War films have long been a staple in American film culture. It’s understandable, because war has long been a staple of American culture. Every Oscar season, there seems to be the token movie dealing with war. Most recently it was Hacksaw Ridge. The first Oscars in 1927 awarded best picture to Wings, a war film depicting the love stories of two pilots in World War I. Usually, these movies are told from the perspective of white male American soldiers, with the few exceptions like Red Tails or Zero Dark Thirty. Battle for Sevastopol is a Russian and Ukrainian film that tells the story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the best woman sniper in military history, and her experience fighting for the Soviet Union in World War II. Battle for Sevastopol tells …show more content…
Many war films use World War II as their setting, some of the most famous being Saving Private Ryan and Das Boot. Battle for Sevastopol is told in the perspective of the Soviet Union’s, which is unique for a war film. However, it uses some of the same tropes as American war movies. One such trope is the boot camp training montage. Many war films often show their main characters preparing for the military through a montage of them training set to music. This scene is so typical of war films it would seem wrong not to include it. The boot camp scene emotes empathy in the viewers and shows just how hard soldiers train to become ready for war. Full Metal Jacket and Band of Brothers also feature this scene in their films. Another part of Battle for Sevastopol’s plot that is par for the course in war films are the battle scenes. These are often shot with very sharp cuts and loud noises. When the main character is injured, the scenes will usually slow down and go silent save for a ringing sound that is meant to portray a loss of hearing for the main character. They offer a firsthand perspective of the trauma of war for people who may never experience anything like it. Scenes like these are apparent in almost every movie about war; Lyudmila is injured during battle two times during the movie. Another war film plot line is that of PTSD, or …show more content…
Battle for Sevastopol contains many important themes that coincide with the themes shown in other war films. Finding humanity in such cruel, unforgiving circumstances is one such of those themes. Leonid says the aforementioned line to Lyudmila after she purposely causes a Nazi soldier to suffer. It also comes after seeing how unaffected Lyudmila has become to death. She would often smile after shooting people and meticulously kept a record of the number of people she’d killed. This theme also ties in with another theme: having to deal with yourself after the war. War times often plunge soldiers and citizens alike into morally grey situations. The task of holding your convictions and trying to win a war is not an easy one. Lyudmila deal with these throughout the entire movie. As mentioned before, sometimes it seemed as if she enjoyed killing the men. Another scene that exemplifies this is the scene where Leonid and Lyudmila kill a group of Nazis that are celebrating Christmas. Both Lyudmila and Leonid seem almost eager to ruin the soldiers’ fun and celebration. Of course, it’s not justify death when the ones dying (Nazis) are so reprehensible. However, Lydumila does show at least some regret near the end of the movie when she quasi surrenders to the German sniper and then cries after ultimately killing him. Other films that deal with these themes are The Hurt Locker and
Imagine being in an ongoing battle where friends and others are dying. All that is heard are bullets being shot, it smells like gas is near, and hearts race as the times goes by. This is similar to what war is like. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the narrator, Paul Baumer, and his friends encounter the ideals of suffering, death, pain, and despair. There is a huge change in these men; at the beginning of the novel they are enthusiastic about going into the war. After they see what war is really like, they do not feel the same way about it. During the war the men experience many feelings especially the loss of loved ones. These feelings are shown through their first experience at training camp, during the actual battles, and in the hospital.
One traumatizing event for the new recruits was when all the soldiers were under attack and the new recruits were scared for there life from hearing all the explosives. The new recruits never experienced shell bombs, explosives and bombardements. All of it was new to them so with the attack going on it was all a traumatizing scene to them. Another traumatizing event is just the soldiers seeing all the other soldiers wounded or dead lying around the trenches helpless. Paul and his crew actually sees man fighting for their lives or man that are already dead.
The soldiers are first trained in basic level where they are motivated to destroy their individualities and build comradeship amongst the men. The bond is so important among men because when they are in battle, they have to fight for eachother. In the beginning of the basic training, the recruits are all worn out. The training is being done in an island where they are conscripted to do what is being told by the drill instructor without question. Neither they can leave, nor they can communicate much with the outside world. Basic training is basically about giving mental and physical pressure to create motivation. In the first three days, the recruits are being hustled, yelled, and shouted. They learn the basic orders of drill that enable them to work in large groups. They have to surrender their clothes, cut their hair, cut their physical evidence of individuality citizen identity. The recruits sleep aside a series of hasty rituals and given no time to reflect or to look back and think about their families, friends. So that the recruits donot backout, the frantic bustle of forming is set. The creation of an environment that romanticizes the milita...
Young recruits were first sent because the veterans knew they were going to come back dead. "When we runt again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think: "where's Himmelstoss?" Quickly I jump back into the dug-out and find him with a small scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded.
Describe some ways in which business values and artistic values in Hollywood contend with one another.
“Saving Private Ryan” successfully uses extremely vivid imagery to display how horrible war is. In the opening scene of the movie the US troops are invading the beaches of Normandy in the battle of D-Day which is known as one the most violent battles of WWII. This shocking beginning puts the audience right into the heavy reality of war. There are many images of people being brutally injured or killed and is able to accurately show what WWII and more specifically D-Day was like.
