Analysis Of Birth Of A Nation By Francois Truffaut

French filmmaker Francois Truffaut once claimed that “there is no such thing as an anti-war film,” due to perhaps the inherent spectacle of the genre in order to draw excitement. Truffaut’s point is valid in that the conventions of war films are often told in ways that heighten the spectacle that it drowns out the anti-war sentiment that the filmmakers may have wished to express. When viewed cinematically, the battle scenes in war films are often more thrilling than they are horrifying. War films often fall into the conventions that were established by the early silent films like Birth of a Nation, which depicted war as a heroic act through bombastic large scale battles. These scenes are indeed spectacular, and succeeded in conveying its message

Much like how a child in danger in a horror film can heighten an audience’s nervousness about for his or her safety, Klimov creates the same effect for the boy against the landscapes of war. This shift in point of view creates a striking effect in having the audience become aware of the horrifying violence that occurs in the film. We no longer become concerned with the hero fulfilling an objective, whether it’s winning a battle or completing a mission. The story’s main concern for its protagonist is to survive the apocalyptic landscapes. The contrast of the first and last scene of the film involving Florya highlight the effects of war on the innocent. The first scene shows Florya and another boy digging for weapons to join the Soviet armed forces. As they look for weapons, they pretend to be soldiers using traditional war lingo and jingoism based on their idea of war as a heroic deed. We later find out that they are digging in a field of buried soldiers, which creates an unsettling contrast between the child-like lack of awareness and the actual reality of war. By the end of the film, we see Florya physically drained as he points and shoots a rifle at a portrait of Hitler. The close-up lingers on his face to show how war has physically aged him despite still being a boy. The film does not celebrate the heroic acts of war, and instead focuses on loss of innocence and disillusionment of