Everyone appreciates a good war movie. There’s little doubt on that note. Whether it’s the social melodrama or the action-packed comradery that strikes a chord, audiences have always flocked to see these vivid spectacles. The question is: why the hell would anyone be attracted to the concept of wide-scale suffering?
It might be easiest to call it sympathy. As Oliver Stone knows all too well, the more explicit your depiction, the more emotional the response. Men are blasted in gratuitous slow-motion, almost like a rallying-call for movie-goers to renounce their wicked ways, end wars and live the life of a good American Christian. The film is only as good as how much it makes you cry… and the more you cry, the more the director has healed you and created a better person. Bit creepy, isn’t it?
So how did all this ’save the whales’ patronising come about? Cinema is a very modern art form, but you need to rewind to the roots of the war film to understand what it’s all about. Back in the Forties and Fifties, Hollywood studios were clustered with Hun-beating, Commie-smashing adventure flicks, hooking in the old Western crowd and the same actors to boot. Before the spy became the hero of choice, it was the gritty charm of the young soldier that took all the credit. To spell it out: Entertainment and Propaganda were one and the same.
But modern audiences don’t really respond in the same way to flag-waving anymore. They’ve become a little more canny about cheering on calculated slaughter, no doubt after the media storm of the Cold War exposed just what was actually happening. And that’s the point. War movies make the impossible claim of accurately conveying the true horror of war itself, which is a horrendous fantasy. So is there really any need for War Movies for post-Iraq audiences? If you want a guilty thrill-ride, a cathartic witnessing of ‘true’ suffering that makes you appreciate your own relative happiness and gets the blood pumping, why not watch a Saw movie? At least they don’t have false pretences.
