War is . . . well, best left to the moviesFeb 12 '04 (Updated Dec 27 '11) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line One of Our Aircraft . . . lands atop a list of exceptional movies about the horrors and glories of war.
War is hell for people who've been there. For the rest of us, it can sometimes seem the stuff of great adventures. Agony, death and the ceaseless suffering of the survivors. Excitement, romance and the unflagging certainty that we could whip the bad guys. War is about all of those things. War movies are about all of them as well. There are many exceptional movies about wars. Trying to list just ten of them requires a campaign of attrition that leaves many casualties. Some of those are cited below, after the list of ten movies left standing when the smoke cleared. This list is stacked with movies that could be described as anti-war. Many other lists in this category are like that, but certainly not all of them. #1) One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1941) Written and directed by Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell. Reviewed on Epinions by SusanGranger. There are no weak elements in this gripping thriller about a crew of British aviators during World War II. Their plane is shot down over Nazi-occupied Holland and they get help from many brave Dutch citizens as they try to make their way back to safety. The movie is riveting. Bits of humor break up the suspense. It all comes together in a rousing but mournful celebration of the unbroken spirits of people determined to free their country and its people from those who seek to conquer them. There's a lot more about this movie at the end of this piece. #2) All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Directed by Lewis Milestone. Written by Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott and Del Andrews. Adapted from Erich Maria Remarque's novel. Academy Awards for Director and Best Picture. Added to the National Film Registry in 1990 and named one of the Top 100 movies by the American Film Institute in 1998. Reviewed by isinga and GeorgeChabot. Young men are transformed by World War I from eager recruits to battle-weary soldiers, or much worse. This is a flawless big-screen treatment of the landmark novel. Everything about the movie works well. Lew Ayres is perfectly cast as a young German soldier struggling to make some sense of war's senselessness. Unforgettable images suggest some of what war does to us, including the haunting moment in which the title is revealed to be the grimmest irony. #3) Henry V (1944) Starring and directed by Laurence Olivier. Reviewed by BrianKoller and Korova. (1989) Starring and directed by Kenneth Branagh. Reviewed by GeorgeChabot and jaxmom28. These are two exceptional movie versions of William Shakespeare's play about the king who united medieval Britain. Each movie reflects the spirit of the time in which it was made. Olivier's wartime version is rousing and was intended to rally its audiences to continue supporting efforts to turn back Hitler and his hordes. Branagh made his during a time of relative peace and so he more fully considers the terrible costs of war. Both are well worth watching. #4) Twelve O'Clock High (1949) Directed by Henry King. Written by Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay, Jr. Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Dean Jagger. Named to the National Film Registry in 1998. Reviewed by NFP and Sloucho. Gregory Peck is haunting as the commander of a squadron of fliers during World War II who is haunted by his responsibilities. The movie powerfully suggests the tolls that wars inflict and the heroism of those who try to soldier on regardless of their crushing burdens. #5) The Red Badge of Courage (1951) Directed by John Huston. Written by Albert Band. Adapted from Stephen Crane's novel. Not yet reviewed on Epinions. Real-life war hero Audie Murphy stars in this exemplary adaption of the classic novel about a young man caught between his courage and cowardice during the U.S. Civil War. The battle scenes are both stirring and upsetting. The movie presents the more personal dramatic moments with masterful restraint that makes them linger long after the movie ends. #6) Paths of Glory (1957) Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Written by Kubrick, Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson. Adapted from Humphrey Cobb's novel. Reviewed by Sloucho and mfunk75. A general's flawed battle plan leads to disaster. He seeks to shift attention from his actions by sentencing three soldiers to execution for cowardice. Kirk Douglas and Adolphe Menjou are memorable in this complex consideration of where one's responsibilities lie in times of war. #7) The Tin Drum or Die Blechtrommel (1979) Directed by Volker Schlondorff. Written by Schlondorff and Jean-Claude Carriere. Adapted from Gunter Grass' novel. Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Reviewed by Nilo24 and BrianKoller. David Bennent gives a heartbreaking performance as a young man who sees what Nazis and other adults are capable of. He does not want to be like them and so he wills himself not to grow up. The movie has been targetted for boycotts because of scenes in which the boy has sex with an older girl. One hopes this is another instance in which attempts to repress a work actually draw more attention to it. The Tin Drum richly rewards viewers and so it deserves the largest possible audience. #8) Best Years of Our Lives (1946) Directed by William Wyler. Written by Robert Sherwood. Academy Awards for Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor (Fredric March) and Supporting Actor (Harold Russell, an injured veteran who also received a special Academy Award for inspiring other injured veterans). Named to the National Film Registry in 1989. Reviewed by tbrown and isinga. World War II is over and several soldiers try with varying degrees of success to adjust to civilian life. A powerhouse cast movingly brings to life all the triumphs and setbacks that war's painful aftermaths can cause. #9) Execution of Private Slovik (made for television, 1974) Directed by Lamont Jackson. Written by Richard Levinson and William Link. Reviewed by thewasp. Martin Sheen has given many powerful performances. His portrayal of the first U.S. soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion is likely his best. The movie suggests that Sheen's character did not deserve his punishment, but the nuanced screenplay deftly manages the near-impossible by making Sheen's character a hero of sorts while not making villains of those who challenge him. #10) The Caine Mutiny (1954) Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Written by Stanley Roberts and Michael Blankfort. Adapted from Herman Wouk's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Reviewed by isinga and weirdo_87. This is a provocative consideration