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I haven't seen it since it came out, but I remember Charlotte Gray being perfectly acceptable, a solid Sunday Afternoon film (Mrs. Amicus liked it - but she's a big Blanchett fan).

And I'm with Domino on U-571 which I thought was a lot of fun. When it came out in the UK, there was some very entertaining controversy about its historical accuracy - or rather complete lack of it. Incidentally - whatever happened to Jonathan Mostow? Breakdown was a cracking debut but his subsequent career has been rather lacking.

I wonder if that controversy indirectly helped out Michael Apted's Enigma which came out the next year?

Dr Amicus wrote:Incidentally - whatever happened to Jonathan Mostow? Breakdown was a cracking debut but his subsequent career has been rather lacking.

Terminator 3 was decent, though nowhere near the level of the two James Cameron films, I think perhaps to do with the full-on move into CG stunts, so it suffered a little for that (and while I normally quite like Claire Danes, her character is intensely annoying in the early stages of this). I actually quite like his sci-fi film Surrogates, in which everyone stays at home and slobs out while walking around in beautiful robotic versions of themselves, especially the way that it affects people's attitude to dangerous activities and death of their surrogate form, and the idea that once the majority have adopted these powerful robotic suits that it becomes dangerous to walk around in your human form, so pushing everyone into having a surrogate! Although in the end I'm not sure what particular kind of moral message it is imparting - if it is to age gracefully together with your partner rather than hiding behind an idealised mask of impassive beauty, that's quite an interesting subject; if it is just the usual view that computer nerds should get out in the fresh air more, and if it has to be done forcibly then so be it, I'm not as interested!

Surrogates also has one of the most bizarre reappropriations of arthouse imagery into a Hollywood film that I've ever seen, when Bruce Willis's character, jealous at the attention being shown to his wife (Rosamund Pike, cornering the market in vaguely duplicitous spouses!) during a dinner party he's walked in on, smashes a party guest around the head with a lamp and then proceeds to brutally smash the (still laughing) guy's face to a robotic pulp. Forget Drive briefly stealing one of Irreversible's most shocking set pieces for its lift scene, it is even more shocking when the same imagery turns up in the middle of this film!

A Farewell to Arms (Charles Vidor 1957) David O Selznick's last film as producer and it's, uh, not very good. Rock Hudson and (who else) Jennifer Jones star in this soapy Hemingway adaptation. The film is bizarrely paced and structured, with lots of interludes of weirdly bawdy jokes (and a few apparent knowing winks to Hudson's sexuality). Everyone is pretty bad in this, and that's even before the last half hour when it just turns into a picture postcard and piles on tragedies to a hysterical degree. I hated the Borzage version, but this one isn't much better-- though it is almost twice as long!

China Girl (Henry Hathaway 1942) Gene Tierney in one of the many ethnic roles foisted upon the most debutante-looking star in Fox's roster (She's the titular character, if you can believe it. You will not believe it) in this rotten mess. George Montgomery gets special praise for being as obnoxious as possible. Man, there's even a little boy dressed in Hindu-face to serve as most humble manservant to sahib. No tasteless stone is left unturned/unexplodeded as Montgomery outwits Japs and Jap spies, which in itself is some damning criticism of Japan: how stupid does a country have to be to get outwitted by Montgomery's idiot?

the Hunters (Dick Powell 1958) This is a thoroughly mediocre Korean War drama with Robert Mitchum playing flight commander to hotshot Robert Wagner and troublesome drunk Lee Phillips. There's some half-hearted love triangle stuff thrown in, and a highly unlikely third act, but while I didn't like the film and can't recommend it, it does feature some truly spectacular aerial stunt work-- possibly the best I've seen in war films of this era. It's almost, almost worth seeking out for the flight sequences, but otherwise, this one's all Tom, not George, to use Wagner's groovy daddy lingo.

In Harm's Way (Otto Preminger 1965) My last remaining Hollywood-era Preminger and it was not worth the wait. A long, unfocused exploration of ideas better explored elsewhere, there's very little here to recommend. Also, the confused construction and anachronistic period details are a little distracting. Kirk Douglas is given an impossible part to play and features in a disgusting b-story that takes away a significant portion of the good will remaining at that point. After nearly three hours, one hopes to walk away from a film like this with more than vague disappointment, but here we are.

Island in the Sky (William A Wellman 1953) A film so bad from a director so good that I'm sure there are fans of it in the same way there are fans of John Ford's hangout nonsense like Wagon Master. In fact, I guarantee if you like Wagon Master, you'll love this tale of WWII-era supply pilots who make a crash landing in the uncharted Alaskan wilderness. Some of the details of the rescue mission in the last act work, but there is too much unwieldy characterization for the motley crew of rescuers. Though, if you harbor a life-long desire to see Andy Devine without his shirt on, good news! John Wayne's such an asshole in this too, oh man. Leonard Maltin is in the forced intro to this film on the DVD talking about how this is an unjustly overlooked masterpiece of aviation film and all I could think was, "Isn't Leonard Maltin supposed to know something about movies?"

