Frame By Frame: War Movies

Wheeler Winston Dixon Author

09/26/2013 Added

735 Plays

Description

UNL Film Studies professor Wheeler Winston Dixon at one of the earliest and most enduring film genres, the war movie.

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:13.080]Hi. I'm Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan Professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
[00:00:18.586]and I'd like to speak for a moment about the war film as a genre of film.
[00:00:23.624]It goes back almost to the beginning of cinema history.
[00:00:27.228]There was an animated film about the sinking of the Lusitania.
[00:00:30.731]There were films about World War One; the most famous probably being ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.
[00:00:39.497]Also, DAWN PATROL in 1930; there was also a 1938 version.
[00:00:44.491]And Jean Renoir's anti-war film, GRAND ILLUSION, in 1937, which many people consider one of the greatest films ever made.
[00:00:53.020]SINGING
[00:01:00.761]When World War One ended, nobody wanted to go to war again... except, of course, for Adolph Hitler.
[00:01:06.367]And so we have a lull where people are making pacifist films.
[00:01:11.972]But in the 1940s, and actually in 1939 when war broke out in Britain,
[00:01:17.211]the Britain's were the first people to start making war films again.
[00:01:21.649]IN WHICH WE SERVE, directed by Noel Coward and David Lean, is a fantastic film about the British war effort,
[00:01:28.555]which began in 1939, when we were standing on the sidelines.
[00:01:31.292]By 1941, we are in the war, and we're seeing a series of war comedies with Abbott and Costello...
[00:01:38.966]things like BUCK PRIVATES, IN THE NAVY, KEEP 'EM FLYING.
[00:01:43.656]More serious war films like GUADAL CANAL DIARY, THIRTY SECONDS OVER TOKOYO, THEY WERE EXPENDABLE,
[00:01:51.378]and MRS. MINIVER, which was our more or less endorsement, directed by William Wilder, of the British war effort.
[00:01:57.718]SINGING
[00:02:02.589]As the war ended, it still was a very rich source for films about the war.
[00:02:08.795]And we have films like DUNKIRK, SING THE BIZMARK, and of course, the great film about coming home from World War Two,
[00:02:15.779]THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES from 1946.
[00:02:18.806]BATTLEGROUND, 1949; and HOME OF THE BRAVE, 1949, which is about the readjustment of soldiers who are returning.
[00:02:26.357]"Who are you kidding. It's not right. It's not the same."
[00:02:30.184]"Kid, you'd better get a hold of yourself."
[00:02:31.719]"You know I'm not. You're White. I'm Black."
[00:02:33.230]"Shut up and listen to me!"
[00:02:34.488]"I'm tired of listening. I'm sick of being kidded."
[00:02:36.357]In the 1960s and 70s, World War Two became increasingly romanticized in Hollywood with films like
[00:02:43.238]THE DIRTY DOZEN, which is really an action spectacular;
[00:02:46.867]WHERE EAGLES DARE, with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton;
[00:02:50.704]THE GUNS OF NAVARONE...
[00:02:52.506]"The party's over. Somebody's stepped on the cake, which means there is a traitor in this room."
[00:03:00.180]And then when we get into Vietnam, however, that's a war that takes a while to get onto the screen.
[00:03:06.186]We have a film, of course, TAXI DRIVER, 1976, about Travis Bickel, Robert DiNiro in one of his greatest performances
[00:03:14.923]as a veteran who comes back with a massive case of PTSD.
[00:03:18.632]But also films that dealt more directly with Vietnam like COMING HOME, a great film directed by Hal Ashby, with Jane Fonda.
[00:03:28.275]THE DEER HUNTER, directed by Michael Canimo, which won 5 Academy awards.
[00:03:33.614]Francis Ford Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW, which I had the great pleasure of seeing in a rough cut,
[00:03:40.484]without the narration at the beginning, which was much more effective then, with Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen.
[00:03:45.096]And more recently, FULL METAL JACKET, directed by Stanley Kubrik;
[00:03:48.762]HAMBURGER HILL; also PLATOON; and BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, with Tom Cruise, which won 2 Academy awards.
[00:03:56.103]"And I don't want you to feel sorry for me. Do not shed a tear."
[00:04:00.374]More recently we've had films like PEARL HARBOR, which deals directly with the attack on Pearl Harbor.
[00:04:06.969]Wolfgang Petersen's film DAS BOOT, which is about the Nazi submarine wolf packs of WWII.
[00:04:13.657]Terrance Mallick's THE THIN RED LINE;
[00:04:16.322]Steven Spielberg's BAND OF BROTHERS;
[00:04:19.192]Anthoney Minghella's THE ENGLISH PATIENT.
[00:04:21.695]CRASH
[00:04:24.998]Steven Speilberg's SHIINDLER'S LIST, which deals with the Hollocaust.
[00:04:28.569]The war film is always going to be with us.
[00:04:30.909]War, unfortunately, is part of the human condition,
[00:04:34.067]and there are wars everywhere, even as we speak.
[00:04:36.443]And the war film will always tell us stories of glory, of cowardice, of bravery, of fear, of success, triumph and failure, who won, who lost.
[00:04:46.653]War films are about the contest of human existance, unfortunately as it's played on the battlefield of human experience.
[00:04:53.393]I'm Wheeler Winston Dixon, and this is Frame By Frame.

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Frame By Frame: War Movies

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments