BM

American+War+Stories_+Film

Cinema as a Site of Recollection

  • Cinema functions as a privileged site for recollection

    • American culture renegotiates traumatic traces of historical past through cinema

    • Reflects current social and political concerns in light of previous military conflicts

    • Acts as a shared conceptual space for reflecting on the past

    • Hollywood serves as the site for cultural contemplation of war's implications

      • Offers personalized narratives of rites of passage

      • Reflects on shifting stakes in national identity discussions

The Myth of the Good War

  • The platoon movie genre establishes a new national myth

    • The Myth of the Good War

    • Links ethnic and racial diversity with America's role as a world-liberating power

Introduction of Characters in War Films

  • Use of roll call or similar devices to introduce infantrymen in films

    • Representation of various classes, regions, and ethnic communities

  • Key conventions include:

    • "Race-face convention"

    • "The enemy’s lesson"

    • "The final fury convention"

    • "Unfinished business"

Black Hawk Down and Political Implications

  • Screening of Black Hawk Down in January 2002 attended by President Bush and advisers

    • Dramatizes the 1993 defeat of US forces in Somalia

    • Reflects classic platoon movie themes:

      • Ethnically diverse American military

      • Monoracial enemy

      • Grim enemy’s lesson

      • Call for completion of soldiers’ unfinished business

  • Bush linked the movie's narrative to terrorist threats leading to 9/11

    • Black Hawk Down became a significant cultural reference in Washington

The Relationship Between Hollywood and the US Government

  • Initial belief: Pentagon's involvement in about 200 films

    • Investigations revealed deeper political ties than acknowledged

    • Files from the Freedom of Information Act showed:

      • 814 films receiving Defense Department (DOD) support from 1911 to 2017

      • Including TV titles, the count was around 1,947

  • Government's role in shaping film content was more significant than understood

    • Influenced creation and termination of projects

    • Manipulated content deliberately

Current Narratives of War

  • War narratives today focus on terror and counterterror in a context of fear and uncertainty

    • Combatants are mostly invisible; traditional conventions appear outdated

  • Significant changes in core U.S. war narratives identified:

    • The narratives of rescue, heroic sacrifice, battlefield brotherhood, and citizen-soldier's ordeal have been reduced

    • Original content of these stories have been emptied and replaced with new expressions