Love Letters (William Dieterle 1945) As you can tell, this was a real murderer's row of bad films this round, but this one wins the contest for most absurd film. I have about the greatest patience known to man when it comes to silly Hollywood plots, but this one's just too much. Too much everything but not of anything you'd want a lot of. Melodrama, plot twists, over-emoting: it's all here! Jennifer Jones unbelievably got an Oscar nomination for what is quite possibly her worst work ever. I kinda don't even want to talk about the plot, on the off chance you end up catching this on TCM and want to watch on in a proper state of slack-jawed stupor as it unfolds. Turns out Ayn Rand isn't much better at writing movies than she is at writing books!

Stopover Tokyo (Richard L Breen 1957) Post-war Japan houses intrigue and danger! Ah, it didn't take Hollywood too long to jump right back into the same ol' weathered Japanese plots from countless b-pics, did it? According to Wikipedia, this was based on a Mr Moto novel with the Mr Moto character excised. Gee, what could go wrong with that pedigree? A film this familiar needs something special to make it all work, and if the gruesome twosome of Robert Wagner and Joan Collins doesn't send your heart all aflutter, you're in for the longest of slogs through dead-eyed 'Scope nothingness. Even poor Edmond O'Brien is just cashing a paycheck here. When your action packed finale revolves around just reaching into an open, public container and removing a small bottle, you can imagine how lacking the non-"exciting" elements must be!

Nope, love Wagon Master but find Island in the Sky a mediocrity at best. That said I do love In Harm's Way with its rambling structure working for me.

But I guaranteed it

I caught The Hunters a number of years ago and just dug through my records to discover what I wrote at the time. I'll have to see it again to check on whether my opinion has changed in the time since, but here were my initial impressions:

It is a deceptively simple film (I checked David Thomson’s entry in the Biographical Dictionary of Film and the only mention of the film is that it is “anonymously directed”) and unflashy but quite subversive in its own way – in an era of From Here To Eternity type threesomes it is interesting to see an unrequited love story where the couple who belong together never do so due to their loyalty to the feckless dead weight lump the girl’s married (even to the extent of saving Abbott from behind enemy lines when it perhaps would have been easier for everyone if they’d left him for dead!) It is amazing to see the guy playing Abbott literally being carried by Mitchum through a number of scenes!

Spoiler

The amazing final shot where Kristina Abbott visits first her husband and then Saville (Mitchum) in the convalesence hospital is going to stay with me. They say their goodbyes as Abbott is being shipped back to the US from Japan so they’ll never see each other again, they part and then both their attention is taken by the jet planes flying overhead. This gives Kristina the excuse to turn back to Saville (maybe for the uplifting run into each other’s arms and the happy ending) only to see his back to her as he is following the planes flying off into the distance. It is almost as if he has forgotten her and she smiles a little sadly and walks off. The film ends on Saville’s back as he is straining to see every moment of the planes, his true love.

It is such a simple ending but completely masterful – Saville is a man of war not of women, of duty not of passion (which is why he saved Abbott more because it is the right thing to do, not just because he made a promise to the wife through love).

I feel Dick Powell is a severely underrated director (I also love Split Second, the ‘taken hostage by robbers who unfortunately decide to hide out in a deserted town, oblivious to the fact that it has been chosen for the site of a nuclear test!’ film), but I’ve yet to see The Conqueror (the radioactive John Wayne as Genghis Khan film!)

The Khan film is surprisingly okay. Not the disaster it's made out to be, but not exactly good either.

Colin, I'm with you on Split Second, which is a great, nasty flick that got my vote in the last Noir roundup and will no doubt again, but the romantic dramatics in the Hunters just don't work at all. Mitchum's halfhearted pursuit of the unhappily married woman (her husband even offers her to Mitchum as a bargaining chip in return for permission to shoot down a desirable military target, just in case it wasn't clear he's a dirtbag) to my eyes had none of the gravitas you found in it, I'm sorry to say. Pretty much every moment when they weren't flying or about to fly or getting back from flying was flawed and stilted.

The Monuments Men (Clooney, 2014) I have little to add to what was covered in the main thread for this. It's all over the place tonally, it fits too much into its running time, and it's all very meh... Almost a filmic definition of average really.

Ender's Game (Hood, 2013) An decent stab at the book, but really needs another 20 minutes or so to show us why Ender is so remarkable, rather than rely on Harrison Ford telling us all the time. In many ways this feels like a more conventional Starship Troopers (film, not novel) in its treatment of the Other - but of course that's the set up for the rest of the series which looks unlikely to be filmed. Still, making the whole film about the training does at least solve the training / action split that has problematised several films (Full Metal Jacket being perhaps the most obvious).

Desert Victory (Roy Boulting, 1943) Hugely successful at the time and winner of the Feature Documentary Oscar (although, at 62 mins, a rather short feature) this wasn't quite what I was expecting, at least tonally. Covering El Alamein (both the initial battles fought by Auchinleck and the later, more famous, attack under Montgomery) it's a combination of actual combat footage (four cameramen died during it), captured German film and reconstruction (usually fairly obvious as the quality is so much better). No talking heads or interviews, few people named outside the leaders and little direct sound - and, most surprisingly, very little overt propandising. The enemy isn't belittled, the Allies aren't overly extolled (no stories of overt heroism) and the whole thing is very matter of fact. In fact, I was surprised by how detailed the strategic analysis was - including named divisions on both sides. Obviously this is covering an Allied victory (and a recent one at that), and the final image is of the Union Flag waving just after seeing British Troops enter Tripoli, but most of the film is more subtle. There is a real effort to show how the whole Empire is fighting (reference made to Indian, Australian and New Zealand troops), and even the home front gets a mention with shots of women in the armaments factory. This does lead to one of the very areas of direct sound where we have the women giving their response to radio reports of the fighting. It's really well put together, and a key film of the period, but compared to Jennings's work and other films from the former GPO team it's not quite in the same league. Recommended, but it probably won't make my final list. Incidentally, I have both Tunisian Victory and Burma Victory ready to be watched as well and will try and catch those before the deadline.