Phase I of boot camp focused on three main issues; Physical Training (PT), Drill, and Learning the History of the Marine Corps. This is the foundation for which the rest of boot camp is built on. Physical training is geared toward strength and conditioning. By the end of boot camp we will be able to run five miles without breaking a sweat. Drill is learning to perform as one. There are no individuals in the Marine Corps. It’s all about being a team. On the battlefield you need to perform as a cohesive unit in order to be successful. Learning the history of the Marine Corps is to let you know who came before you and Marine Corps values. You learn the famous battles the Marines fought in. They teach you to take pride in the uniform you wear and always uphold the reputation of a Marine.
In the beginning of Sledge’s memoir, he depicts his desire for joining the war. His feeling that the war may end soon prompts his aspiration to get into action. While the military students are at Georgia Tech to continue their studies before being sent to boot camp, Sledge (among a few others), purposefully fails classes so he can be sent straight to boot camp and begin the journey to the front. Sledge wasn’t prompted only by patriotism. He has a superficial idea of what war entails. During this period in his journey, his morals are high, and he views the war to be a positive. However, some of this feeling could have been encouraged by the fact that they were Marines. Marines were not just your typical soldier and he took pride in that. This pride itself gave him more hope and confidence going into the unknown. Even though Sledge is upbeat and excited for and during boot camp, you can sense a small fear that lingers in the back of his head about the dangers that his future holds. This sense of fear increases as he nears his departure for Peleliu. Sledge writing this book well after he completed his stint in the war comments after he described the excitement to begin boot camp and their journey ...
...he ground troops or “grunts” who actually fought the war, and their struggle to survive in this very ugly war. Top Gun starring Tom Cruise was also released in 1986. This patriotic display of our best fighter pilots once again winning supersonic air battles against “bad” foreign powers was incredibly important because it showed that the mood of the American people had changed and that they were ready to accept the United States military back into their hearts.
Other types of movies like “The story of G.I. Joe (1945)” and “A Walk in the Sun (1945)” portrayed many American soldiers as heroes in the battle (Fellow 228). Yet there have been some movies that depicted the less glamorous after effects of the post-war era. Some of these post-war effects consisted of trauma, emotional adjustments for veterans, and those who grieved after losing loved ones like the film, “The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)” (Fellow 228). Even cartoons like Looney Tunes focused on the war to educate the youth and their parents. Both the positive and negative films about World War II gave Americans the insight or information they wanted and also entertained
The reality of war changed many soldiers' lives because of nightmares from firefights and small skirmishes to bombings and atrocities. Many places from Saigon to Khe Sanh are filled with stories from many veterans. A letter from a marine fighting in Khe Sanh said to his Parents "Since we began, we have lost 14 KIA and 44 men WIA. Our company is cut down to half strength, and I think we will be going to Okinawa to regroup. I hope so anyway because I have seen enough of war and its destruction." From the death of close friends any person's emotions would crumble. A normal everyday business person in the shoes of this soldier wouldn't last a day. The experience a soldier goes through will change his view on life forever. This is just showing how it affects people. Seeing death and killing on a daily basis. The random occurrence of death would truly disturb any person. Seeing the death of friends and mangled bodies of South Vietnamese villagers left by Vietcong guerillas, the soldiers were left with the vivid visions of the bodies.
Pathos it moves the viewer with its various scenes as it inspirational, motivational, intriguing, etc., hence why it could possibly change the view point of the person from bad to good, but ultimately it is up to the person watching. In the technique of Logos, it appears as a relation to the viewer and how the viewer could benefit from the military in many ways just by wearing a single uniform, or if you are person of the civilian world it makes you feel a bit safer knowing that the Military will be defending the United States with all their might. The Videos also use some technical numbers in attempts to show how much military personnel and vehicles we have at this very moment...
Unlike the WWII era, the Vietnam War brought realism into literature and film. There were no heroic movies of men fighting in Vietnam. Men could no longer shoot fifty enemy combatants on top of a tank without being hurt. Instead, popular culture brought a realistic view of war, death, pain, and destruction. Author Tim O’Brien, like many war veterans, struggled with his Vietnam experience and expressed them through writing. Tim O’Brien exposed the truth behind war stories because he shows the difference between WWII romanticism and Vietnam realism.
Over 90,000 feet of training films were produced for U.S. defense forces, bringing a spirited and nostalgic flair to soldiers. One film in particular that was meant for rifle training also rallies soldiers to want to learn how to use a weapon that could destroy Hitler. Disney and director Frank Capra made a series of Why We Fight films to remind soldiers of their noble cause, along with training and navigation films. All the videos made for the army were free, resulting in more money that could be spent on other causes in the war. By the time the war ended, Disney produced around 68 hours and 400,000 feet of film in support of the war
The movie I chose to analyze for historical accuracy was War Horse. This movie was set in the First World War, starting in Britain but the story also explored France and Germany during this time period as well. Three scenes will be analyzed: the trench warfare scene between the British and the Germans, the scene where the British soldiers were gassed, and the scene where the British were getting patched up and nursed. War Horse does well to stick to the historical accuracy of what happened during the First World War due to the fact that the three scenes that I have chosen to analyze are not embellished and are close to what really happened.