Nobody does War films better than the Germans

Cafe Society
1

I just saw Der Untergang (The Downfall) and it has finally cemeneted my opnion that the best people who can make a war movie anything but a glorification of violence happen to be the German’s.

With Das Boot, and Stalingrad as the German war film Trifacta, I feel they are superior to almost everything out there on the subject of war, especially WWII.

Perhaps it is their guilt about the war, or the destruction of that nation brought about by the Nazis but what ever it is, their war cinema has that grim dirty nasty horrifying feeling it should.

Downfall’s version of Hitler as a human being is 10000 times scarier than any standard lunatic characture before. The Nazis seemed real in this film, there were ocassions you could actually believe people would like these men as people.

Watching the battle of Berlin surrounding this story was so real you almost felt sorry for some of the people involved. (Not ture though for anyone in the bunker save the children) In fact, you almost forget you know the outcome.

I find it hard to watch any rah rah war story months after watching one of these because they comes across as crass niave propaganda.

Even the vaunted Saving Private Ryan comes across poorly because it seems to celebrate heroics and sheds the themes and feel of the amazing 20 minute Normandy scenes as soon as it starts its story.

Anyone else have an opinion?

2

Wow. I have to strongly disagree.

I’d be interested to hear what non-German war movies you have seen; I can only include that it’s not very many! *Saving Private Ryan *is not representative of the vast scope of war movies that have been made in America, let alone everywhere else. Saving Private Ryan is a craven piece of pro-war propaganda. And while there have been some great war films that have also been propaganda–Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo; Twelve O’Clock High; The Sands of Iwo Jima–these films (and many, many others) are pretty up front about their motivations, while *SPR *tries to disguise itself as an antiwar film, dishonestly.

See *The Best Years of Our Lives; This Land Is Mine; Germany Year Zero *(an Italian film); *Zentropa *(a Danish film); The Grand Illusion (a French film); They Were Expendable; Cry Havoc–man, just too many–for some examples of great films that look at war and its consequences with an unjaded, unpropagandistic eye.

3

Bit puzzled that you didn’t mention the original *All Quiet on the Western Front * …

Stalingrad and *Das Boot * are superb films, but I don’t think they outdo * Full Metal Jacket * or *Cross of Iron * (flawed though the latter film may be). As for rah rah war films coming across as crass naive propaganda, Johnny Got His Gun and What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? also sink to the level of simple-minded, manipulative, sanctimonious drivel. I never know what exactly to think of people who think that “anti-war” art–films, painting or what not–is supposed to be so profound and insightful. It always comes across as Sunday school moralizing to me. Sometimes wars have to be fought. The only other option is to turn the world over to the likes of Stalin, Hitler and bin Laden.

4

Of your list I have seen The best years of our lives, This land is Mine, and They Were expendable. I have a vague recolection of a film that seemed similar in basic plot to Germany Year Zero but am not sure if it is the same film.

I’m not saying these are piss poor films, they are good and I’ll throw in films like The thin red line, **The red badge of courage **, All Quiet on the Western Front, Johnny got his gun, **Catch 22 ** **Hell in the Pacific **, GLORY, Galipolliand Paths of Glory the list goes on and on.

I guess what we look for determines our criteria for waht makes a good war film.

I find that because I can not root for any victories for Germans in WWII the violence becomes more potent. In fact the directors of these films never want you to enjoy the “specticle of war” The bleakness of their endings, though deserved in some ways, humanizes the people. Finally knowing what they fought for makes the futility of the whole venture come into relief.

There is a look and psychology to these films that is unique. There is no “But the sacrifice is worth it” moments. There is a certain guilt the warriors have in their complience to what is essentially a brutal evil regieme, that takes away some of the urge to forgive the troops because they don’t control where they fight, and yet there is a pity that comes when you see that they are still human beings depending on each other.

I’m not knocking the other films, I’m just saying I prefer these ones over the others.

5

I would agree that the German films you mentioned were excellent. Part of the reason is that WWII is still very fresh in German minds, even for younger Germans who were born decades after the war was over. There are also very stringent laws against anything even remotely pro-Nazi in Germany.