A Walk in the Sun (Lewis Milestone 1945) Milestone's had a pretty good track record with war films for me so far, but this one's maybe a bit too self-serious. Scripted by Robert Rossen, the film opens a series of seemingly endless Important internal monologues on the nature of war, some of which work, but which mostly end up being exhausting. The first half of the film thus unfolds a bit like a radio drama, and I liked the sequence early on where Dana Andrews is stuck in a trench and the beachfront action of the invading forces is just out of sight over a hill. I also appreciated how the film dealt with a commanding officer who has the role foisted on him by seniority in the midst of fighting and shows himself utterly incapable of leading. The response of most of the men to this situation surprised me and gave the material a bit more bite and interest than the first half allotted. Overall this just barely worked for me, but I could understand its appeal.

the Frogmen (Lloyd Bacon 1951) A sturdy if familiar plot finds Richard Widmark brought in to lead a Navy Underwater Demolition Team after their popular captain dies. The crew, unofficially led by Dana Andrews, views Widmark as.m a stuffed shirt and militarily effeminate, and the assorted personality conflicts make up the brunt of the movie. You can fill in the blanks yourself, but the film is still worth seeing for all of the great footage of how the UDT (who predated the SEALs) operate and function in the water, with much of the film's most effective moments coming from clear outline and execution of their maneuvers. It's not a particularly fresh or challenging film, but it's an extremely well done one. Recommended.

Happy Land (Irving Pichel 1943) It's impossible to not remark on the film's title when discussing it, since it's such a downer: small town pharmacist Don Ameche's son is killed in action and Ameche in turn goes into deep mourning, only to be led out of depression by the spirit of his grandfather, who shows him how his son actually led a full and productive life before having that life ended so soon. One can see the therapeutic effect this film could have had on the hundreds of thousands of grieving families with similar personal stories, but its hard to imagine anyone wanting to see a film this dripped in sadness during the era, even if it does provide an interesting peek into the mindset of the time. Also, the film's ending provides an unnecessary quick fix to the problem at hand which is literally unavailable to nearly everyone watching, and one that totally countermands the message of the film up to that point.

the Mysterious Doctor (Benjamin Stoloff 1943) Silly b-movie about a headless ghost haunting an abandoned British mine, scaring away potential workers who could be using the mine to help Britain's productivity. No one reading this will ever watch this, so I can spoil that in true Scooby Doo style it turns out the headless ghost is in fact a Nazi secret agent using the local town's superstitions to attack Britain from within. A young Eleanor Parker is also in the film, though she is neither mysterious nor a doctor.

the Search (Fred Zinnemann 1948) The first third of this film is in the Decision Before Dawn mode of Hollywood aping foreign cinemas, and the documentary-esque first act is the film's strongest, as it examines the process for placing displaced children in post-war Germany. The film's star, Montgomery Clift (in his first film), doesn't even show up for nearly forty minutes (along with the plot itself). Clift had the sparkle and magic from the start, though, and he makes a strong, Oscar-nominated impression as the young soldier who takes it on himself to look after a young towheaded concentration camp survivor in search of his mother. The film suffers a bit from never living up to the first third, but I enjoyed the overall shot-on-location experience, and for a career filled with unearned nods, Zinnemann's first nomination for Best Director here was at least merited.

Sink the Bismarck! (Lewis Gilbert 1960) A serious, solid representation of the Royal Navy's titular quest, with a focus on the map rooms and pushpinned ships equal to the pyrotechnics in the action. This was a good film, but it doesn't lend itself to much discussion beyond a pleased shrug.

Sunday Dinner for a Soldier (Lloyd Bacon 1944) A surprisingly effective and endearing film about a poor Florida family who scrimp and save in order to provide a dinner for a visiting soldier without realizing their soldier request never went through. The film is small but quite good at giving an unusual family unit (headed by Anne Baxter and Charles Winninger in a rare lead role) some screentime, and the last act is the kind of all-out emotional ploy that you either roll your eyes at as maudlin or give in to its mutual miracle nature. Highly recommended, especially as a superior example of homefront propaganda.

Tampico (Lothar Mendes 1944) Quick but entertaining cheapie exploiting the "Loose Talk Sinks Ships" policy, as naval tanker captain Edward G Robinson marries an immigrant found amongst the wreckage of a bombed sub and begins to suspect his new bride may in fact be a spy. The unsureity of the situation reminded me a lot of the mileage Mamet would later get out of whether or not Steve Martin got off a seaplane in the Spanish Prisoner, and like that film, Tampico's last act is a series of twists, some of which work, and one of which is so massive I have to give it credit for ballsiness alone.

