Vietnam War & Anti-War Film
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This paper will be concerned with the Vietnam War and the anti-war film. Most critics have agreed that true antiwar films are virtually impossible to achieve. Many films which have been defined as anti-war films actually end up justifying or even glorifying the idea of warfare. In the early 1960s, Paul Goodman claimed that the first criteria of an anti-war film is that it "not do positive harm by predisposing its audience toward war" (195). According to Goodman, most so-called anti-war films fail in meeting this criteria because they tend to glorify violence rather than condemn it. Goodman points out that "the images of senseless violence, horror, and waste that are usually employed in the commercially successful 'anti-war' films without doubt have a pornographic effect and remain in the soul as excitants and further incitements" (195). Such anti-war films do not provide a clear anti-war message; they are actually entertainment spectacles centering around the theme of violence and warfare, "and to be entertained on such a theme is damaging" (197). Colin Young has elaborated on this criticism by noting that most anti-war films fail in their intentions because they assume that both war and the military structure which supports war are necessities of life. Because of this, "the concerned citizen is given no alternative to the status quo, which by actual support or by default becomes all that is conceivable" (Young 87). Such films often support a double standard in whic
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ir attempt, some of the soldiers are selected at random for execution as a lesson to the rest of the men. In this way, Kubrick brings attention to the moral absurdities of the military structure during wartime. Nevertheless, it has been noted that Paths of Glory gives its viewers the impression that there is such a thing as a good officer, as embodied in the character played by Kirk Douglas (Hughes 8). The film does not seek to discredit warfare altogether, but simply to make the message that some men are more humane in war than others. As discussed by Colin Young, Paths of Glory fails to provide a true anti-war message because: "There never seems to be any doubt in anyone's mind that the war itself is necessary. There is a disagreement only about what constitutes proper conduct" (Young 88).
The anti-war films since the late 1970s dealing with the Vietnam War have also failed for the most part in their attempts to provide a true anti-war message. As noted by James C. Wilson in his book Vietnam in Prose and Film, films such as Coming Home, and The Deer Hunter, represented a new development in the cinematic treatment of the Vietnam War. However, they are guilty of failing in their anti-war intentions because they have "der
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Approximate Word count = 2791
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
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