Only a few of these films
acknowledge the real harshness of war - Tay Garnett's gloomy, atmo-