Tender Comrade (Edward Dmytryk 1943) Decidedly not worth getting Blacklisted over, this film later ruined the careers of Dmytryk and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, but in the contextual "present" its most notable offering is a portrait of several "war widows," ammunitions plant workers whose husbands are away fighting the good fight. I thought the present-day material with the women becoming roommates and bickering / cheering each other on was mostly effective (though there's a moment about halfway through the film where Ruth Hussey is called upon to deliver an impossible to accept anti-war/America spiel that stretches the believability of even fluff like this). Far worse, however, were the intermittent flashbacks to Ginger Rogers and Robert Ryan's early courtship and married life. I'm not sure what the point was of making Rogers into a shrill, subhuman toddler in these (too long) scenes, as surely there are more palatable ways of showing her growth and maturity than making her emulate Baby Snooks with a hangover.

Toward the Unknown (Mervyn LeRoy 1956) Dry but effective story of Korean War vet William Holden dealing with the psychological and career fallout from spending over a year being tortured and eventually revealing state secrets to his Korean captors. Holden's quest to prove to both Lloyd Nolan's Brigadier General and himself that he's still capable of testing experimental aircraft makes for an involving narrative path, even if it pretty much hits the expected notes. Holden and Nolan are especially good at bringing their star power and elevating the underwritten roles with some lived-in perfs, though I could have done without the weird phoned-in rivalry for Virgina Leith. Recommended.

Women in Bondage AKA Hitler's Women (Steve Sekely 1943) This expose of Hitler's nefarious plans for all Aryan women doesn't quite hit its marks, though various component parts are effective. Gail Patrick returns to Nazi Germany to train young women for the party while her husband, a high-ranking Nazi officer, is fighting on the battlefield. The film highlights the paranoia and snitch culture of the period, but the specific narrative elements lack cohesiveness and the characterization especially is a bit cheap.

In time for Veterans' Day here's a handful of comments.
To Be or Not to Be
Given that the original is arguably the best film of all time this could have been a worse affair. The way the story is filled out and the slowness of the performances are the main things bringing the film down, but it is basically funny and congenial.That congeniality might be another negative considering that the central joke is still genocide and the original had the living breath of Hitler working for it.The whole thing with Sasha is off too given that it really sympathizes with him and seems to be trying to shed light on the persecution of homosexuals yet leaves him as the worst sort of mincing stereotype you could imagine. I suppose in '83 this was the best that could be offered in the mainstream, but boy does it feel hypocritical as a result. Which is all more disagreeable than the film deserves as it is ultimately harmless and is fairly funny with even the new gags like the opening Polish dialogue working reasonably well. It is beyond me though how Charles Durning got an oscar nomination out of his, basically, extended cameo.

Devils on the Doorstep
I didn't have anything to say until I realized this is basically von Trier's Dogville with a few even ickier politics thrown in to aggravate the senses. In certain respects this is the more pleasing film with a fairly loud and organic humour that isn't always based in the misery of the premise rising through and some genuinely great black and white cinematography. That doesn't change though how honestly disturbing the premise of the oppressed pretending at being oppressor, but accomplishing nothing as a result is.

The Green Berets
This is possibly the most out of touch film I've ever encountered. It shows no sign whatsoever that Wayne encountered anything relating to the conflict other than a few names. It basically plays like a bad WWII movie and the emphasis that only those that fought in war should have a voice is hilariously hypocritical. I suppose it deserves some applause for being the worst Ray Kellogg directed film.

Attack
Fairly generic war flick from an asleep at the wheel Robert Aldrich. The casting is about as generic as you'd be able able to imagine for a no star war film from the era which is fortunate I suppose since Palance, Marvin, and company are usually a joy to watch. The film is a bit too stiff to fully enjoy them though. Occasionally the film suggests a dark jazz inspired heart, but that never stays for more than a few seconds and even those moments are usually undercut by a truly awful score. Credit where credit is due though. A lot of scenes especially early on feel, whether they are or not, incredibly authentic giving the sense that this had to have been made by a group of veterans.

Cloak and Dagger
This film is very fascinating historically what with all of the taboos broken and the uncomfortable balance it tries to achieve as a (mostly useless) commentary on nuclear war. Thank heavens too since the film is definitely one of the weakest I've seen from Lang who is afforded no favours with the exposition heavy script and a budget that seems to only afford the actors and film stock. Cooper does as good a job as can be expected, but seems to have trouble with some of the dialogue. The action is definitely the film's strong suit with a silent film ready traverse through the woods about halfway through being the highlight of the film.

My Fuhrer
This is an absolutely hilarious Zelig of a film. Sure a lot of the jokes are pretty obvious (look they put pastrami in his sandwich) but there's also a number of fairly smart ones. Though like through much of his career the reason this film is so wonderful is almost exclusively down to Ulrich Muhe. He plays the role dead serious, but knowing enough of the absurdity of the situation that the film is able to be absurd while not losing the weight of its premise. Actually the humour probably gives the weight given just how dumb the premise is (think The King's Speech by way of that one scene in Bananas). The problem the film faces, of course, is to not undermine the situation with humour while not exploiting it through drama and making sure that whatever balance is achieved isn't totally weightless like say The Infidel. Frankly it does fail by why of The Infidel strategy, but not as poorly thanks, again, to Muhe whose subsequent death probably helps out some though even without that the strength of his performance could convince anyone of anything.