Thus, when a film is made about WWII, they are treading a very fine line. Sure, there are battle scenes - but the purpose is not to herald the glories of war. The stories become more personal, the characters become more important than the propaganda surrounding them. As in the examples you mentioned, the films are constructed so that you care more about the individuals, and you see how they react to the madness around them. I think most German films dealing with the subject try to show how an individual, or group of individuals rises above the mass hysteria, or fall victim to the same.

I think it is safe to say that the Germany of today is very much anti-war. The underlying message in the films you have mentioned, as well as every other German war film in recent history, is that war is not a glorious series of events, it is a painful, horrific chapter in the lives of the individuals put into that situation.

6

I’m sure those are very fine movies, but you can’t honestly be saying they’re better than the The Ballad of the Green Berets, can you? I find that very hard to believe!

7

[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
*Cross of Iron * (flawed though the latter film may be).

[QUOTE]

Sorry for the hijack – but, LonesomePolecat, in which way do you mean it’s “flawed”?

8

I have no idea whether there are a whole bunch of crap German WWII films around that we just haven’t seen because they haven’t been released outside Germany, but the three mentioned in the OP were just what I was thinking of when I read the thread title. Does no one do them better than the Germans, however? No, and I think other posters have presented some worthy examples.

I’m not going to get into a drawn-out argument over this, but I’ve got to disagree. WWII occurred, it’s fact and it’s long over; whatever Spielberg’s ultimate intentions, I find it hard to believe anyone might come away from the movie saying, “man, let’s have another one of those” after the carnage and horror displayed on the screen. SPR can be faulted for many things, including the bombastically sentimental bookends at the beginning and end, a schematic and clockwork plot (a defect that pretty much ruined Munich for me as well) and its rather artificial attempts to devine a heroic purpose from what at a personal level is random and horrifyingly useless death, but pro-war? Balls, and tosh.

There are scenes in Das Boot where the U-boat is cutting through the chrning Atlantic, while a stirring musical theme plays and the Rugged Captain squints into the flying spray. One might argue that that’s a bit pro-war as well, if one ignores the rest of the film.

9

" Come and See" , Elem Klimov, dir., Russian

10

[QUOTE=Wakinyan]

[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
*Cross of Iron * (flawed though the latter film may be).

I consider the ending much too enigmatic and unsatisfying. It’s almost as though Peckinpah simply ran out of ideas or couldn’t figure out how to end the story and just turned off the camera. I understand the production was plagued with financial problems and Peckinpah was constantly running short of cash because the German businessman bankrolling the project couldn’t provide the money he’d promised. Peckinpah had to stop shooting much sooner than he’d planned when his backer simply wasn’t able to come up with the money to complete the film properly. It’s still a remarkable film–but I’m a big Peckinpah fan, so I may be prejudiced.

I’ve been told the film was very popular among skinheads in Germany. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe it was pretty much the first post-war film that took a sympathetic look at the ordinary German soldier of the Second World War.

11

The US Army uses *SPR *as a recruiting tool.

See? No drawn-out argument.

12

I hope you don’t mean the book too. That book was a great read. I haven’t seen the movie, so I don’t know what it was like, but the book was great, not drivel.

13

Really? They show that scene with US troops being torn apart by German 20mm shells and that pulls in recruits by the droves? Sorry, gonna have to see a cite on that before I accept that claim as factual. I’ve just spent the past 20 minutes trying to find something about it on Google and couldn’t turn up anything.

14

  1. Cite?

  2. In now way, even if it were true, would it lend any credence to this claim. Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” has been used to advertise banks. The fact is that the song is not pro-banking. “Born in the USA” has been used as a patriotic jingle. It’s still not a pro-USA song, though.

15

This is what I’d take issue with. Saving Private Ryan doesn’t really do anything like that. It seems more like, “war sucks sometimes, sometimes it’s cool, it’s often tough, but it sure is worth it, ain’t it?”

I think the German-made war films are pretty important to see the perspective of those who tend not to glorify war at all, but will still faithfully show their own side. I feel that even Cross of Iron has a bit too much disdain for its characters. I almost prefer The Longest Day’s mild respect (if lack of dimension) in the Germans compared to that.

