War Films, Hollywood and Popular Culture

Michael Medved explains why Hollyweird cannot make a decent war picture anymore.


Three elements were always present in classic war movies—films like the John Wayne version of The Alamo, or The Longest Day, or A Bridge Too Far or Sergeant York. First, there was great affection for, and indeed glorification of, the American fighting man, who was portrayed as one of us—as representative of the best of what this country is. Second, there was obvious sympathy for the American cause. And third, the wars being dramatized were portrayed as meaning something.
Every once in a while we’ll still get a war film of this kind. Saving Private Ryan is an example, I think—even though there is a line in it where the Tom Hanks character says, “If we can bring Private Ryan back to his mother, then this whole god-awful war will have meant something.” Needless to say, WWII would have meant something even if Private Ryan had been lost. Another example is Glory, a great Civil War movie about a famous African-American regiment, made up partly of former slaves, and its doomed but gallant assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina. And there was Mel Gibson’s We Were Soldiers, the single finest film ever made about Vietnam. But such traditional war movies are now the rare exception.
It is far more common in war films today, regardless of the war being depicted, for the three elements of the classic war film to be turned on their heads. American troops are more likely than not to be portrayed as sick, warped and demented—in any case, very different from normal Americans. Very often the audience is manipulated to root for the other side, whatever the other side happens to be. And whatever the war, we are left with the idea that it is meaningless.

(Thanks to townhall.com)