Miracle at St. Anna
This is Spike Lee at his most cartoonishly inconsistent and just plain weird. There really is no way to defend this as a good movie especially with one of its lead characters being a fat caricature that I'm sure Lee himself would criticize if it were in a movie made by a white person. The actors, including small parts for Walter Goggins and Michael k Williams, do an amazing job of making this not sound as awful and out of date as it is though I wouldn't say anyone succeeds. Yet through all of that I couldn't help but enjoy what I was seeing. Lee's Leeness is just pretty endearing to me, but I can't imagine anyone but his hardest fans gathering any serious enjoyment by this tonal mess which is also probably his visually least interesting film by many miles. It's commentary on the war is pretty weird itself starting off with a move so blatant you'd think that this was an Oliver Stone film before just sort of forgetting it in favor of some generic let's defend the good Europeans against the Nazis thing. Sadly by the end the film is just another in the long line of post-Saving Private Ryan war films that doesn't even put its gimmick to good use (though manages a few healthy Rossellini shout-outs). The framing device is also entirely pointless and removing it would have made the film significantly better though I suppose even more generic.

knives wrote:It is beyond me though how Charles Durning got an oscar nomination out of his, basically, extended cameo.

And he got nominated the year before for Best Little Whorehouse in Texas! I haven't seen either film but there's a funny post-nominations Siskel and Ebert special where they both look at each other with true confusion in their eyes as they try to guess how this even happened

Maybe he was just really popular among actors? For those not in the know he has the main Nazi role from the original movie (though Christopher Lloyd as his lackey has more screentime), but only has about three scenes and they take up maybe ten minutes of the film. It's the only role that isn't extended. He is good in it, but not particularly notable.

I've been remiss in contributing to this thread (or even following it very closely), mainly because I got most of my recs out of the way in my initial big post, and haven't seen anything much to supplant them in the intervening months. Catching up, I'm disappointed to see the discussion so dominated by American men-in-combat (primarily WWII) movies, when the genre is so much richer and broader than that, but I guess I have myself to blame for not pushing harder for more diversity in the thread.

Anyway, I'm just going to repost my initial list of suggestions / recommendations to maybe encourage people to think outside the tank.

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The reason I voted for this genre is because I realized a while back that a lot of my favourite films count as war movies, even when that’s not the way I primarily think about them. Andrey Rublyov, Ugetsu Monogatari, The General, A Canterbury Tale and La maison des bois are all fundamentally films about life during wartime, even if none of them might leap to mind as conventional ‘war movies’ – and I daresay all of them are all a lot more insightful about what war actually means to ordinary people than nine out of ten men-in-combat movies. So I figured this would be an interestingly pliable genre with which to play, and it could take in a lot of really great films.

So what isn’t a war movie?

I’m defining war as, you know, actual war. Wikipedia suggests a reasonable definition of “an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities.” If that’s the background of a particular film, then it’s fair game for me, whether the focus on the film is armed conflict, the homefront, the resistance, prisoners of war, life in the warzone, or immediate recovery from the war. In some cases that background might be too much in the background for me to consider a film a ‘war movie’ (The Cremator springs to mind), but that’s more of a feeling than anything that’s easy to define.

No metaphorical wars. There are so many films revolving around major armed conflicts between or within states that you don’t need to stretch the definition of war to find worthy movies. So: no ‘war on drugs’, no ‘gang war’, no ‘war of the sexes’, no ‘class war’, ‘war on conformity’ or ‘battle of the bands’. And no Cold War films. Just because it’s a pervasive metaphor doesn’t mean it’s not a metaphor. As has been pointed out, most of these are espionage films, and a different generic beast, and lord knows there have been enough actual international conflicts arising from the Cold War to fill up any quota. I can probably excuse The Manchurian Candidate, since it’s specifically tied to the Korean War. I also won’t be including films that focus on the military, but not in the context of a war (e.g. Beau Travail, The Desert of the Tartars). So, no to Bill Douglas’ My Way Home, but yes to Miklos Jansco’s.

Sometimes it’s a very hard call to make. I’m strongly inclined to include Alan Clarke’s Contact, but I don’t think I could include Elephant. Same general conflict; different perspectives.

So now let’s throw out some contenders. I’ll suggest a few frontrunners in each category, then follow up with other random recs that spring to mind.

Straight War Movies

Films about men in combat:

Men in War (Anthony Mann) – About as good as this stuff gets, with the psychological acuity you’d expect from Mann in this period.

Objective: Burma (Raoul Walsh) – A perfectly generic subject elevated to greatness by Walsh’s brilliant three dimensional mise en scene.

The Red and the White (Miklos Jansco) – One of the few films that conveys just how arbitrary, bewildering and terrifying warfare must be for your average footsoldier.

The Marines Who Never Returned (Lee Man-Hee) – Yes, that title is a bit fat spoiler, but the filmmakers know that their film is so great that it doesn’t matter. This film has some of the best defined and most visceral combat sequences I’ve ever seen.

Plus: Cross of Iron, The Big Red One, The Thin Red Line, They Were Expendable, Wooden Crosses, Ivan’s Childhood, Overlord

The Homefront

Heimat (Edgar Reitz) – Only a portion of this fifteen-hour monster deals directly with WWII, but it’s a hefty portion, and that material colours the entire film.

La maison des bois (Maurice Pialat) – Maybe the most bucolic war movie ever made, with WWI haunting the film rather than imposing itself upon the action.