One other American war film not mentioned yet, but well worth seeing, is A Midnight Clear.

Are there any good Japanese soldier’s-perspective films?

16

If it works as propaganda, it IS propaganda. I’m not talking about labels; I’m talking about use and effect. Even accepting for argument that Spielberg intended no such thing, the fact that the army recognizes its effect in stirring up young men and women to want to go and fight the good fight, makes it propaganda by USE.

My cite is that not too long ago one of the all-rerun channels (TNT? USA?) ran a “special presentation” of Saving Private Ryan: “Brought to you commercial free by the U.S. Army.” If you poke me in the eye with it, I don’t care if you call it a stick or a branch or a qkbtodhbgdsjk. If it is used to sell Army recruitment, it is, by definition, being used as propaganda.

The Iggy Pop and Bruce Springsteen examples aren’t really relevant. First off, they’re used as background, on the assumption that people won’t really pay attention to the lyrics. More importantly, though I understand that those songs weren’t written with that purpose in mind,–they weren’t created as advertising jingles–surely you won’t dispute that they are IN FACT being USED as advertising jingles? They are, in fact, they have become, advertising jingles; original intent notwithstanding.

Now, we may disagree on Spielberg’s original intent. Fine; I’m not invested in changing your mind about Spielberg. FWIW, I decided on first viewing–first run, in the theater–that SPR was pro war propaganda; I only use the Army sponsorship as a “cite,” after the fact. It’s my own judgment as well. Again, for whatever it’s worth, for 90% of the movie I was right there with Spielberg. I was thinking he had finally pulled it off: he’d finally made a grownup movie. The movie seemed to be saying, with all its grit and gore and senselessness, that “there is nothing good about war: nothing.” Until the ending, when it became clear to me that Spielberg was emphasizing the monstrosity of war just to make his hero appear equally outsize. It was my disappointed interpretation that the ending says, in fact, “–but it’s worth it!” The greater the vanquished enemy–the greater the obstacles overcome–the greater the hero. That, finally, is the message of Saving Private Ryan.

Again, I’m not all that interested in changing your mind; I’m only trying to clarify my own reaction.

17

I don’t know of any from a soldier’s perspective, but there are some great war films from the japanese perspective:* Black Rain; Grave of the Fireflies; Hiroshima Mon Amour*. That’s all I’m coming up with for now . . .

18

Yes, and sometimes war means fighting for men of that brand of evil. Fighting for the unjust, being on the side of might but unright. An important differentiation that can be overshadowed by the blinders of Nationalism, Propaganda, Fascism, and Patriotism.

19

…ohh, not to mention Religion.

20

Personally what the Whole WWII thing teaches me is that people with an unwaivering belief in anything can be very dangerous.

As for LonesomePolecat’s assertion of war being necessay I would add the proviso that it is sometimes necessary when politicians totally screw the pooch.

WWII could have been avoided when Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland. Had France just showed up and made a threat the German army of that time would have tucked tail and ran. The German Generals would have ousted Hitler as a threat to their national security and 40 million lives woiuld have been spared.

War in any sense is a failure. Once you have committed to it you end up spending more than you gain. WWII is deemed a success but the costs were horrendous Most people today have no idea how utterly spent and ruined that continent was by the end. Unless you were there you’d get teh quaint idea of a couple of bombed out cities and not much else.

Truth was you had the mass starvation, the dislocation of families and communities. in some places very little to no infrastucture whatsoever.
Then that was compounded with horrors of the holocaust and how to deal with the survivors and how to feed and care for them when entire cities where without food and supplies. It took a great deal of time and money to heal the scars of war.
There is never a net gain. Sure Paris and Berlin were liberated, but it also lead to the subjegation of all of Eastern Europe and the deaths of so many more in the Cold war that followed.

That is why I think anti war mesages have more weight. It is easy to shrug off the idea that war is a necessary evil or is sometimes just and forget how truly terrible it all is. We must be reminded that war should only be used as a last resort and even then accept the fact that we had failed in some way.