of what it can mean when the military's chain of command is challenged. Humphrey Bogart gives one of his best performances as a naval commander who appears to be losing his mind. Several other actors give exceptional supporting performances, including Jose Ferrer, Van Johnson and -- especially -- Fred MacMurray as an officer who understands himself with remorseful clarity. The movie drags when its attention falls on a standard-issue romance between two characters for whom it is possible to feel happy but whom it is impossible to remember long after the movie ends. Everything else about the movie is absorbing. THE FALLEN From Here to Eternity (1953) and Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) would be on my list if I could make it longer than ten. So might Friendly Persuasion (1956), which is not in every respect a masterpiece but which does feature moving performances by Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire and Tony Perkins as a Quaker family trying to hold on to their pacifist faiths during the U.S. Civil War. Other movies that deserve acclaim greater than merely being mentioned alphabetically include Apocalypse Now (1979), Glory (1989), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Patton (1970), Platoon (1986) and Stalag 17 (1953). Perhaps less well-known and certainly undeservedly so are Johnny Got His Gun, the adaptation of Dalton Trumbo's novel, (1971) and A Rumor of War (1980), a powerful made-for-TV drama about a Vietnam-era court martial. I've tried to make the cases for several movies about World War II (Hollywood vs. Hitler: Movies that helped KO the Third Reich) in the category about such movies. THE UNKNOWNS There are many war-themed movies I have yet to see, including King Vidor's silent The Big Parade (1925), John Huston's Across the Pacific (1942), and Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937). Also Stairway to Heaven (aka A Matter of Life and Death, 1946) and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), both by Powell and Pressburger, the creators of The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus and a previously-cited classic: MUCH MORE ABOUT ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT IS MISSING At first, the scene of people running into shelters during an air raid seems unremarkable. Anyone familiar with movies set in Europe during World War II has seen many such scenes. But then one of the most important characters in the stirring One of Our Aircraft is Missing (1942) describes the scene's significance in a way that makes it fresh and powerful. She is an extraordinary citizen of the Netherlands who is resisting the Nazi occupation of her country in a quiet but effective way. The people running for shelter are some of the German soldiers who have taken control of her homeland, but not of its people. The woman, played with remarkable conviction by Googie Withers, explains to a member of Great Britain's Royal Air Force that hearing Allied warplanes and seeing the fear they strike in the Nazis inspires the Dutch resistance. "Do you know what it means," she asks, "to see those 'masters of the Earth' scurrying like scared rats? Do you know what it means to hear that noise [of Allied bombers], that noise which is burning oil for the hearts of all of us?" The British pilot and his five crewmates learn exactly what it means as they make their way from their crashed plane across the Netherlands to the British Channel, where their comrades will be able to bring them home. Along the way, they are helped by Withers' character and by hundreds of other Dutch women and men who risk their lives to help the men who in turn risk their own lives to loosen the Nazis' stranglehold on the Netherlands. The people helping the stranded Brits have learned from hard experience how to resist the Nazis without provoking their brutal anger. To signal to each other their quiet defiance, the Dutch wear simple safety pins on their coats and keep pictures of their Queen hidden in their homes. When the Nazis are not around, they sing "The Netherlands Will Rise Again." And when the Nazis are about, the Dutch thwart them with understated ingenuity. At a soccer game, the Nazis seek to harass the people they believe they have conquered. They order 50 of the Dutch spectators to leave. The order is for only 50, but immediately and without discussion, every Dutch person starts to leave. Exasperated, the Nazi officials relent and the soccer game proceeds. "We didn't invite them to our country," says one defiant Dutchman, "but we can take care of them while they're here." There is considerable suspense as the British airmen try to make their way to safety by evading the Nazis with the help of the Dutch. And there is humor and goodhearted comradery along the way as well. Every moment of the movie is convincing and each performance is dead-on. Besides Withers, especially noteworthy is Pamela Brown, the first Dutch person to trust the British airmen and to believe they are worth helping. It all adds up to rousing entertainment. Great Britain's genius for producing many such stirring bits of propaganda is just one reason why the Nazis never had a chance. This one is written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who also created such classics as Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes. It was remade in the United States as Desperate Journey, starring Errol Flynn and Ronald Reagan, for no apparent reason besides Hollywood's traditional aversion to foreign movies, even those in English. Intercut throughout One of Our Aircraft is Missing are five or six brief scenes of a Nazi official whose hands are the only part of him we see. He signs permission forms for the Dutch to travel past Nazi checkpoints while muttering to himself that the Dutch activities, which are designed to disguise the escape of the British airmen, seem harmless enough. The friend with whom I watched this thought the scenes detracted from the movie by giving it a vague Hogan's Heroes quality. I was mystified and even a little horrified by her apparently flip reaction, until I realized that she had come in after I started the tape and had missed about 20 seconds of footage of a Nazi order that colors everything that comes after it. Skip the first half-minute if you want a neat, rousing movie. But watch it from the very beginning if you want something that suggests better some of the grimness of life under oppressive military occupation. In One of Our Aircraft is Missing, Withers sums up the Dutch philosophy for one of the stranded airmen. "We can think. We hope. We fight." That resolve moves the Brit to express on behalf of his comrades, "our admiration for a brave woman in a fearless country." After an inspiring 106 minutes (in the unedited version), the movie's audience shares that admiration.  |
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