Organ (Stefan Uher) – If you’ve seen The Sun in a Net, you’ll want to see all of Uher’s 60s films. Well, here’s one that relates to this project! A military deserter hides out in a monastery in a small town.

The Catch (Nagisa Oshima) – Some Japanese villagers capture a black American airman while Oshima gleefully tears the scabs off Everything That’s Wrong With Japan Today.

Plus: The Song of the Grey Pigeon, A Canterbury Tale, Spirit of the Beehive (perhaps), Cargo 200 (probably not, but it’s a film where the impact of a distant war on people back at home is absolutely catastrophic)

Resistance

Homefront films tend to shade into resistance ones, but that’s no matter:

Went the Day Well (Alberto Cavalcanti) – A speculative homefront / resistance / invasion film that’s like Powell & Pressburger gone feral, and it’s absolutely brilliant.

Confidence (Istvan Szabo) – One of the most chillingly paranoid films ever made, as well it should be.

The Train (Frankenheimer) – Just a great, rollicking, downbeat action movie

Plus: Army of Shadows, The Mortal Storm (if I stretch a couple of definitions), Kanal

Life During Wartime

Civilians living in warzones, or the people servicing the military. Some really great films here, looking at war from a slightly skewed angle.

Red Angel (Yasuzo Masumura) – The first time I saw this movie, I realized with a jolt that I’d never actually seen a truly anti-war film. Sure, almost every war movie worth its salt pays lip service to the old ‘war is hell’ saw, and many go a lot further than that, but almost all of them can find some saving grace in the situation, even if it’s only comradely solidarity. In this film, it’s just unrelenting horror and waste. You have been warned. This is the first of my spotlight films.

Story of a Prostitute (Seijun Suzuki) – Almost a companion piece to Masumura’s film, but the hallucinogenics take the edge off.

Signs of Life (Werner Herzog) – This and the next recommendation are sort of ‘eye of the storm’ films: films about soldiers in wartime which eschew combat and focus on downtime. In Herzog’s masterful debut, though, that downtime drives the protagonist up the wall. This film must take the prize for cinema’s most artfully sublimated battle scene.

A Time Out of War (Denis Sanders) – Lovely Oscar-winning short in which two civil war soldiers get to know one another during a one-hour truce, before they have to start trying to kill each other again. If that doesn’t get your attention, consider that Charles Laughton saw this film and immediately hired the Sanders brothers to help him realize the river sequences in Night of the Hunter.

Plus: Ugetsu Monogatari, Andrey Rublyov, The Silent Village

Prisoners of War

I don’t really see how you could exclude Holocaust films from consideration here.

Captured (John Krish) – Amazing ‘instructional’ film that works even better as a nuanced psychological drama.

Diamonds of the Night (Jan Nemec) – One of the most beautiful, harrowing and exciting films on my list. Filmmaking doesn’t get much better than this.

The Round-Up (Miklos Jansco) – Psychologically punishing film that demonstrates with depressing efficiency that some techniques of abuse never go away.

Plus: The Ascent, Passenger, War (Balabanov)

Documentaries

So very many to choose from, but I’m probably going to be reasonably sparing with them in my list. I’d say, for instance, that The Architecture of Doom – relevant as it is – isn’t really a war documentary. Shoah, shure, and likewise The Sorrow and the Pity.

Crazy (Heddy Honigmann) – Honigmann practically specializes in examinations of the impact of war (and other catastrophic geopolitical events) on the lives of everyday people, and this doc (which also placed high on my documentaries list) is probably the most poignant and intimate of them all. A bunch of people who have worked in modern war zones select a piece of music that relates to their experience and listen to it, then start talking about what it means to them. A devastating film (and not just because you have to sit through Guns ‘n’ Roses Geneva-Convention-violating version of ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’). This is my second spotlight title, if you can find it.

Witnesses (Marcel Loszinski) – In place of Shoah, I’m opting for its dwarf cousin. Less than half an hour, but just as horrifying. It’s made all the worse because technically, it’s a (shudder) post-war film.

S.S. Ionian (Humphrey Jennings) – I know I pimp this in just about every list, but I’m quite prepared for it to be my most frequently recurring orphan. Obviously there’s a lot of Jennings in contention for this list. Do yourself a favour and grab the BFI’s sets.

79 Primaveras (Santiago Alvarez) – At the moment, it looks like this might be my only Vietnam film.

Plus: Night and Fog (obviously), Brutality in Stone (maybe), Lessons of Darkness (oddly enough), Blockade

Odd Ones Out

But wait, there’s more! Some of these don’t fit into any other category easily, or are great films I’m in two minds about classifying as war movies.

The General (Clyde Bruckman / Buster Keaton) – One of the greatest comedies of all time, but also featuring a beautiful and painstaking reconstruction of the Civil War. Doesn’t readily fit into any of the above categories (it’s hardly a conventional combat movie, even if it is all action) but will nevertheless be near the top of my list.

Chimes at Midnight (Orson Welles) – Great battle scenes in this one, even if it might not immediately spring to mind as a war film. Plenty of Shakespeare qualifies, but only Olivier's Henry V stands a chance of also making the grade.

The War Game (Peter Watkins) – Speculative war movies are a bit of a grey area (how about The Sacrifice, a film entirely about averting WWIII?) but I don’t see how this can be ruled out. And check out Culloden as well.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell / Pressburger) – Obviously a war film, even if it sprawls across a number of the above subgenres.

City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien) – Whether or not I include this will depend on whether on not I can count the White Terror as a continuation / extrapolation of the Chinese Civil War. I’m tending towards inclusion, since it’s set before the technical end of the war in 1950. If I hung its inclusion on Taiwanese martial law than I could bring in A Brighter Summer Day as well, which is tempting but seems wrong to me.

Newbies

Rather than bury them in the above categories, I wanted to draw attention to some great war movies from the last ten years or so.

Generation Kill (various directors) – This is what David Simon did after The Wire, and it often gets described as ‘The Wire Goes to War’ or somesuch, but apart from its density and scepticism about institutions it’s really a different kettle of fish. And it’s great. Go watch it.

In the Fog (Sergei Loznitsa) – Tense, gorgeous resistance drama from one of Russia’s greatest ‘new’ filmmakers (he’s actually pushing fifty).

Between Two Worlds (Vimukthi Jayasundara) – This stunning visual experience is part realized myth, part psychodrama, but in the background some kind of armed conflict is spreading across the landscape, and the movie evokes that particular kind of disorienting nightmare brilliantly.

zedz wrote:Catching up, I'm disappointed to see the discussion so dominated by American men-in-combat (primarily WWII) movies, when the genre is so much richer and broader than that, but I guess I have myself to blame for not pushing harder for more diversity in the thread.

No doubt the genre is full and varied (more so even than your more restrictive personal definitions, or mine for that matter), but given how much is available and how little time afforded to the project, I make no apologies for focusing predominantly on the area of the genre most closely tied to my own interests and studies (and expertise, frankly), the Hollywood Studio System. Me and a small handful of others are the only ones keeping this thread and subsequent list afloat, so while I'm sure we'd all love to hear more varied responses from participants, there are apparently few others to take up the call. Instead of blaming yourself for "not pushing harder for more diversity," why not contribute further discussion of films you deem worthy of inclusion, or seek out new films to engage with within? There's still a good six and a half weeks left to change the tide, or at least make sure your vantage is properly accounted for.

domino harvey wrote:

zedz wrote:Catching up, I'm disappointed to see the discussion so dominated by American men-in-combat (primarily WWII) movies, when the genre is so much richer and broader than that, but I guess I have myself to blame for not pushing harder for more diversity in the thread.

No doubt the genre is full and varied (more so even than your more restrictive personal definitions, or mine for that matter), but given how much is available and how little time afforded to the project, I make no apologies for focusing predominantly on the area of the genre most closely tied to my own interests and studies (and expertise, frankly), the Hollywood Studio System. Me and a small handful of others are the only ones keeping this thread and subsequent list afloat, so while I'm sure we'd all love to hear more varied responses from participants, there are apparently few others to take up the call. Instead of blaming yourself for "not pushing harder for more diversity," why not contribute further discussion of films you deem worthy of inclusion, or seek out new films to engage with within? There's still a good six and a half weeks left to change the tide, or at least make sure your vantage is properly accounted for.

Oh, I fully intend to do that, kevyip and real life allowing. I'm only just getting around to figuring out what my list will be (and given that my original post of top-of-my-head recs contains over 60 films, this won't be an easy task!)

Christmas plans have necessitated moving the deadline forward all of two days, FYI. I will hope and pray armistice stays put for December 30th

Archangel (Guy Maddin, 1990)
The fear of being able to summon the courage for battle, the destruction of families, and the wish to be able to forget the horrors of war are themes commonly explored in the war genre, but here they are twisted and warped into a deliciously absurdist tale of amnesia, futile warfare, and a very confusing love triangle (square?). There are enough bizarre goings-on here that you may want to review this plot description after seeing the film to make sure that you followed everything--I find it an entertaining read in its own right. Though Archangel was made in Maddin's signature style, it is perhaps the film of his that could most easily pass for an actual film from the 1930s. (It is, after all, no more bizarre than something like Medvedkin's Happiness.) And I absolutely adore the sickly "old movie music" score.

Defenders of Riga (2007) is a pretty solid war film.
Tells the tale of a little-known episode post-WWI in which the Germans are trying to take over the Baltics. In order not to provoke the war-weary allied powers into involvement, the Germans hide behind a Russian corporal, the confusion of the Russian Revolution, and fear of communism. The circle of friends who become key defenders of Riga are delineated well, and we care about their plight. At times it comes off a bit as though 5 guys defeat the German Iron Division and save the city. But it's a well done story of Latvian independence.

Lingering in the back of my mind was that after the next war Russia would take over and dominate Latvia for 40+ years, until Latvia could again regain its independence. The film and the struggle to retain a newly won independence has resonance in these days of Russian aggression in Ukraine. I'm sure I was a little partial to the film, because I've been to Riga and other parts of Latvia and recognized a few of the locations.
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Latvian/Baltic history in the immediate post-WWI era was full of intrigue and contenders for power. Latvia declared independence. The Soviet Red Army pushed in and overtook most of Latvia. Half the land was regained by Latvian freedom fighters in alliance with Germany. Then the Baltic nobility (primarily Germanic) tried a coup to set up a United Baltic Duchy combining Latvia and Estonia. Estonians started fighting in the north of Latvia and took back some land from the Reds. All of that in a little over a year, leading to the episode Defenders of Riga focuses upon -- when the Germans attack Latvia using a White Russian corporal as a cat's paw/frontman. I think the film was smart to just narrow its focus on one important episode and not concern itself with all of the prior intrigue.

Le Demon des Eaux Troubles is the French title of Samuel Fuller's Hell and High Water. Kind of a clunky submarine film in which some scientists and concerned patriots put together a mission to discover what nuclear plans the commies have going on in some disputed islands between Russia and Japan. Turns out they plan to nuke part of NE Asia and make it look like the Yanks did it. The production values are fairly low, and much of the of the film looks like freshly painted sets. Along with the mercenary crew, commanded by Richard Widmark, there's a pair of scientists aboard, and the crew and film are very excited that one of them is an attractive young woman. Not recommended.

At least the French disc I have is generous -- a 2-fer.
The other Fuller film is Fixed Bayonets (Baionnette au Canon), and this is a much better film. During the Korean War, an American regiment needs to evacuate and wait for reinforcements. In order to manage a safe retreat, a rear guard of 48 men is chosen to mount minor attacks and pretend they are an advanced guard with a full regiment behind them. The characters are believable and all have their own quirks and personality. There are sporadic action scenes, interspersed with waiting and worry. Men die in quick crummy unglamorous ways. Actually I still have the last thrid to go, as it got too late last night. But this was pretty enjoyable.

Level Five (Chris Marker, 1997)
For anyone wishing that you could justify putting Sans soleil on a war list, here's the film for you. It tackles similar issues of memory and transience but in the context of the Battle of Okinawa during WWII. Ostensibly chronicling the making of a video game(!) about this subject, Marker makes some good points about representations of war in the media, which put me in mind of that David Brinkley interview on Criterion's Hearts and Minds disc, where he talks about the influence the media had in turning the public against the Vietnam War, simply because it was the first time that the horrors of war were presented to them in all of their ugliness. (There's also a great, long review of Level Five from colinr0380 here.)

The Colditz Story (Guy Hamilton, 1955)
Not all prison escape films are technically war films as well, but for the ones that are, they probably only qualify as such to the extent that they focus on things other than escaping from prison. On one end of this spectrum, you have A Man Escaped, which focuses incessantly on the minutiae of the escape, leaving the war setting so incidental that it's easy to forget about. And on the other end, I suppose, you have The Colditz Story, which can't help but constantly remind you of its war setting, given that in this prison, the Nazi guards outnumber the prisoners! This makes for some interesting schemes that the freedom-hungry POWs have to resort to, and I appreciated the stark realism shown by the film for some of the escape plans that don't pan out. But I guess you can't have it both ways--the one thing sorely missing from this film is more detail surrounding the minutiae of the various escape attempts. You get a sense of the cleverness of their construction, but don't get to feel enough suspense at their execution.

swo17 wrote:Level Five (Chris Marker, 1997)
For anyone wishing that you could justify putting Sans soleil on a war list, here's the film for you. It tackles similar issues of memory and transience but in the context of the Battle of Okinawa during WWII. Ostensibly chronicling the making of a video game(!) about this subject, Marker makes some good points about representations of war in the media, which put me in mind of that David Brinkley interview on Criterion's Hearts and Minds disc, where he talks about the influence the media had in turning the public against the Vietnam War, simply because it was the first time that the horrors of war were presented to them in all of their ugliness. (There's also a great, long review of Level Five from colinr0380 here.)

For more on the subject, Kihachi (The Sword of Doom) Okamoto's The Battle of Okinawa is an ambitious, unconventional anti-epic. It's co-written by Kaneto Shindo, so that should give you an idea of how pitiless and unsentimental it is. It won't be making my list but it's well worth a look for an unusual perspective on a conflict that is seldom explored on film.

Reminder that lists are due four weeks from today

zedz wrote:

swo17 wrote:Level Five (Chris Marker, 1997)
For anyone wishing that you could justify putting Sans soleil on a war list, here's the film for you. It tackles similar issues of memory and transience but in the context of the Battle of Okinawa during WWII. Ostensibly chronicling the making of a video game(!) about this subject, Marker makes some good points about representations of war in the media, which put me in mind of that David Brinkley interview on Criterion's Hearts and Minds disc, where he talks about the influence the media had in turning the public against the Vietnam War, simply because it was the first time that the horrors of war were presented to them in all of their ugliness. (There's also a great, long review of Level Five from colinr0380 here.)

For more on the subject, Kihachi (The Sword of Doom) Okamoto's The Battle of Okinawa is an ambitious, unconventional anti-epic. It's co-written by Kaneto Shindo, so that should give you an idea of how pitiless and unsentimental it is. It won't be making my list but it's well worth a look for an unusual perspective on a conflict that is seldom explored on film.

I have to admit a preference to The Father of the Kamikaze which is a very similar film (though obviously different story) that seems to also favour Swo's love of excruciating minutia. Yamashita really shows every neuron firing.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll have to check them out.

Is anyone planning to list any experimental films? All I can think of right now are:

79 primaveras (Santiago Álvarez)
Crossroads (Bruce Conner)
23rd Psalm Branch (Stan Brakhage)